Chinatown, 1975

by Brett Rutherford

Gossip among
young Asian men,
with whom I dine,
    a guest, a stranger,
yet somehow as in
    as they are out.

Outsiders always,
     some seldom stray
     North of Canal Street,
employment limited
to under-the-radar
exploited jobs, unless

the overseas mother,
the rich uncle,
paid one’s way
to a good school,
escape into
the melting pot.

Slowly, I learn
the pecking order:

the ABCs
(American-born Chinese),

rich Asians
     on monthly checks
     from anxious parents,
well-off Taiwan
    or Singapore families;

“jump ships,” the
mainland arrivals
     from Mao’s horrors,
cardless, furtive,
evading questions.

Americans see none of this,
each bowing waiter,
     each unseen worker
in kitchen or sweatshop,
a Charlie Chan cipher.

Outcast among
a colony of outcasts,
I am at home here
at this round table whose
lazy susan rotates
a casserole of friendship.

From here, we head out
for the Chinese opera.

 

Elegy for Charixenus

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, vii, 468

Not eighty, not sixty, not forty,
not thirty even, fit age
for marrying, not even twenty!
Eighteen, Charixenus, dead!
Dressed in your chlamys
by your own mother, not
off for a prize, not off to a war,
     not off to a wedding day:
instead a woeful gift
     to hungry Hades.

I swear the earth shook,
     the stones groaned
as all his best friends
bore out his body
and all the house wailed.

So grieved were they
     who carried him,
their sobbing shook
the emblazoned bier.

Led by the baffled priests
    his parents chanted
a song of mourning,
a plea for swift passage
to a blessed place.

No one glanced up
as though to see the shame
of the indifferent sky
would drive all mad.

Alas for the mother’s breasts
that suckled in vain,
for the father whose line
might now be extinguished.

Did some old oath
    bring Furies here,
three evil maids
who revel in death?
Or, born of Night
    and Erebus
did Fates foredoom
this unhappy youth?
O Fates implacable,
barren yourselves you spit
to four winds the love
of mother for her first-
    and only-born.

How can the morrow
resemble the yesterday?
Friends, parents,
(and one, an unknown
lover, who pines for him),
their futures canceled.

Who will not hear
this tale and pity
the left-behind?
Grief pulls all down
to a common grave.

 

Past Her Prime

by Brett Rutherford

    Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, v, 204

Long in the tooth for love you are.
Those men have worn you out,
Timo, your timbers split
by the oar-beat of passion.
Hunched now you walk,
like a slack-wind yard-arm.

Parts of you flap
     alarmingly,
those famous breasts
now sagging low.
Wave-tossed, your belly
warps and wrinkles.

This ship has borne
too many passengers —
for shame, old courtesan,
give it up now. Instead
of perfume, bilge-water’s scent
precedes you. Retire now.
Invest your hard-earned coins
in something decent. Be gone
before your creaking bones collapse
and salvagers make off
with what is left of you.

I hear you plan to take
just one more lover on.
Unhappy he, unless he wants
to make love to his own
demise, riding you out
across Acheron, a skeleton
astride a coffin-galley.

Message to Heliodora

 by Brett Rutherford

    Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, v, 182

Dorcas, take this! A note
to Heliodora, who else?
Be not content to hand
it to her dull servant,
illiterate, who might just use
my love-note to wrap
chopped vegetables.

Into her own hands
you must place this,
and wait to be sure
she unseals and opens it.
And bring it back to me,
answer or not. Paper
is not cheap, you know.

Wait — don’t hurry along
so fast. So just in case,
recite it back to her
just as I did for you,
and as she wakens late
and may not be alert,
repeat it twice; three times
is not too much
and might exert
a spell’s effect. So, go now!

That way! I’m off on other
errands. Oh, wait, come back!
Here in my pocket, Dorcas,
here is a poem. Add this
and say — where are you running to?
It’s hard for me to keep up
as my legs are so much shorter
than your sprinting bean-poles.
I’ve not yet finished. There’s more.
Don’t walk so fast, my friend.

Oh, what a fool I am. Perhaps
the note reveals too much. Stay,
hand it back a moment. Why must
you walk so fast, anyway? Ah,
take it back, Dorcas, say everything
I told you — mind not my doubts.

