Ancient Fire
Poems and Translations

Peter Saint-Andre

Copyright © 2013 Peter Saint-Andre No rights reserved.
This book is licensed under the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication:
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
For other books by the author, visit
http://stpeter.im/
Published by the Monadnock Valley Press,
Parker, Colorado
Cover image by Aaron Logan
ISBN: 0615848966
ISBN-13: 978-0615848969

Ancient Fire

Poems and Translations by Peter Saint-Andre

Invocation: Ancient Fire

Strophe: Sapphic Shards

Deathless Aphrodite on your lavish throne
Come here to me from Crete
Some say...
He seems to me...
Fragments on Eros

Antistrophe: Odes of Horace

I Have Completed a Monument
The Muses' Friend
What Shall a Singer Ask of Apollo?
A Priest of the Muses
You Shun Me
Deep with Snow
The Snows Have Fled
Keep a Tranquil Mind
The Fleeting Years
It's Better to Live
This Aegean Storm
You Who Measured the Sea
Pluck the Day

Epode: Poems

In the Garden
The Measure
Cobalt
Troubadour
Liaison D'Etre
No Exit
Moving Violation
On a Visit to the Musée Rodin
Indivisible
The Problem of the One and the Many
Urban Haiku
Four Ditties
Drought
Ivy, My Enemy
Editor
Fond Wish
Crossroads
Jesus in Atlantis
Reflections on My Father's Life
Paying for Shade
Looking up at the Sky

Envoi: The Course of the Sun

Copyright

Peter Saint-Andre > Writings > Ancient Fire

This book is now available in paperback and Kindle formats.

Ancient Fire

by Peter Saint-Andre

Sing me, Muse, of your bright sister — small and dark,
They say she was, though I shall never know her.
Her song is lost, yet even her merest shards
Are a vibrant spark.

She is like a god to me, who sang that song
Of love for what one loves. A pagan was she,
Whose Christian fate it was to burn, her art cut
Short when night grew long.

Misguided faith I can forgive, but to lose
The greatest of the poets, whose song should live,
I cannot bear. I can but pay her homage:
Sappho, be my muse.

"Deathless Aphrodite on your lavish throne"

(Sappho, Fragment 1)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

Deathless Aphrodite on your lavish throne,
Enchantress, daughter of Zeus: I beg you, queen,
Do not overpower my soul with heartaches
And hard troubles,

But come here, if ever at another time
Having heard my voice you paid me attention
And leaving the golden house of your father
You came to me,

Yoking your horse and chariot: gorgeous swift
Sparrows carried you over the coal-black earth,
Thickly whirling their feathers through the midst of
Heaven's ether.

Swiftly they arrived, and you, O blessed one,
Smiling with your immortal face, you asked for
What I suffered, and why again I call you,
And what in my maddened soul I desire most
To happen to me: what dearest one shall I now
Persuade to lead you back to her — who, O Sappho,
Wronged you this time?

For even if she flees, swiftly she will pursue;
And if she does not receive my gifts, she will give;
And if she does not love me, swiftly she will love,
Even against her will. So come to my aid now,
Release me from my grievous cares, fulfill as much
As my heart yearns to be fulfilled: come, be my
Fellow-fighter.

"Come here to me from Crete"

(Sappho, Fragment 2)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

Come here to me from Crete, to your holy temple,
Where your lovely grove of apple stands,
Where the altars smoke with frankincense;

Here cold water sounds through apple branches,
The ground is all carpeted with roses,
Enchanted sleep falls from shimmering leaves;

Here the horse-grazed field
Is lush with spring flowers
And the winds sweetly blow.

Here, Cyprian goddess, you grasp
The golden cup so gracefully,
Pouring like wine the nectar
All mixed with our rejoicing.

"Some say..."

(Sappho, Fragment 16)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

Some say an army of horsemen or footmen or rowers
Is the most beautiful thing over the coal-black earth,
But I say it is that thing, whatever it is,
That one loves and desires.

All easy it is to make this clear to anyone,
For Helen, far surpassing all mortals in beauty,
Leaving behind the best of all men,
Departed, sailing for Troy —
And not at all did she remember
Parents, nor love of children,
But passion drove her.

Now my Anactoria too is gone, and
I would rather see her supple walk
And the bright sparkle of her face
Than all the chariots of Lydia
And foot-soldiers in arms.

"He seems to me..."

(Sappho, Fragment 31)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

He seems to me, that one, equal to the gods,
The man fixed there, who sits opposite you
And hears close by your sweet voice
And delightful laugh, which once
Shook the soul in my breast.

For as I look on you,
My voice yields no sound,
Gasping, my silent tongue shivers,
A thin fire runs in under my skin,
In my eyes there is no sight,
My ears pound and throb,
A chill sweat runs over me,
Trembling seizes me completely,
Paler than the reeds am I,
And, weakened, I seem little short of dying.

But all must be endured....

"Fragments on Eros" by Sappho

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

Eros shook my soul like the wind
Attacking trees on a mountain.

~

Sweet mother, I lack the power
To strike the loom — I am consumed
With love from slender Aphrodite.

~

Once again limb-loosening Eros shakes me,
A helpless crawling thing, sweet-bitter.

