6 July 2013

Louise Gluck [Line Breaks and Other Violent Crimes]

from Louise Glück’s Averno:

October [excerpt]

2.

Summer after summer has ended,

balm after violence:

it does me no good

to be good to me now;

violence has changed me.

Daybreak. The low hills shine

ochre and fire, even the fields shine.

I know what I see; sun that could be

the August sun returning

everything that was taken away —

You hear this voice? This is my mind’s voice;

you can’t touch my body now.

It has changed once, it has hardened,

don’t ask it to respond again.

A day like a day in summer.

Exceptionally still. The long shadows of the maples

nearly mauve on the gravel paths.

And in the evening, warmth. Night like a night in summer.

It does me no good; violence has changed me.

My body has grown cold like the stripped fields;

now there is only my mind, cautious and wary,

with the sense it is being tested.

Once more, the sun rises as it rose in summer;

bounty, balm after violence.

Balm after the leaves have changed, after the fields

have been harvested and turned.

Tell me this is the future,

I won’t believe you.

Tell me I’m living,

I won’t believe you.