So hurry and tell her everything.
What’s this? Why send you
on this errand when here we stand
before her door. Short-cut, you say?
How could we be there already?
So do me one last favor
and knock. I just can’t do it.

My arms feel paralyzed. My heart
has stopped. My message sinks
like a stone cast down a well.
My poem is a lead sinker.
Someone is at the door,
     unlatching!
Ye gods, where is my voice?
Should I just slide the paper
     under, and run?

 

 

This Way and That

by Brett Rutherford

   Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 165

The words for “black” and “white”
are on my tongue each time
I say my name, black “melas”
in pair with “argos” white.
Is it then any wonder
that I pursue Cleobulus,
pale as a white blossom,
and also dark-haired
Sopolis, sun-tanned
the hue of fresh honey?

Fools say that opposites
attract, but what of me,
locked in a duality?
Nothing and everything
are my opposing forces,
female and male,
tawny or white as chalk,
and everywhere I turn,
Beauty stuns me.

Figures sur un Vase du Règne de Kangxi

LES ANCIENS BUVANT

by Brett Rutherford

Si le monde se terminait,
ils ne le sauraient pas.

Haut sur le versant
d’une montagne sacrée,
six érudits mortels
se réunissent
dans le jardin d’un manoir.

Maître Liu a tout arrangé
pour atténuer la chaleur
du mois d’août.

Un paravent dissimule
l’éblouissement du soleil
et ombrage la table,
là où quatre amis
dégustent du vin froid,
que l’hôte verse
d’un drapeau antique.

     Ma main fait tourner le vase
          décoré de figures bleues.

Gao, le haut fonctionnaire exilé,
arrive avec un livre interdit
qu’il tient près de son cœur.

Son neveu,
jeune et beau,
est trop habillé.
Il préfère faire une sieste
dans un vallon ombragé,
sans chapeau,
le col ouvert.

Un petit garçon,
un autre participant,
semble submergé
par la chaleur et l’ennui.

Celui-ci préfère jouer
avec son arc
et ses flèches,
ou regarder courir
les chevaux sauvages,

mais ici, le rythme lent
des vieillards rappelant
leurs poèmes,
et feuilletant les pages
pour trouver un dicton
confucéen —
elle doit suffire.
L’honneur c’est
d’être avec les sages.

     Ma main fait tourner le vase
          décoré de figures bleues.

Un serviteur se penche
pour ajouter des charbons
à un brasero enflammé.
L’eau est ici
pour les théières brunes
d’argile yi xing.

Les murets
zigzaguent le bord
du domaine de Liu.
Des arbres surplombent
l’écran peint.
Leurs branches
sont identiques
à ce que l’artiste
y a peint.

Quelle audace
de placer une forêt peinte
devant une vraie!

     Ma main fait tourner le vase
          décoré de figures bleues.

Dans le brouillard
de la montagne,
les sommets lointains,
et même le bord
d’un précipice voisin,
se perdent
dans la blancheur,
pâle comme de la porcelaine.

Tout est au premier plan,
et une main tendue
pourrait toucher la glaçure froide,
traçant la courbe
des limites de l’existence.

Figés une fois
et figés pour toujours,
les vieillards débattent
des mérites
des styles poétiques.

Ils délibèrent
sur la question de savoir
si les objets sont permanents
ou s’ils s’effacent
vers le néant.

Vin frais,
thé chaud,
la montée et la chute des tons
d’une chanson mémorable;

étouffé,
le faible rugissement
des eaux qui tombent

calligraphie
appelée de rien
pour tomber
sur une page blanche.

     Ma main fait tourner le vase
          décoré de figures bleues.

La journée est trop chaude
pour toute autre diversion.
Le monde se terminerait
si les yeux cherchaient
profondément
dans la brume plus dense.

Il y a un éblouissement jaune,
moucheté de moucherons.
Deux papillons y planent.
Ils sont en apesanteur,
immobiles
et terrifiés.

Quelle est cette tache
sur la blancheur pure:
     le soleil brûlant
          qui a envie de se montrer?
     une ville lointaine
          en feu, envahie?
     le cri
          qui explose
          d’un atome fendu?

Gao, apportez-moi le livre!
Soyez rapide,
mon amie.
Trouvez la bonne page,
     les mots à lire,
     les noms
          des dieux —
si les dieux existent —
que nous devons invoquer.

