Pathway to the Sea
to A. R. Ammons
First published by Alan Loney at Hawk Press (Taylor’s Mistake, Christchurch, 1975)
in a handset limited edition with cover art by Ralph Hotere
I started late summer-before-last
digging for a
field-tile drain
at the bottom of the garden
where below
topsoil that leached away
as fast as I mulched &
fed it was
a puggy day
slick turning rainwater
frost dew snow sparrow-
piss & other seepage & drainage down
under an old shed
in the lower adjoining
section : here the water
bogged foundations & floorboards
till the whole crazy
edifice began to
settle sideways &
slide on greased clay
downward
taking a fouldrain with it :
visions of “faecal matter”
bubbling up from clogged
overflow traps bothered
me & some
others too : it was time
to act ! especially since
in addition to ordure getting
spread around &
putting its soft mouths in
deep cloacal
kisses to our
livers any obvious
breakdown in the system for
disposal of this shit
( ours in fact ) would
bring the council inspectors round
like flies
aptly enough & that would mean
they’d get to look at
other aspects of how
we choose to
live which might strike them as
unorthodox or even
illegal : for example there’s
lots being done round here
with demolition
timber, & that’s illegal, you gotta
use new timber,
citizen, the old stuff
which was once forests of kauri &
totara & rimu took oh
hundreds of years to get to
where it was when it was
milled, the houses it knit
together stood & with-
stood “better” than the forests
I suppose : the timber
served, anyway, it
did that for whoever watched
the process through, &
now that the houses ‘re out
of phase much as the forests once
were, though like the
forests the fibre of the brittle
timber can still spring
& ring . . . now,
anyway, that it’s time
to go, it has to get broken, stamped down, splintered
by a ‘dozer’s tracks & what’s
left of fibre knot
& resin has a match
put to
it : it goes “up
in smoke”— but round
here we hoard the stuff &
use it, it easily bends
nails, it splits & you
belt your thumb often enough
to know all about that
but the structures
stay put ! & the inspectors
would say “Down
with them” — well, down with
them ! . . . I like the way you
have to compromise with brittle
demolition timber : what gets
built has bent the
builder as well as his
nails & nerves : he’s
learnt something about
service, the toughness of the
medium may have taught him
that ease is no grateful
index to dispensability
or availability : like
who wants a companion for
life or whatever span
you fancy ( they’re all “for life” ) who can’t
put some juice
back in your
systems? — ah how you value
the tough lover who
keeps you up
to the mark, whose head
eyes language hands
loins en-
gage you, give you
elevation, a prospect, with whom you ride
up the up &
up like birds beating on in
the mutual updraughts of
each other’s wings — birds, a
subject I’ll come back to later
when I’m through with this
drain : what needs
to be noted here, though, is that even if
some things don’t fight
back at once or
obviously, nonetheless you
can bet your “sweet” ( for )
“life”
they fight back & your children & children’s children
will be paying your
blood-money, citizen —
well, meanwhile, we agreed, let’s
keep our shit out
of the public eye & let’s
keep our friendly sheds, our lovely slums,
our righteous brittle screwy
inspired constructs
up : & then
let’s add some
flourishes, decoration in this kind
of setting doesn’t coddle
anyone, least of all the chickens
whose coop’s
included in the drainage
problem threatening to
overwhelm us
all : besides, we’ll all
benefit : chickens with dry
feet lay more eggs
because they’re happy : happiness
as a concept may be
about as brittle as
demolition timber when the latter’s traced
back to its
forest & the former
to its causes, but it
serves likewise, it teaches us
“for life” : if you’re
for life you’re for its crazy outhouses
the corners of happiness that don’t
square : right,
there were lots
of reasons, the practical & the
ideal didn’t separate out,
the forests & the brittle planks
were one, we
were engaged, we wanted
to convert our drainage problem,
transform it, tran-
substantiate it, assume it into
the causes of our happiness & the
happiness of our
chickens whose wet feet
& poor laying rates
rebuked us daily — we picked
up shovels, backed off somewhat,
then we started digging fast, we went at it, we went
down four feet & then
two more, there was
all kinds of trash, bottles & old
sofa springs & broken
masonry & bricks
& unusual quantities of bones dating no doubt
from a previous owner who bred
dogs, Dobermans ( — men? ) I
heard, then we began to get
into the clay
pug, we were out
of sight by now, the shovels hove
up into view at
infrequent intervals &
were twitched & shaken
by their invisible handlers
to dislodge the sticky glup :
a comic & as time went by
popular spectacle : for those
down in the drain
the strain began to
tell : some quit, some
hid, some developed rheums
blisters & trenchfoot, streptococci
swarmed upon their tonsils,
they pissed
chills straight from the kidney (it was
now winter, autumn had
dallied by among
the easy wreckage of an
