Robert Penn Warren
UPWARDNESS
It is hard to know the logic of mere recollection.
Is Time the nexus? No, for Time does not
Define sequence of recollection, only
Of event, and of event as the death-black humus
In which pale hair-like roots of recollection
Probe in ghostly aim, or aimlessness.
Look! Coming down the street of the little town,
Book-satchel on shoulder, what idle wonderment
In head, the small boy passes homeward, not
Yet knowing where love lived, or what it was.
He gives you a totally blank stare which denies
Your very existence- as you, in the mirror, are often
Inclined to do. There have been mountains. Deserts. Seas.
In moonlit deck-swell there has been head laid to your shoulder,
Hair sweet, name unknown. A lamp has gleamed all night
As print, enchanted, squirmed, live, across the page.
Down Sierra curves, in the old open Buick back,
The standing young man is hurled sidewise, seatward, the gin bottle
Overside. The driver is screaming in ecstacy.
What was happiness? There must have been such a thing.
"' "' "'
Yes, silently, out of nothing, again it comes true:
Side by side, on night grass lying, one palm to one palm,
And silently, silently, four eyes fixed upward as though
Straining beyond the infinite starwardness.
Robert Penn Warren is a recipient of the MacArthur Award. His
New
and Selected Poems
will be published by Random House in the spring of
1985.