Ici,
dans la clarté du thé,
mille ans de sagesse
adhèrent.

Si longues sont les après-midis,
si courtes sont les nuits
d’août,
rongées par les insectes.

Ici,
ils sont tous en sécurité:
érudits, neveu,
garçon et serviteur.

     Ma main fait tourner le vase
          décoré de figures bleues.

Les Anciens buvant.
Ils n’ont pas à craindre
la fin du monde.

 

[Un vase peint à la main en bleu et blanc représente des érudits dans un Jardin. Derrière quatre érudits assis, un paravent peint les protège du soleil et du vent. Les arbres peints à l’écran sont les mêmes que ceux qui les entourent. Tout est au premier plan – aucun paysage lointain n’est visible, comme si la scène était entourée de brouillard. Sous la glaçure du vase, un grand espace ouvert a une légère fonte jaune, et le peintre de vase a dessiné de petites taches de poussière autour du bord de la lueur mystérieuse, et a placé deux papillons qui y planent. Ce qui ressemble à un défaut de couleur de l’argile semble intentionnel, et on nous demande d’expliquer sa cause, et pourquoi les savants semblent suspendus au premier plan.]

Figures On A Kangxi Vase

by Brett Rutherford 

The world might end
and they would not know it.
High on the slope
of a sacred mountain,
six mortal scholars gather
in a mansion garden.

Master Liu
has arranged everything
to mitigate
the heat of August.
A folding screen
conceals sun’s glare
and shades the table
where four enjoy
cold wine
from an antique flagon.

Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
Gao, the exiled
high official, arrives
with a banned book
close to his heart.

His nephew, young
and handsome, feels
overdressed, and would
prefer a shady glen
to nap in, hatless
with collar undone.

A small boy, restless,
another bored
participant,
would rather be at
his bow and arrow,
or watching the play
of wild horses, but here
the slow pace of old men
calling to mind a poem,
leafing the pages to find
a Confucian dictum,
must suffice.
Honor it is
to be with the wise.

Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
Crouching, a servant
adds coals to fire
beneath the brazier
meant to refresh
brown yi xing teapots.

Low walls zig-zag
the edge of Liu’s estate.
Trees overhang
the painted screen,
branches identical
to what the artist
painted there.
How daring to place
a painted forest
before a real one!

Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
In mountain fog
the distant peaks,
even the edge
of a nearby precipice
are lost in white
as pale as porcelain.

All is foreground
and an extended hand
might touch cold glaze,
tracing the curve
of the limits of existence.

Frozen this once
and forever, the old men
debate the merits
of poetic styles,
deliberate
on whether things
are permanent
or fade to nothing.

Cool wine, warm tea,
the rise and fall
of a remembered song;
muffled, the dim roar
of falling waters;
calligraphy called up
from nothing to drop
upon a blank page.

Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
A day too hot
for any other purpose.
The world might end
if eyes sought deep
into the denser mist,
a yellow glare,
gnat-flecked, in which
two butterflies hover,
weightless, immobile,
and terrified.

What is this blotch
upon pure whiteness?
The burning sun
craving to show itself?
A distant city
ablaze, invaded?
The exploding scream
of a split atom?

Gao, the book!
Be quick, my friend!
Find the right page,
the words to read,
the names of gods,
if gods there are,
we need invoke.

Here in the clarity
made plain by tea,
a thousand years
of wisdom adheres.
So long, the afternoons,
so short the nights
of bug-bite August.

Here they are safe,
scholars, nephew,
boy, and servant.
Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
They need not fear
the world might end.

[A hand-painted blue-and-white vase depicts scholars in a garden. Behind four seated scholars, a painted, folding screen protects them from sun and wind. The trees painted on the screen are the same as those around them. All is foreground – no distant landscape is visible, as though the scene were surrounded by fog. Under the vase’s glaze, a large open area has a slight yellow cast, and the vase painter has drawn little dust-flecks around the edge of the mysterious glow, and placed two butterflies hovering there. What looks like a defect in the color of the clay seems purposeful, and we are asked to explain its cause, and why the scholars seem suspended in the foreground.]

 

 

A Tripod at Delphi

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Antipater of Sidon, The Greek Anthology, vi, 46.

I am not just any tripod,
one among many at Delphi.
Consigned to Apollo at Troy --
there my flame burned
before the funeral pyre
of one, torch-lit by the hand
of the other. For whom?

