The Poet at Seventeen
My youth? I hear it mostly in
the long, volleying
Echoes of billiards in the
pool halls where
I spent it all, extravagantly,
believing
My delicate touch on a cue
would last for years.
Outside the vineyards vanished
under rain,
And the trees held still or
seemed to hold their breath
When the men I worked with,
pruning orchards, sang
Their lost songs: Amapola;
La Paloma;
Jalisco; No Te Rajues—the corny tunes
Their sons would just as soon
forget, at recess,
Where they lounged apart in
small groups of their own.
Still, even when they laughed,
they laughed in Spanish.
I hated high school then,
& on weekends drove
A tractor through the widowed
fields. It was so boring
I memorized poems above the
engine’s monotone.
Sometimes whole days slipped
past without my noticing.
And birds of all kinds flew in
front of me then.
I learned to tell them apart
by their empty squabblings,
The slightest change in
plumage, or the inflection
Of a call. And why not admit
it? I was happy
Then. I believed in no one. I
had the kind
Of solitude the world usually
allows
Only to kings and criminals
who are extinct,
Who disdain this world, &
who rot, corrupt & shallow
As fields I disced: I turned
up the same gray
Earth for years. Still, the
land made a glum raisin
Each autumn, & made that
little hell of days—
The vines must have seemed
like cages to the Mexicans
Who were paid seven cents a
tray for the grapes
They picked. Inside the vines
it was hot, & spiders
Strummed their emptiness.
Black Widow, Daddy Longlegs,
The vine canes whipped our
faces. None of us cared.
And the girls I tried to talk
to after class
Sailed by, then each night lay
enthroned in my bed,
With nothing on but the jewels
of their embarrassment.
Eyes, lips, dreams. No one.
The sky & the road.
A life like that? It seemed to
go one forever—
Reading poems in school, then
driving a stuttering tractor
Warm afternoons, then
billiards on blue October
Nights. The thick stars. But
mostly now I remember
The trees, wearing their
mysterious yellow sullenness
Like party dresses. And
parties I didn’t attend.
And then the first ice hung
like spider lattices
Or the embroideries of Great
Aunt No One,
And then the first dark
entering the trees—
And inside, adults with their
cocktails before dinner,
The way they always seemed
afraid of something,
And sat so rigidly, although
the land was theirs.
--Larry Levis, from his collection WINTER STARS
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