Three Poems
By Lewis Buzbee
Copyright 1999 by Lewis Buzbee
Sunday, Tarzan in His Hammock
When the king of the jungle first wakes up, he thinks
it's going to be a great day, as laden with possibility
as the banana tree with banana hands, but by ten
he's still in the hammock, arms and legs dull as
termite mounds. He stares at the thatched roof and realizes
that his early good mood was a leftover from Saturday,
when he got so much done: a great day, he saved
the tiger cub trapped in the banyan, herded the hippos
away from the tourists and their cameras and guns,
restrung and greased the N-NW vines, and all by noon.
All day he went about his duties, not so much kingly duties
as custodial, and last night, he and Cheetah went for a walk under the
ostrich-egg moon. This morning nothing stirs him.
The world is a stagnant river, a scummy creek's dammed pool.
Cheetah's gone chattering off, Jane is in town,
and the rest of the animals are busy with one another -
fighting, eating, mating. Tarzan can barely move,
he does not want to move. Does the gazelle ever feel this
lassitude, does it ever want to lie down and just stare,
no longer caring for its own safety, tired of the vigilance?
Does the lion, fat in the grass, ever think, fuck it,
let the wounded springbok live, who cares?
Tarzan thinks maybe he'll go to the bathing pools
and watch the village girls bathe, splashing in the sun,
their breasts and thighs perfect. He wishes someone
would bring him a gourd of palm-wine, a platter
of imported fruits - kiwi, jack fruit, star fruit -
or maybe a bowl of roasted yams slathered in goat butter,
maybe Jane will bring him a book. Nothing will be delivered.
He hears far off in the dense canopy a zebra's cry for help,
those damned jackals again, but, no, he will not move.
Let the world take care of itself, let the world eat
the world. He can live without the call of the wild.
He thinks.
Grown in Canada
Growing Tips
Indoors: Place in the sunniest location.
People like the same temperatures
as roses. Stand near a window
high above street level. Listen
to the CBC, Scarlatti if possible.
Although a native to the region, imagine
this pink-brick city has been seen by no one.
Summer: Open all the windows.
Sprawl in a favored chair. Count
the empty cars and the people who've
deserted them. Pretend to read
a book as thick as a river. Smell
each flower in the city's constellation;
do not miss a single one.
At night, wave to the mounties
who parade under fireworks. Wave
to the caribou scratching at the door,
meet their cold, patient eyes.
Winter: Close the windows, but
stay in your chair, read only
poetry by Chileans. Listen
to the wind that seeps through cracks. Name
each spike of the green, shifting
northern lights. Sense the hushed
snow, weightless as it gathers around you.
Know that it melts in rivers in sewers.
Tell each yellow, lighted window
a long story of red and gold
summer. Whisper, pass it on.
Outdoors: Build a kayak. Paddle until
the city is a stone in the heart. North.
It's all Canada from here to the
north pole. The guidebooks say use caution;
listen only to the black stone;
the world belongs to those who made it.
Require tundra, iceberg, glacier.
Summer: Turn toward the sun, follow,
each day, it's inclinations. Build a gazebo
in a thronged meadow, serve tea to the invisible.
Elkhorn and narwhal may be used for furniture.
Recall a childhood in which beaver and wolf
spoke clearly; forget it. Invent languages;
describe the sound of lichen, the dreams
of trout, the negotiations of flower and insect.
Important: at midsummer, when there is no night,
sing "O, Canada" in Inuit, naked.
The growing season is long, fruitful, hilarious.
Winter: Seek the moon, it is coy, but
the hare who lives in its fullness tells stories
that are beneficial. Windbreak: dead grasses;
the wind's teeth do not tear the skin.
Don't shovel; the snow retains heat.
Asexual propagation is prohibited. Sleep
in the breath of another; the time has come
for winter flowering. Move the bed
each sunless day. Horde nothing; horde everything.
The winter is as long as the arms, infinite.
What cannot be known is known here.
Sea Bed
there is water at the bottom of the ocean
On the surface of the storm-torn sea giant ships
toss about like yellow boats in a bathtub.
Waves, tall and steep as the Matterhorn,
crash and cleave the enormous steel hulls of industry,
and sailors, screaming, die in the tumult and drown.
When the bloodless corpses sink below the roil, the teeming
ceases and all is calm, quiet as a California evening.
Down the blue hushed fathoms of ocean the sailors'
violated bodies cradle and rock, falling like leaves
of a Japanese plum - sweet, serene in the death of autumn.
And that is where I live, in a shell house
on the moonscape ocean bottom, tucked safe
in my sea bed, counting the soft rain of dead sailors.
When did we move here? I can't remember; the water's
always been our home - such ease and calm.
The sea grasses wave hello, goodbye, ceaseless
in the blue-green and chill ripples; we mow the sea grass
once every seven years with our coral scythes. Piperfish
swim in and out of our shell house door, kiss our puckered
flesh and swallow the parasites who live there. School
of dolphin coast past the window, laughing mouths. Eel,
squid, octopus - an abundance of food. Days (hardly
decipherable from night) I stay in the house alone and
play with the dogfish, I talk to the dogfish, only
she can hear me; we invent stories of the land
Sea night falls in minutes, stirring of electric eels.
The sea mother floats in the kitchen;
the sea father floats in his chair. We eat the lush crab
in the lights of the blue fire. The sea mother knits kelp
blankets, drifts off, nods away. The sea father drinks
from a bottle, drinking underwater a trick he learned in the navy before we
came here. He drinks from the bottle
and floats out of the shell house, buoyed. Eight bells
and all is calm. I paddle down the sea hall, dogfish
at my heels, and fall to my sea bed, pull the otter pelts
close to my chin and count through the open window
the falling leaves - the sailors, the cannons, the ships
of the tumultuous air world. Eight bells; all is well.
We are the only five-fathom family; we've pearls for eyes.