Sixty Poems - Tapa blanda

From Unending Blues, 1986

toward nightfall

for Don and Jane

The weight of tragic events

On everyone’s back,

Just as tragedy

In the proper Greek sense

Was thought impossible

To compose in our day.

There were scaffolds,

Makeshift stages,

Puny figures on them,

Like small indistinct animals

Caught in the headlights

Crossing the road way ahead,

In the gray twilight

That went on hesitating

On the verge of a huge

Starless autumn night.

One could’ve been in

The back of an open truck

Hunkering because of

The speed and chill.

One could’ve been walking

With a sidelong glance

At the many troubling shapes

The bare trees made—

Like those about to shriek,

But finding themselves unable

To utter a word now.

One could’ve been in

One of these dying mill towns

Inside a small dim grocery

When the news broke.

One would’ve drawn near the radio

With the one many months pregnant

Who serves there at that hour.

Was there a smell of

Spilled blood in the air,

Or was it that other,

Much finer scent—of fear,

The fear of approaching death

One met on the empty street?

Monsters on movie posters, too,

Prominently displayed.

Then, six factory girls,

Arm in arm, laughing

As if they’ve been drinking.

At the very least, one

Could’ve been one of them:

The one with a mouth

Painted bright red,

Who feels out of sorts,

For no reason, very pale,

And so, excusing herself,

Vanishes where it says:

Rooms for Rent,

And immediately goes to bed,

Fully dressed, only

To lie with eyes open,

Trembling, despite the covers.

It’s just a bad chill,

She keeps telling herself

Not having seen the papers

Which the landlord has the dog

Bring from the front porch.

The old man never learned

To read well, and so

Reads on in that half-whisper,

And in that half-light

Verging on the dark,

About that day’s tragedies

Which supposedly are not

Tragedies in the absence of

Figures endowed with

Classic nobility of soul.

against whatever it is that’s encroaching

Best of all is to be idle,

And especially on a Thursday,

And to sip wine while studying the light:

The way it ages, yellows, turns ashen

And then hesitates forever

On the threshold of the night

That could be bringing the first frost.

It’s good to have a woman around just then,

And two is even better.

Let them whisper to each other

And eye you with a smirk.

Let them roll up their sleeves and unbutton their shirts a bit

As this fine old twilight deserves,

And the small schoolboy

Who has come home to a room almost dark

And now watches wide-eyed

The grown-ups raise their glasses to him,

The giddy-headed, red-haired woman

With eyes tightly shut,

As if she were about to cry or sing.

Compilation copyright © 2007 by Charles Simic

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