What Could the Russian Soul and Love Ever Mean to Czech Anticommunists And Anti-Russian Liberals?

 

From time to time, once in a while,

in Café Slavia we would sit—
Rudolf Matys—and only now
I came to see, to know—

all that time my companion was
both Matys, hence Matthew,
“Gift of God,” and Rudolf,
that is to say, a “Famous Wolf,”

a strange and distant kin
to an Adolf, once a visitation
from the West in my dream
near Arkansas’ Little Rock.

And among other things
he asked, “How is Mr. Křovíčko,”
meaning George W. Bush
(for in Czech bush is křoví,
a křovíčko is little bush,
and křoví evokes

something, someone
who is hiding—skrývá—
“behind bushes”—
which could be
even a wolf himself.

Wine watered our talk.

And we even talked of Onegin,
and, to Rudolf, neither he
nor Pushkin meant too much,
except that Holan tried to mock
Pushkin’s rhyming scheme
but then let it be—

and all that novel’s talk
of Russian soul and love
Rudolf cleaned up
in one little detached coda

about what he missed:

instead of just sending
Onegin away from her lap
with a note of proud,
yet aching love,

Tatiana should have
used a clue Pushkin himself
offered out for sale—

when he wrote that, in his gaze,
a woman’s foot, especially if
in public under a table’s cloth,
beats each Diana’s breast
and any Flora’s cheeks
(Onegin I.XXXII):

so why shouldn’t—or didn’t—
the lady, as a men’s and poetry’s
good student, learn how to bob
and move Onegin, that well-bred devil,
with nothing—but the meter
of her toes?

From a Platonist's Sojourn in America's Aroostook County

 

The mind is manners,

and manners are the mind,

and this is the jingle

that clinks and chimes—

 

But what of the old sly hag

who ran with a robbers' band

and spun, to pass the night,

a tale from the Golden Ass

 

for a poor kidnapped lass?

It takes a god, a monster

stunning in disguise,

a snake hid in the dark,

 

and a woman's mortal soul,

"wonderfully merged,"

to make a Voluptas—

a wonderchild of want.

 

Is this why ladies "with a class"

would order or invent a shaggy faun—

to strip down qualms and hang

their morals out to dry

for the hour that lets them act?

 

"Oh, Eros," having leafed

through Auden's Penguin Reader,

a studious girl might sigh,

"he's surely the one who brought

 

a sense of reflection into my life.

Nonne amor caput rerum omnium est?

May Cupid never perish,

so I'll always find him by!"

 

So hearing this, I listen

and start to suspect why,

in fauns and their tails,

they found a needed tonic—

 

for, as they say, "neither

should we fear love

nor take such gifts for granted."

But only those who read extra

 

could cite Socrates—I mean,

that Banquet woman, Diotima:

"Do not then insist that what is not fair

is of necessity foul,

 

or what is not good evil;

or infer that because love is not fair

and good he is therefore foul and evil;

for he is in a mean between them" (Plato 201d–204c).

 

And just as fast, one hand

behind their backs, the students

of Maine's fields and woods

would gladly wrap it up:

 

"Love is never white or black!

Still, 'nothing can be had

without a price' (Epictetus):

with brutes we pay for mores,

 

with devils, in lips of vows.

And though morals are a must,

fauns—the devils—are more fun,

even if characters wane

 

like candles in the wind

when all's a thing of lust.

But wouldn't Plato too

summon a bit of touch

 

'with a sense of distance'?"

Of Spines Spurring Love's Thistles and Thorns

 

Into those old paintings

parasoled ladies kept on

landing—argent egret

whiffed by mere breath.

 

Not unlike two fingers met

underneath a passing tab

in perplexed flash,

in umbra of a hat,

 

the face just might have

ensouled the sun—

geysered through the eyes.

 

Off pairs and carriages

those parachutes away—

if down becomes above.

Mid-May Night on the Way to Arslanbob

 

On that mid-May night,

not far from Manas,

which, back then,

was still Jalal-Abad,

 

a little marshrutka,

cranky minibus,

dropped me off,

 

having passed

all the way from Bishkek

through Western Tian Shan,

Asia's Celestial Mountains,

 

at a small travel lodge with divans,

low tables, couches in the front.

 

I was on my way to see

the illustrious world's largest,

oldest walnut forest

on rims round Arslanbob,

 

wedged into a valley

at the foot

of massive Babash-Atu Mountain.

 

There seated I waited for dawn,

resting, drinking tea,

at last asking

for some shashlik

before they closed the kitchen.

 

Before midnight, instead of ghost,

a small party came to sit close by.

They were merry, clearly

much different from other folk.

 

Rather quickly, I, a foreigner,

caught their shrewd, expert eye,

and soon the youngest, liveliest,

wanted to chat—to see

what kind of stranger

is out there all alone.

 

But presently his interest passed

and, as it turned out,

what he wanted most

was to brag, tell

a random passerby

what big wheel he became in Kyrgyzstan,

who the others are—

despite their vainly reigning hush.

 

They were all interior police officials,

well-tied across the state, further still,

apparently running much of grand migration

into Russia, anywhere else people wanted to be.

 

If I myself were to need anything,

I just ought to ask;

they would surely help

someone they'd just met.

 

So much the youngest,

most ambitious of that bunch,

wanted me, anonymous foreigner,

to appreciate power, wealth, contacts

he'd already won.

 

And for me being kind, polite,

plausibly impressed,

they left me with a stakan,

a glass of vodka,

they themselves drank

in that Muslim land.

 

And with that munificent gift

they vanished back

into deep, hot

mid-May night,

 

soon after carting off

other guests as well,

 

leaving just me

and the sentinel

of young waitresses—

awake still

at that tavern

by that ancient road.

 

And then, just like that,

with no one else to see

but nameless, incidental me,

 

the mien and manner

of those attending girls

suddenly changed:

 

no longer serving anyone else,

they began to serve each other

with strokes of gentle caress,

 

in extempore conference

granting each an ardent praise

they must have learned

from a thousand and one nights before,

 

where each can play a Grace

by rounding two to three

before reverting back to two,

 

indifferent to me,

lonely guest,

lingerer from far away,

of no account.

 

Thus, imperturbably insouciant,

to outside world defiant

in stillness of the night,

they moved to collect

best from each

who was both bee

and honeyed sap.

 

New Maenads of Kyrgyzstan

who, as many ages passed,

nonchalantly decided at last

that Dionysus' vacancy

is no longer any lack—

 

their reciprocal courteous devotion,

there by emptied divans,

found plentiful, filling,

more than merely enough,

much better even,

when it comes

to give each other

true, tender, honest heart.