My Brilliant Friend

  by Elena Ferrante

 1

My friendship with Lila began the day we decided to go up the dark stairs that led, step after step, flight after flight, to the door of Don Achille's apartment.  

I remember the violet light of the courtyard, the smells of a warm spring evening. The mothers were making dinner, it was time to go home, but we delayed, challenging each other, without ever saying a word, testing our courage. For some time, in school and outside of it, that was what we had been doing. Lila would thrust her hand and then her whole arm into the black mouth of a manhole, and I, in turn, immediately did the same, my heart pounding, hoping that the cockroaches wouldn't run over my skin, that the rats wouldn't bite me. Lila climbed up to Signora Spagnuolo's ground-floor window, and, hanging from the iron bar that the clothesline was attached to, swung back and forth, then lowered herself down to the sidewalk, and I immediately did the same, although I was afraid of falling and hurting myself. Lila stuck into her skin the rusted safety pin that she had found on the street somewhere but kept in her pocket like the gift of a fairy godmother; I watched the metal point as it dug a whitish tunnel into her palm, and then, when she pulled it out and handed it to me, I did the same.

At some point she gave me one of her firm looks, eyes narrowed, and headed toward the building where Don Achille lived. I was frozen with fear. Don Achille was the ogre of fairy tales, I was absolutely forbidden to go near him, speak to him, look at him, spy on him, I was to act as if neither he nor his family existed. Regarding him there was, in my house but not only mine, a fear and a hatred whose origin I didn't know. The way my father talked about him, I imagined a huge man, covered with purple boils, violent in spite of the “don,” which to me suggested a calm authority. He was a being created out of some identifiable material, iron glass, nettles, but alive, alive, the hot breath streaming from his nose and mouth. I thought that if I merely saw him from a distance he would drive something sharp and burning into my eyes. So if I was made enough to approach the door of his house he would likke me.

I waited to see if Lila would have second thoughts and turn back. I knew what she wanted to do, I had hoped that she would forget about it, but in vain. The street lamps were not yet lighted, nor were the lights on the stairs. From the apartments came irritable voices. To follow Lila I had to leave the bluish light of the courtyard and enter the black of the doorway. When I finally made up my mind, I saw nothing at first, there was only an odor of old junk and DDT. Then I got used to the darkness and found Lila sitting on the first step of the first flight of stairs. She got up and we began to climb.

We kept to the side where the wall was, she two steps ahead, I two steps behind, torn between shortening the distance or letting it increase. I can still feel my shoulder inching along the flaking wall and the idea that the steps were very high, higher than those in the building where I lived. I was trembling. Every footfall, every voice was Don Achille creeping up behind us or coming down toward us with a long knife, the kind used for slicing open a chicken breast. There was an odor of sautéing garlic. Maria, Don Achille's wife, would put me in the pan of boiling oil, the children would eat me, he would suck my head the way my father did with mullets.

We stopped often, and each time I hoped that Lila would decide to turn back. I was all sweaty, I don't know about her. Every so often she looked up, but I couldn't tell at what, all that was visible was the gray areas of the big windows at every landing. Suddenly the lights came on, but they were faint, dusty, leaving broad zones of shadow, full of dangers. We waited to see if it was Don Achille who had turned the switch, but we heard nothing, neither footsteps nor the opening or closing of a door. Then Lila continued on, and I followed.

She thought that what we were doing was just and necessary; I had forgotten every good reason, and certainly was there only because she was. We climbed slowly toward the greatest of our terrors of that time, we went to expose ourselves to fear and interrogate it.

At the fourth flight Lila did something unexpected. She stopped to wait for me, and when I reached her she gave me her hand. This gesture changed everything between us forever.

Amorgos, Parts 2 & 3

2

They say the mountains tremble and the pines rage

when night bites off the pins of the roof tiles so the kalikantzari

        can get in

when the underworld sucks in the frothing scum of the torrents

or when the hairline on the pepper tree is hammered by the north wind

Only, the bullocks of the Achaians in the lush meadows of Thessaly

pasture lustily, with the incessant sun glaring down

eat green grass poplar leaves wild celery, drink clear water

       from the channels

smell of the sweat of the earth and afterwards fall deep asleep

      in the shade of the willows.

throw out your dead, said Heraclitus and he saw the sky turn pale

he saw in the mud two small cyclamen kissing

and he fell down to kiss his own dead body in the welcoming earth

just as the wolf comes down out of the oaks to see the dead dog

      and to howl

What does it matter, the drop that shines on your forehead?

