Once I Gazed at You in Wonder

Poems

Jan Heller Levi

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 1999
• Print ISBN: 9780807123652
• eBook ISBN: 9780807167328
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Poesía americana

Alice Fulton, the judge for the 1998 Walt Whitman Award, calls Once I Gazed at You in Wonder "quite simply, the most endearing book I've read in some time." Readers of this audacious and, yes, endearing collection will agree. Jan Heller Levi has said that her poems are not confessions but conversations. Here, then, are her conversations with the world. What sets Levi apart, however, is that she lets the world answer back. Difficult fathers, ineffectual mothers are forgiven; ex-lovers are blessed. Sophisticated but never jaded, this poet looks in wonder beyond the self: a cup of coffee in one of New York's ubiquitous Greek diners can launch Levi into a meditation on truth versus compassion; a suite of elegies for her mother takes us from a hospital corridor to the studio of a television talk show where God is the guest; a poetry reading in which she shares the stage with a folk singer illustrates Levi's gift for illuminating the absurd textures of late-twentieth-century existence. Don't you have any happy poems?he wondered.
Don't you have any cancer songs?I asked.
With the narrative drive of great fiction, the consolations of philosophy, and the rigor of art, Once I Gazed at You in Wonder marks the entrance of a much-needed new voice and vision in the conversation that is American poetry.

IV

This Place

There is the poetry of obsession and the poetry of invitation.
There is the moment you say come, and the moment you say
welcome.
There is happiness, there is despair.
When I was seven, Lisa, my maybe-Sullivanian soul mate, asked:
Where does the sky end?
We lay side-by-side on the grass, comfortable as sleepers,
and strained our eyes to c;ee:
There! No, there!

Her brother, Nicky, short and lean,
is a jockey now, straddling the sleek, sweating beaut1es of Pimlico.
My brother, who tickled us both into sex,
lives in Westport with his wife and four bedrooms
But what happened to Lisa?
She turned red and sniffly in her mother’s blond arms
though I promised always to love her,
though I promised nothing would change,

Everything changed.
Debby Rothman’s hula skirt teased a jack-o’-lantern
till her limbs turned charcoal; Robby stole his father’s car
and hit the brakes too late.

And we moved away and away and away.

There is our childhood and there is our youth,
there are our fathers, constant and disinterested as the sun,
there is happiness and there is something wilder than happiness.
When I was nine, I first felt the swell and pull of the ocean:
Impossible,
my mother said, you can never see the other side.
But I saw Russia in full imperial splendor, a mistier line of blue
just past the blue.
There! No, there!

Now there are the people we admire,
waving to us, or to one another: Karl Marx throws off his glasses,
slams shut his books, strides out of the British Museum
to embrace Frank O’Hara; Charles Bukowski and Emma Goldman
share the same passion-tossed sheets;
Amelia Earhart swims to shore, her long strong legs
glisten with salt; Anne Frank’s toeprints
disappearing teaspoons as she races down to meet her.
There is heaven, a vast library,
the soft murmur more thrilling than life.

And there is this day,

so cold, so warm, so utterly without direction or likeness.
The sun rose at 5:43, the snow blue as oil, small birds careened.
When Iam tired and lonely, Icome to this place
to be more alone.
But Iset my simple table,
two chipped goblets,
wine of patient vintage,
and watch through the window, day and night,
for all that I’ve lost, or thought I’ve lost,
come home to me.
There! No, there!

Get This

I did not get this from any book
I got this from cornfields washed out, waved
out under racing moon
splitting like brain
Right side right side right side
Left side left side left side

I did not get this from any book
but from tongue of dog
wide, pink as my tongue
long as I live lick lasts
and love is something brown-eyed, drowsy
I got this from sleep, I got this from waking
I would have traded for sleep, waking
long after nights of purpled sky
nippled with clouds

I did not get this from any book
I got this on trust and betrayal, I got this on trust
I got this on trust funds
on loan
with interest
I got this from inhale inhale inhale
exhale exhale exhale

I did not get this from blood, blood
means nothing, Idid not get this from nature or nurture,
I did not get this from any book

I got this from mind that muscles
outmuscles heart
I got this from hangnail
from hangman
from hanging above a rushing river
this bank roaring
that bank roaring

I got this from mushrooms, I got this from sitting at the table
late later later and still I would not eat

I got this from leaves and spine
I got this from stranger who said I want
to take your picture, come here, come
back here, drop your blouse from your shoulder
lower a little lower a little lower

I got this from necklines
standing on lines, sign on the dotted lines
I got this from scissors
but I was always losing the scissors
I got this from A my name is
B my name is
I got this from sctssors, but I was always losmg the scissors
I got this from rock, I got this from rock
and roll all the world over so easv to see
people evervwhere just gotta he

I got this from paper, please listen to me
but I did not get this from any book
understand me now I did not get this from any book
I got this from light on the books at 1, 2, 3 in the morning
the whole house so quiet it could have been dead
I could have been the only one even trying to live but I did
not get this from any book

even when I danced at 4 in the morning
even when I wept at 5 in the morning
even when I danced, even when I wept
look, here’s the path traveled from eye to mouth
first tear
second tear

call a life an open book I did not get this from any book
ca11 a life a closed book I did not get this from any book
call may God inscribe your name in the book of life
I did not get this from any book come into my library
said the spider to the fly
open any book
it will te11 you I did not get this from it
even if I burn it I will have this
even if I burn it
even if I burn

Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad

I think you are most yourself when you’re swimming;
slicing the water with each stroke,
the funny way you breathe, your mouth cocked
as though you’re yawning.

You’re neither fantastic nor miserable
at getting from here to there.
You wouldn’t win any medals, Dad,
but you wouldn’t drown.

I think how different everything might have been
had I judged your loving
like I judge your sidestroke, your butterfly,
your Australian crawl.

But I always thought I was drowning
in that icy ocean between us,
I always thought you were moving too slowly to save me,
when you were moving as fast as you can.

Moonstone

Someday, they’ll make a movie of us,
honey. Then, even this will look good:
our one room, our single sooty window,
even our kitchen, with its sink
so narrow one night it took both of us
to wedge our salad bowl out of it.
Even our dust-colored carpet,
not what we wanted at all, we wanted Moonstone
but Moonstone was out of our
ballpark, besides,
we had to be practical. Moonstone
was too pale and shimmery, within a week
it would show its stains.

Someday, they’ll make a movie of us, honey.
You’ll come in the door after work.
I’m waiting up for you, reading. When we squeeze
into the bathroom to brush our teeth, I’m not
whining about my gums receding, you’re not
complaining about the tire around your waist
We just have all this white foam,
like whipped cream, around our mouths,
and we’re laughing, and a little
speck or two of white
sails onto the camera lens.

When they make that movie of us, honey, our whole lives,
cut, condensed t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• VI