By whom? For Patroclus dead,
by Achilles' hand. That's who!
Brought here this tripod was
by the hands of yet another,
the most perfect of warriors.

Touch me, and touch the hand
of him who won the races
at Hellespont, the one who saw
the gods full-faced and lived
— Diomedes!

The Azaleas of Ningpo

by Brett Rutherford

Legendary and lethal,
the azaleas of Ningpo
cover the hillside, a blaze
of color intoxication.

Goats roaming there,
chewing the blossoms
and leaves, fall down
into a stupor.

A black vase
topped with a burst
of red azaleas,
pink hearts
of rhododendrons:
a death-warning.

A medicine as like
to kill as cure,
used sparingly;

a tiger face
not seen amid
the shrubbery;

fox-fairy perfume,
the fatal allure
of a woman met
by the road-side;

the pain, in exile,
of thinking of home.

Beware the azalea!

** This poem cites several Chinese names for the azalea: "thinking of home," "goat-stupeying flower," and "tiger flower."

The Mirror of Lais

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Julianus, Prefect of Egypt, The Greek Anthology, vi, 18, 20.

Lais,
in this mirror looking,
saw only Aphrodite.
Dim light, bright light,
year in, year out,
sorrows and lines
avoided her. The face
reflected there
seemed immutable.

She captivated Greece;
no mean feat
to make men bow
who had broken Persia
and crushed its shields
beneath their horses.

Now, suddenly,
she sees a hag,
dry lips, eye bags,
and a furrowed field
of ugly wrinkles.
A wig, face-paint,

lip gloss, all fail.
Men see, and look away.

The mirror no more
a pretty liar, becomes
a detested object.
Wrapped in a scarf
she sends it off
as an offering,
inscribed:

"Cytherea, goddess,
Aphrodite, friend
of my undying youth,
receive this mirror,
a false round window
now. Refuse it not,
well-made and gilt.

Look now and then
upon your beauty, you
who have no dread
of Time, the destroyer."

The Mourner

by Brett Rutherford

     From Dioscorides, The Greek Anthology, v, 53

Dying, Adonis,
you did not see
the way the fair
Aristonoe
wept for thee.

If someone wailed
beside my bier,
and tore her breasts
just so, I too
would voyage down

to Hades dark
to be thus mourned.
And at my tomb,
forever sad,
ah, would it were she!

To Antiochus

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 133

Few understand Zeus
who for a millennium
keeps Ganymede
     a happy captive,
his youth preserved.

Is it the way two hands
tip water to cup
from a silver amphora,
or the sweet savor
of never-aging lips?

Now I have kissed
Antiochus, fairest
of all the young men
     hereabouts,
and so, I understand.

Ah, after clear water
from an ice-cold spring,
the soul’s sweet honey.

Unlucky Number

by Brett Rutherford

Who would have thought
that the unluckiest digit
was the tiny number Two?

Pythagoras said One
was unity or god,
a thing impossible to break
into constituent parts,

whereas the dreaded
number Two spelled out
diversity and struggle,
disorder and strife,
the root of all evil.

The Romans,
respecting always
the wisest Greeks,
were in accord.

Hold up two fingers
or stop your count
of anything at Two,
was like an evil eye,
or spitting at heaven.

Romans began the year
with One, the month of Mars,
then shuddered, cold,
through all of Two,
the month of Pluto,
when every chill wind
seemed to issue from Hades.

On Day Two of Month Two,
the Manes, unquiet shades
of ancestors neither blessed
nor damned, the walkers
at the edge of Hades, blow

up on night winds to haunt
the Roman graveyards,
unearthing bone and urn,
knocking about the little
household gods on the hearth,
engendering migraines
and mis-shapen births.

Walk on that day,
two fingers up on left,
two fingers up on right,
avoiding monuments,
not saying the names
of the departed. Eat
sparingly and take no salt,

pass water in all four
directions, and fail not
to complete each sentence
once begun, lest you lose
your tongue altogether.

At sunset, chant, Dis Manibus,
Dis Manibus, and pray
that no unquiet ghost answers.

Until the next day's dawning,
sleep not as two
entwined with wife or lover:

On the night of the Manes
each one must sleep alone
just as the dead ashes sleep
in their gloomy vaults below.