"Fragment for John Ashbery" [by Jim Cummins]

I wake, and a fragment, a wisp,
entices, then disappears into the forest
of an earlier time, and I am left
in a clearing where the sun is stale,
or the moon is not a pretty wafer,
and the day long ago when colors
were sounds, and sounds a masterpiece
of color and form, recedes again
into dream forests, crosshatchings.

You lifted the dish with melted cheese
for the soufflé you never touched,
being three martinis to the good already
at a lunch that comes clear again
in the forest, briefly — radiant eyes trapped
in the woods of your three companions,
who just want to laugh and love you
too young to have these dreams yet.
You say again, in this memory-forest,
"I hope you won't tell R—," then lift
the enormous ladle, using it like a spoon,
and that is your lunch, three martinis
and a bowl of lukewarm melted cheese.

Your eyes sparkle like a four-year-old's,
who sees something he wants, and takes it.
And I love you for this gesture, though
I'm old enough to see the forest I will enter
soon, the one you will be leaving, knowing
so much more than I of its bewilderment.
The gesture — willful, cold as it is warm —
admits the friendship of us three, even
as it stands beyond, untouched, looked at
by those who love you, who aren't privy yet
to the nightmare of too many fragments,
pieces of dreams left ragged on branches,
when the muse abducts you, carries you,
through word-forests, forests of words.

– James Cummins

Comments

[Noah Burke]

I went to an Ashbery reading once and his eyes do sparkle like that. Great poem. Thanks.

[jim c]

Thanks, Noah. JA was the best.