I know the thunder wrote its name on your lips

I know an eagle built its eyrie in your eyes

but here on this marshy bank there is one road only

only one treacherous road and you must cross it

you must soak in blood before time catches up with you

and you must cross to the other side to see your companions again

flowers birds deer

to find another sea another kindness

to grasp Achilles' horses by their reins

instead of sitting mutely blaming the river

like Kitsos' mother when she stoned the river

because you will have become lost and your beauty grown old.

In the branches of a willow I see drying a shirt you wore as a child

take the flag of life to shroud death

let your heart not give way

let not your tear be lost on the unyielding earth

as the tear of the penguin was lost in the icy wastes

Lamentation is worthless

Life everywhere will be the same with the flute of snakes in the land

        of phantoms

with the song of thieves in the spice trees

with the knife of desire in the face of hope

with the sadness of spring in the leafy heart of an owl

It is enough if a plow is found, a keen sickle in a cheerful hand

it is enough if a only little wheat ripens

a little wheat for the holiday a little wine for remembrance a little water

        for the dust . . .

3.

In the yard of the embittered the sun does not rise

only worms come up to taunt the stars

only horses sprout on ant hills

and the bats eat birds and piss seed

In the yard of the embittered the night does not fade

only the leaves throw up a river of tears

when the devil slips in to ride the dogs

and the black birds swim in a well of blood

In the yard of the embittered the eye has run dry

the brain has frozen and the heart has turned to stone

the flesh of frogs hangs in the spider's teeth

the unfed locusts scream at the vampire's feed

In the yard of the embittered the grass grows dark

only one evening in May a wind breaks in

a light step like the skipping of the field

a kiss from the white crests of the sea.

If you are thirsty for water we will wring out a cloud

and if you are hungry for bread we will butcher a nightingale

only the bitter herb waits a moment to open

the dark sky to lighten the mullein to flower

Yet it was a wind that fled a lark that was lost

it was the face of May the pale face of the moon

a light step like skipping in a the field

a kiss from the white crests of the sea. 

Trans, DGW.

For the complete Amorgos with the Greek: http://www.nauplion.net/Gatsos-AMORGOS.pdf

O body become Bot

                                               By Heidi Lynn Staples

                                                O Anti O Antiphons

O man-made machine who fakes man as Thing and Foresaker, the rope

              shipped around our neck of the woods, Come to enslave us to

              our owned hours, O body become Bot

O Smart Phone, who flames from the mount if a screen, waiting in the

              pockets, lights in the mall's smallest darkness, Come, recognize

              our vices.

O keyboard O Facebook, and Social Media, and WWW, whose ever-

             widening “Buyer!” has been let loose and pawned the words:

             Come and bring forth “Friend,” let us bow together before your

             Cyclops.

O keyboard and clicker of the Digital Age, who can recognize my face

             from among the masses and hunt me down and destroy me from

             any remote location: Come, come and watch over us.

O biotech implant, over become lover, O biotech Virus of Neural

             Plaquing, how skull no longer offers isolation.

O Predator Drone, O Hummingbird Drone, O bee Drone Swarm how

             hovers: Come, and let us watch a man-made machine unmake a

             man unto forsaken thing, Come into the classrooms of our youth

             and hear how we laugh.

O robotic nurse, who can sing, who can dance, who stands ready with

             outstretched metal rubber-encased arms and movement-tracking

             tearless eyes before our bodily suffering she shall not waver:
             Come and deliver into their beds our soft bodies, pliable babies,

             into your arms, into your arms, into your arms, forever more

             and more . . .  

From The American Poetry Review, November-December 2014.

Music that stains the silence remains

                                                   by Lawrence Durrell

                                                 

              ECHO  

Nothing is lost, sweet self,

Nothing is ever lost.

The unspoken word

Is not exhausted but can be heard.

Music that stains

The silence remains

O echo is everywhere, the unbeckonable bird!

               LESBOS

           Song from a Play

The Pleiades are sinking cool as paint,

And earth's huge camber follows out,

Turning in sleep, the oceanic curve:

Defined in concave like a human eye

Or cheek pressed warm on the dark's cheek,

Like dancers to a music they deserve.

This balcony, a moon-anointed shelf

Above a silent garden holds my bed.

I slept. But the dispiriting autumn moon,

In her slow expurgation of the sky

Needs company: is brooding on the dead,

And so am I now, so am I.

               NIKI

Love on a leave-of-absence came,

Unmoored the silence like a barge,

Set free to float on lagging webs

The swan-black wise unhindered night.