earlier level )
they defected, deserted,
they offered their apologies, they
fucked off, the practical &
the ideal
sprang apart like
warping unseasoned
timber, boiiiiinnnnngg-
ggg . . . a sound, it occurred
to me, not
unlike a drop
on a long rope — well, that’s what
deserters got once, & I found myself
wishing it on them
again as I
plied my lone shovel, bucket,
grout, mattock, axe & spade,
baling out the boggy trench
as the “drainage problem” halted
right there, hacking
through roots ( that deep ! ) shoring
up avalanching walls ( the drain —huh ! — was
by now fifty yards
long & in some
places twelve feet
deep ! impressive even
if left at that ) & shaving
out gummy scoops
of clay with grunting
I then flicked heaven-
ward into the blue
icy sky or
alternatively into the sky
the low colour
of clay : clay
anyway, clay & more
clay, the gobs landed up
there pretty
randomly after a while, & sometimes
they got washed
down again by the late winter
rain, lots of it, which the
roots of trees were
sucking at, the sap
rising in them, beginning
to, refreshed by those
surface-feeding tendrils, those deep
tap-roots, & it’s here the
story really
starts : not
that what’s been said so far’s
irrelevant, though I apologise for its
disorderly development &
the large number of
apparent non-sequiturs — things
do
follow let me assure you, they
proceed, citizen, they practically hunt
you down, & me, who’ve
just been enjoying the way
these lines unfold, much
more easily than how the pug
& clodded
marl left that
drain, landing up there
out of sight & almost
burying one
of three baby
fruit trees ( here we are ) which
therefore didn’t get its tiny
branches cut
back before the
sap rose in them as spring came
on gravely, gaily, with me still down
there in the trench
still chucking the odd
clod up & still
covering that pear tree : finally
a retaining wall
got built ( use
was made of
used materials ) & then a truck
came with field-tiles
& another with shingle & we got
together some
used roofing-iron
& we had a drain ! Yeah ! there
was enough fall in it to get
“the problem” drainage
away & out of our way, the chickens
basked & layed, the clammy surfaces
of seeping banks
dried up, the rotting
structures with their feet in
clay delayed their
inevitable demise, miasmal
damps & soaks breathed
out their last stinks of mould
& fungus, artesian
cheeps & kisses of surfacing
wet were drowned in
birdsong, when the sun shone it
dried & when the rain fell it ran away
the way
we wanted : it was
summer, the leaf
uncrinkled from the bud,
blossom fell, fruit
spurs plumped out,
sap circulated with its natural zest,
& one small
pear tree, un-
pruned, went
crazy ! was a mares-nest
of wild growth, capillary
maze of shoots & tangled
twigs gobbling the provisions
of root & leaf, starch
& water, sweet open
sandwiches of rotted
stackbottom & whatnot,
bonbons
& snacks broken & tasted
by those bon-vivants the
earthworms : the whole gusty
catering-service
served
that tree whose clusters
congested & grew
together with ungainly health
while nearby
the other two grew
straight sturdy
& slim, sunlight
entered their hearts
they reached up
heavenwards : “benighted” is
a word we should have
the use of
more often : oh pear tree ! in
that condition you’d never
score a single
shriveled product : well
come autumn I cut you
back till there was almost
nothing left : the lesson
is, effort’s got to be directed . . .
yeah, I heard
they wanted to build an
ALUMINIUM
SMELTER
at
Aramoana, the sea-gate, & someone’s bound to direct
more efforts that
way soon, listen, there’s
birds out there, we’re
back with those lovers, the buoyancy
& updraught of some kind of
mutual understanding of what
service is, of the fact that
a thing being easy doesn’t
make it available or passive :
listen, effort’s got to be right
directed, that’s
all, the catering’s amazing, everything
proceeds, citizen, sometimes
it’s hard work, but you’re
engaged, you want
to keep practical & ideal
together, you’re
for life, you know that happiness
has to do with yes
drains & that nature
like a pear tree
must be served before
it’ll serve you, you
don’t want your children’s
children paying
your blood-
money, citizen, you’re
for a different sort
of continuity, you want
to live the way
you want
to, you want to keep
your structures up, you
want elevation,
you’re ready to do
your share, you’ll dig your field-
drain & you’ll
keep your shit out
of the water supply :
you want to
serve & to be left alone
to serve & be served,
understanding tough
materials, marl & old timber,
the rich claggy rind
of the world where
dinosaurs once
were kings : well they’re gone now though
they survived longer
than we have
yet, but then we know, don’t we,
citizen, that there’s nowhere
to defect to, & that
living in the
universe doesn’t
leave you
any place to chuck
stuff off
of.
this poem is dedicated to
all concerned with the present
production of it to the belief that
Aramoana should be left to the birds
fish sand-hoppers & other denizens
who at present possess it only so
long as their ambiguous productivity
is tolerated by men ambitious for
quick solutions and profits
© Ian Wedde |
