Andrew
Violette
The
Death of the Hired Man
Innova
608
He
smashes the mold.
There
are no conversational phrases.
The
singers intone.
The
piano is a percussive force;
a
fierce combatant
against
big voiced singers
who
emerge not from a huge stage
but
from a space as intimate as a boxing ring
where
each side struggles to prevail.
“Life’s
toughness needs to be reflected in song.”
--Andrew
Violette.
Sherry
Zannoth (soprano) and Brad Cresswell (tenor).
The
Death of the Hired Man
Robert
Frost
Mary sat
musing on the lamp-flame at the table
Waiting
for Warren. When she heard his step,
She ran
on tip-toe down the darkened passage
To meet
him in the doorway with the news
And put
him on his guard. 'Silas is back.'
She
pushed him outward with her through the door
And shut
it after her. "Be kind,' she said.
She took
the market things from Warren's arms
And set
them on the porch, then drew him down
To sit
beside her on the wooden steps.
'When was
I ever anything but kind to him?
But I'll
not have the fellow back,' he said.
'I told
him so last haying, didn't I?
"If
he left then," I said, "that ended it."
What good
is he? Who else will harbour him
At his
age for the little he can do?
What help
he is there's no depending on.
Off he
goes always when I need him most.
'He
thinks he ought to earn a little pay,
Enough at
least to buy tobacco with,
won't
have to beg and be beholden."
"All
right," I say "I can't afford to pay
Any fixed
wages, though I wish I could."
"Someone
else can."
"Then
someone else will have to.
I
shouldn't mind his bettering himself
If that
was what it was. You can be certain,
When he
begins like that, there's someone at him
Trying to
coax him off with pocket-money, --
In haying
time, when any help is scarce.
In winter
he comes back to us. I'm done.'
'Shh not
so loud: he'll hear you,' Mary said.
'I want
him to: he'll have to soon or late.'
'He's
worn out. He's asleep beside the stove.
When I
came up from Rowe's I found him here,
Huddled
against the barn-door fast asleep,
A miserable
sight, and frightening, too-
You
needn't smile -- I didn't recognize him-
I wasn't
looking for him- and he's changed.
Wait till
you see.'
'Where
did you say he'd been?
'He
didn't say. I dragged him to the house,
And gave
him tea and tried to make him smoke.
I tried
to make him talk about his travels.
Nothing
would do: he just kept nodding off.'
'What did
he say? Did he say anything?'
'But
little.'
'Anything?
Mary, confess
He said
he'd come to ditch the meadow for me.'
'Warren!'
'But did
he? I just want to know.'
'Of
course he did. What would you have him say?
Surely
you wouldn't grudge the poor old man
Some
humble way to save his self-respect.
He added,
if you really care to know,
He meant
to dear the upper pasture, too.
That
sounds like something you have heard before?
Warren, I
wish you could have heard the way
He
jumbled everything. I stopped to look
Two or
three times -- he made me feel so queer--
To see if
he was talking in his sleep.
He ran on
Harold Wilson -- you remember -
The boy
you had in haying four years since.
He's
finished school, and teaching in his college.
Silas
declares you'll have to get him back.
He says
they two will make a team for work:
Between
them they will lay this farm as smooth!
The way
he mixed that in with other things.
He thinks
young Wilson a likely lad, though daft
On
education -- you know how they fought
All
through July under the blazing sun,
Silas up
on the cart to build the load,
Harold
along beside to pitch it on.'
'Yes, I
took care to keep well out of earshot.'
'Well,
those days trouble Silas like a dream.
You
wouldn't think they would. How some things linger!
Harold's
young college boy's assurance piqued him.
After so
many years he still keeps finding
Good
arguments he sees he might have used.
I
sympathize. I know just how it feels
To think
of the right thing to say too late.
Harold's
associated in his mind with Latin.
He asked
me what I thought of Harold's saying
He
studied Latin like the violin
Because
he liked it -- that an argument!
He said
he couldn't make the boy believe
He could
find water with a hazel prong--
Which
showed how much good school had ever done
him. He
wanted to go over that. 'But most of all
He thinks
if he could have another chance
To teach
him how to build a load of hay --'
'I know,
that's Silas' one accomplishment.
He
bundles every forkful in its place,
And tags
and numbers it for future reference,
So he can
find and easily dislodge it
In the
unloading. Silas does that well.
He takes
it out in bunches like big birds' nests.
You never
see him standing on the hay
He's
trying to lift, straining to lift himself.'
'He
thinks if he could teach him that, he'd be
Some good
perhaps to someone in the world.
He hates
to see a boy the fool of books.
Poor
Silas, so concerned for other folk,
And
nothing to look backward to with pride,
And
nothing to look forward to with hope,
So now
and never any different.'
Part of a
moon was filling down the west,
Dragging
the whole sky with it to the hills.
Its light
poured softly in her lap. She saw
And
spread her apron to it. She put out her hand
Among the
harp-like morning-glory strings,
Taut with
the dew from garden bed to eaves,
As if she
played unheard the tenderness
That
wrought on him beside her in the night.
'Warren,'
she said, 'he has come home to die:
You
needn't be afraid he'll leave you this time.'
'Home,'
he mocked gently.
'Yes,
what else but home?
