RECOLLECTED IN TRANQUILLITY

4 4 Y R E C O L L E C T E D I N T R A N Q U I L L I T Y C L I V E J A M E S You realize that this is no reprieve But merely a delay? The comedy must end. The way it ends Has just been put o√ to another day. Perhaps two months from now, perhaps two years, It will be known to family and friends That you, at last, are more dead than alive, With nothing left to say. When any tears there are will be their tears, Not yours, the wave of silence will arrive With which you leave. So this must be the storm before the lull, These webs of words Slowly assembled at the summer’s peak Here in the portico of your downfall, As you sit watchfully to count the birds – So few beside the Heathrow rush of spring – Which in the garden briefly peck and preen Before continuing To Finland, Iceland, Ba≈n Land, wherever: Your chance to speak before you never speak Again, your next to final scene. This peace, which will be perfect by and by, Came out of chaos. When the drugs went wrong It almost seemed a burden not to die As I shared that Babelic rumpus room 4 5 R With the trouser thief and the lady with one song She sang forever. Racing, my brain teemed With stu√ to tell the doctors so they might Unbolt the door, but that place was a tomb Sealed tight. I ate my sleeping pills and dreamed Of all I could have had – The happiness I wasted. Now, set free, I see that my whole life Had been a greedy fever. A sad spell Of frenzy only summed it up. My wife And daughters built this studio for me In which I read and write and rest. They know Something ill-mended in my mind demands I live alone. And so they come and go To help me do that, and so all is well, As I wait for the day the last bird lands And nightfall finally Blankets my vision of this bright arcade. Outside, in that cane chair, I sat to read The Faerie Queene and found Garbled accounts of knights and damsels made Melodic sense, in verse as light as air. On this desk, crowded as a burial mound With treasured papers, my Chinese notebook, Full of unfinished thoughts, will still be there, When I, at last, can’t reach it. Should things look As if I knew despair, of this be sure: I loved it here. ...