Lost Worlds

Tolstoyan

This time of year I always think of wintersMet in Russian novels, the snows on the riverCrossed by a bridge of prose, and someoneWaiting on the far side whose breath spiralsUp into the heavens, whose body leans overAn iron railing, whose spirit is as radiant as ice;And I am reminded of those long afternoonsWholly absorbed by aristocratic intrigue—With carriages and dress balls and mothersStanding in the wings; how in bemusementI lovingly partook of my favorites’ vexations,Warming my hands by the fire of their passions.So I passed the bitter evenings of my youth,Lost in a world lost to me and to the world.

A Large Fine River God Almost Intact

—a story in Castelvetro’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics (1570)

Five centuries back, from a pit in Rome,A large fine river god was slowly raisedAlmost intact, but for the beard’s clipped stone.A crowd wondered how time’s arrow had grazedJust that bit, leaving the lithe limbs alone(One arm coiled to throw a spear), amazedWar and flood dislocated hair, not boneAnd left a slivered fault on which men gazed.Then Michelangelo said Bring me clayAnd promptly showed how the beard had been wornKnotted in front.    No such sure touch today.What have I dredged from the marl, from mind torn,Nude and broken? It is myself I find—My sunlit flaw a hairline crack in rhyme.