It all
depends on what you mean by home.
Of course
he's nothing to us, any more
then was
the hound that came a stranger to us
Out of
the woods, worn out upon the trail.'
'Home is
the place where, when you have to go there,
They have
to take you in.'
'I should
have called it
Something
you somehow haven't to deserve.'
Warren
leaned out and took a step or two,
Picked up
a little stick, and brought it back
And broke
it in his hand and tossed it by.
'Silas
has better claim on' us, you think,
Than on
his brother? Thirteen little miles
As the
road winds would bring him to his door.
Silas has
walked that far no doubt to-day.
Why
didn't he go there? His brother's rich,
A somebody-
director in the bank.'
'He never
told us that.'
'We know
it though.'
'I think
his brother ought to help, of course.
I'll see
to that if there is need. He ought of right
To take
him in, and might be willing to-
He may be
better than appearances.
But have
some pity on Silas. Do you think
If he'd
had any pride in claiming kin
Or
anything he looked for from his brother,
He'd keep
so still about him all this time?'
'I wonder
what's between them.'
'I can
tell you.
Silas is
what he is -- we wouldn't mind him--
But just
the kind that kinsfolk can't abide.
He never
did a thing so very bad.
He don't
know why he isn't quite as good
As
anyone. He won't be made ashamed
To please
his brother, worthless though he is.'
'I can't
think Si ever hurt anyone.'
'No, but
he hurt my heart the way he lay
And
rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.
He
wouldn't let me put him on the lounge.
You must
go in and see what you can do.
I made
the bed up for him there to-night.
You'll be
surprised at him -- how much he's broken.
His
working days are done; I'm sure of it.'
'I'd not
be in a hurry to say that.'
'I
haven't been. Go, look, see for yourself.
But,
Warren, please remember how it is:
He' come
to help you ditch the meadow.
He has a
plan, You mustn't laugh at him.
He may not
speak of it, and then he may.
I'll sit
and see if that small sailing cloud
Will hit
or miss the moon.'
It hit
the moon. Then there were three there, making a dim row,
The moon,
the little silver cloud, and she.
Warren
returned-- too soon, it seemed to her,
Slipped
to her side, caught up her hand and waited.
'Warren?'
she questioned.
'Dead,'
was all he answered.
The
Love Duet
Walt
Whitman montage
ebb stung
by the flow
and flow
stung by the ebb
loveflesh
swelling and deliciously aching
limitless
limped jets of hot love
and
enormous quivering jelly of love
white
blow and delicious juice
bridegroom
night of love
working
surely and softly into the prostrate dawn
undulating
in the willing and yielding day
lost in
the cleave of the clasping and sweet flesh'd day
(he) I
sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world
(she)
ah!
urge and
urge and urge
always
the procreant urge of the world
the
armies of those I love engirth me
speeding
through space
speeding
through heaven and the stars
not words
not music or rhyme
only the
lull the hum of your valved voice
unscrew
the locks from the doors
unscrew
the doors themselves from their jambs
(she)
the orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full
(he)
she convulses me like the climax of my love grip
it thumbs
me to gulps
(he)
the womb the teats breastmilk
the
naked meat of the body
(she)
bussing my body with soft and balsamic busses
(he) the circling rivers the breathing in
and out
the
thin red jellies within you and within me the bones
they
shall be stript that you may see them
a body
at auction
the
love of the body balks account
disorderly
fleshy and sensual
one of
the roughs
a
kosmos
I
moisten the roots of all that has grown
open
your scarfed chops till I blow grit within you
her
head was bare her coarse straight locks
descended
upon her voluptuous limbs
and
reached to her feet
(she)
thruster holding me tight it is for my mouth forever
(he)
outward and forever outward
I pour
the stuff to start sons and daughters
daughters
and sons
I fly the
flight of the fluid and swallowing soul
my course
runs below the sounds of plummets
the earth
is good and the stars are good
(he)
who need be afraid of the merge?
(she)
the souls moving along
(he)
houses and rooms
(she)
are full
of
perfumes
(she)
all goes onward
(he)
and upward
(she)
and nothing collapses
(he)
dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths
(she)
I feel its soft
jolts
I draw
you close to me
I press
with slow rude muscle
through
you
(she)
I drain the pent up rivers of myself
the
fruits of gushing showers loving
(he)
crops
(she)
I draw you close to me
(he)
you settled your head athwart my hips
and
gently turned over upon me
and
parted my shirt from my bosom bone
and
plunged your tongue to my barestript heart
(she)
clear and sweet is my soul
you my
rich blood
your
milky stream pale strippings of my life
(she)
I understand the large hearts of heroes
(he)
seas of bright juice suffuse heaven
(she)
there is great heat in the fire
with the
twirl of my tongue
I
encompass worlds and volumes of worlds
(he)
steeped amid honeyed morphine
I but use
you a moment
(she)
then I resign you stallion
(he)
ah! morphine
(she)
steeped amid honeyed morphine
(he)
press close bare bosomed night
(she)
press close magnetic and nourishing night
(he)
night of southwind
(she)
night of the few large stars
still
nodding night
mad naked
summer night
press
close magnetic and nourishing night
earth of
slumbering and liquid trees
smile for
your lover comes
your
lover comes