Erasures

On the Cape

On the Cape Unchallenged purposes of summer rain (a rotting wisteria, the late massacres in China) obscure the ocean, muffle the brave performances of Chile, blacken the cottages with insects, give few warnings. And as yet unchallenged, these hard purposes occupy the sun and teach the sweet mid-year new discipline. I am hemmed in. The blunt instruments of the moment seem too lovely to employ. The keyboard festival iscrystalline. The performing alligators tented with their dark clown are gorgeous children. The elliptic, sunny dunescapes of alcohol cup wildflowers between the rain and ocean and are the world's frailest porcelain. What defends the native rights of summer? Only an alliance to strangeness. And only the marriages of contradiction, of clarity to the obscurest ocean, produce the beautiful forms of action. Schematic jewels project their outlines upward out of plain sand into our trouble. They are a new medievalism, new cloudless verticals. All things climb toward the purposes of summer rain. I defend my mother with the percussion of keyboards, turning the volume up high as the movie music of Shostakovich lifts the siege of Gorky. I defend my step-son with performing alligators and with Florida, their hot clown. Myself I cannot save, but alcohol braids a flowery Chilean harness binding me to the future where I am rescued. 41 For the sake of clarity, for the obscurest ocean's sake, remember the form of action. It is no one. It is vertical and medieval. It is re-marriage and saves the years from a hard discipline. Look there. Look there. New insects. New jewels. The cottages flying open. 42 ...