coldhearted scientist وداد

as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
that is not mine, but is a made place,

that is mine, it is so near to the heart,
an eternal pasture folded in all thought
so that there is a hall therein

that is a made place, created by light
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.

Wherefrom fall all architectures I am
I say are likenesses of the First Beloved
whose flowers are flames lit to the Lady.

She it is Queen Under The Hill
whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words
that is a field folded.

It is only a dream of the grass blowing
east against the source of the sun
in an hour before the sun’s going down

whose secret we see in a children’s game
of ring a round of roses told.

Often I am permitted to return to a meadow
as if it were a given property of the mind
that certain bounds hold against chaos,

that is a place of first permission,
everlasting omen of what is.

–R.D., 1960

We had and received other books, borrowed or given or bought, but The Opening of the Field was the first book we received by someone we knew, directly from them. I could not read yet but I could recognize the capital letters on the cover. I understood that a field was opening and that there were presences in it.

I can still see the old Victorian house with the narrow staircases, Jess’ studio with the thick paint, Robert’s illustrated books and fanciful ink drawings, and my amazement at the spinach pasta they served, because it was green.

Toddler Z: It is very nice of you to have taken the trouble to find green pasta for us. In fact, it is very nice of you to even realize that this would so amuse children.
Robert Duncan: I am pleased that you appreciate the green pasta, but you must realize I did not buy it especially for you! I eat green pasta often, on my own, to amuse myself!

That caused me to fall in love with Robert Duncan. He liked this and wrote my name in one of his Victorian children’s books. I am looking at it now.

I never really got into his poetry too much because unfairly I find it too-too, too much under the influence of all those Victorian and Edwardian children’s books he had, too psychedelic, too religious, too dependent on ideas like the Queen Under the Hill, too reminiscent of Songs from the Wood, and so on.

Still I see the field opening.

Axé.