(Bitter and pathless were the ways

Of sleep to which such beauty led.)

                  NEMEA

A song in the valley of Nemea:

Sing quiet, quite quiet here.

Song for the brides of Argos

Combing the swarms of golden hair:

Quite quiet, quiet there.

Under the rolling comb of grass,
The sword outrusts the golden helm.

Agamemnon under tumulus serene

Outsmiles the jury of skeletons:

Cool under cumulus the lion queen:

Only the drum can celebrate,

Only the adjective outlive them.

A song in the valley of Nemea:

Sing quiet, quiet, quiet here.

Tone of the frog in the empty well,
Drone of the bald bee on the cold skull.

Quiet, Quiet, Quiet.

From Lawrence Durrell, Selected Poems, 1956.

The presence of some small god

                                             by Mary Oliver

AFTER READING LUCRETIUS, I GO TO THE POND 

The slippery green frog

that went to his death

in the heron's pink throat

was my small brother,

and the heron

with the white plumes

like a crown on his head

who is washing now his great sword-beak

in the shining pond

is my tall thin brother.

My heart dresses in black

and dances.

LITTLE CRAZY LOVE SONG

I don't want eventual,

I want soon.

It's 5 a.m. It's noon.

It's dusk falling to dark.

I listen to music.

I eat up a few wild poems

while time creeps along

as though it's got all day.

This is what I have.

The dull hangover of waiting,

the blush of my heart on the damp grass,

the flower-faced moon.

A gull broods on the shore

where a moment ago there were two.

Softly my right hand fondles my left hand

as though it were you.

FORGIVE ME

Angels are wonderful but they are so, well, aloof.

It's what I sense in the mud and the roots of the

trees, or the well, or the barn, or the rock with

its citron map of lichen that halts my feet and

makes my eyes flare, feeling the presence of some

spirit, some small god, who abides there.

If I were a perfect person, I would be bowing

continuously.
I'm not, though I pause wherever I feel this

holiness, which is why I' often so late coming

back from wherever I went.

Forgive me.

From Mary Oliver, Blue Horses, 2014.

I lie in the box of my making

       

  MY DEATH

                                              by Mark Strand

Sadness, of course, and confusion.
The relatives gathered at the graveside,
talking about the waste, and the weather mounting,
the rain moving in vague pillars offshore.

This is Prince Edward Island.
I came back to my birthplace to announce my death.
I said I would ride full gallop into the sea
and not look back. People were furious.

I told them about attempts I had made in the past,
how I starved in order to be the size of Lucille,
whom I loved, to inhabit the cold space
her body had taken. They were shocked.

I went on about the time
I dove in a perfect arc that filled
with the sunshine of farewell and I fell
head over shoulders into the river’s thigh.

And about the time
I stood naked in the snow, pointing a pistol
between my eyes, and how when I fired my head bloomed
into health. Soon I was alone.

Now I lie in the box
of my making while the weather
builds and the mourners shake their heads as if
to write or to die, I did not have to do either.

From The New York Review of Books, October 24, 1968.

The dancers are all gone under the hill

Dawn points, and another day

Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind

Wrinkles and slides. I am here

Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.

                                                    II

What is the late November doing

With the disturbance of the spring

And creatures of the summer heat,

And snowdrops writhing under feet

And hollyhocks that aim too high

Red into grey and tumble down

Late roses filled with early snow?

Thunder rolled bythe rulling stars

Simulates triumphal cars

Deployed in constellated wars

Scorpion fights against the Sun

Until the Sun and Moon go down

Comets weep and Leonids fly

Hunt the heavens and the plains

Whirled in a vortex that shall bring

The world to that destructive fire

Which burns before the ice-cap reigns.

That was a way of putting it – not very satisfactory:

A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,

Leaving one still with the in tolerable wrestle

With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter.

It was not (to start again) what one had expected.

What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,

Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity

And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us

Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,

Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?

The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,

The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets

Useless in the darkness into which they peered

Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,

At best, only a limited value

In the knowledge derived from experience.

The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,

For the pattern is new in every moment

And every moment is a new and shocking

Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived

Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.

In the middle, not only in the middle of the way

But all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,

On the edge of a grimpen, where there is no secure foothold,

And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,

Risking enchantment. Do not let me hear

Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,

Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,

Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.

The only wisdom we can hope to acquire

Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

The houses are all gone under the sea.

The dancers are all gone under the hill.

From T. S. Eliot, “East Coker,” Four Quartets, 1943.