"I Have Completed a Monument"

(Horace, Odes III.30)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

I have completed a monument
More lasting than bronze and far higher
Than that royal pile of Pyramids,
Which the gnawing rain and furious
North wind cannot destroy, nor the chain
Of countless years and the flight of time.
My end won't be complete, and a great
Part of me will evade the death god:
I'll prosper on, fresh with future praise.
As long as the priest with the silent
Virgin climbs the Capitoline hill,
High and low — where raging Aufidus
Thunders, where Daunus rules over a
Farming people poor of water — I
Will be proclaimed to have been the first
To adapt Aeolic songs into
Italian measures. Melpomene,
Accept the proud honor you have earned
And crown my head with Delphic laurel.

"The Muses' Friend"

(Horace, Odes I.26)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

I am the Muses' friend: I consign all grief
And fear to the violent winds of the Cretan sea,
Utterly untroubled by whatever threats beset
Some exiled tyrant,

By whatever king is feared in the far icy north.
O sweet muse, you who delights in the purest of springs,
Bind together these sun-filled flowers: weave a crown
For my Lamia.

Without you, O muse, all praise of me is nothing:
So it's all fitting that you and your sisters
Should consecrate it with these fresh strings and a
Plectrum from Lesbos.

"What Shall a Singer Ask of Apollo?"

(Horace, Odes I.31)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

What shall a singer ask
Of Apollo? What shall
He request, pouring wine
From the offering bowl?

Not the fertile cornfields
Of rich Sardinia;
Not the fine herds of hot
Calabria; not gold
Or ivory from far
India; not the land
That's washed away by the
Gentle waters of the
Quiet-flowing Liris.

Let those whom Fate assigns
Prune the vines with scythes from
Calenia, so that
Some rich merchant may drink
Deeply, from golden cups,
The wine for which he trades
Syrian merchandise
(He is dear to the gods,
For three or four times each
Year he ventures out on
The Atlantic, unscathed) —
My feast shall be olives,
Chicory, and mallows.

Grant me health, I pray, and
To enjoy what I have:
To pass my old age with
A sound mind, with honor,
And with my cithara.

"A Priest of the Muses"

(Horace, Odes III.1)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

I loathe and shun the uninitiate crowd,
I keep a sacred silence: for I am
A priest of the Muses and I sing songs
Never heard before to virgins and boys.
Great rulers are feared by their subject-flocks,
But high over them is the rule of Jove,
Famed for his triumph over the Giants,
Changing all by a move of his eyebrow.
It's true that one man plants greater vineyards,
That one candidate in the Campus is
Of nobler descent whereas another is
Of greater fame and worth, and a third has
A bigger crowd of followers — yet Fate,
With blind justice, decides the end of high
And low alike: the urn stirs every name.
To one above whose neck the drawn sword hangs,
Sicilian feasts hold no sweet savor, nor will
The songs of birds and citharas let him sleep —
Yet gentle dreams do not shun peasant homes,
Shady riverbanks, and breezy valleys.
One who desires no more than his needs
Is not disturbed by stormy seas and the
Raging onset of setting Arcturus
Or rising Haedus, not by the hail that
Attacks his vines, nor by an estate that
Disappoints him, the fruit-trees now blaming
Floods, now field-parching stars, now harsh winter.
Or look here: shunning land, crowds of workers
And the contractor, and the owner himself
Lay their stones in the water, and the fishes
Are confined by pilings built in the deep;
Yet fear and threats rise up to plague the owner,
And gloomy trouble besets his bronze-beaked
Trireme and even sits behind his horsemen.
Yet if Phrygian marble and brilliant purples
And Falernian wines and Persian spices
Cannot comfort one who's in pain, why build
A huge hall with pillars in the latest style?
Why switch my Sabine vale for troublesome wealth?

"You Shun Me"

(Horace, Odes 1.23)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

You shun me like a fawn that's seeking
Through trackless hills her mother peeking,
Ill with fear of the woods and breeze;

When pliant leaves the spring winds rustle
Or lizards through the bushes bustle
She trembles in her heart and knees.

But not I like the tiger savage
Or wild lion seek to ravage:
So come, you're ripe a man to please.

"Deep with Snow"

(Horace, Odes I.9)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

You see how white Soractus stands deep with snow
And how the laboring woods cannot support
Their burden, and the rivers stand still with frost.

Drive out the cold, Thaliarchus, piling logs
High on the fire, and bring out in abundance
That four-year-old vintage in the Sabine jar.

Leave all else to the gods, for not cypresses
Nor ancient wild ash trees are disturbed when
They scatter warring winds over raging seas.

Don't bother asking what tomorrow will bring,
Consider as gain whatever days fortune
Grants — don't spurn sweet loves and dances while you're young,

While yet you flourish and capricious old age
Has not yet arrived. So let's seek out the town,
With low whispering at the appointed hour

Under the stars, the tell-tale laugh of a girl
Hiding in the farthest corner, and the pledge
Torn from her arm or finger, not unyielding.

"The Snows Have Fled"

(Horace, Odes IV.7)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

The snows have fled, already
The grass returns to the fields
And leaves return to the trees.
Earth is turning her changes,
The rivers flow less strongly.

Grace along with her Nymphs and
Twin sisters ventures naked
To lead her bands of dancers.
"Hope for immortality
Not", warn the year and the hour
That steal the nourishing day.

The Zephyr lessens the cold,
The Summer tramples the Spring
Only to be overturned
As soon as fruit-bearing Fall
Has poured forth its crops, and soon
Dead winter returns again.

Swift moons heal the heavenly
Damage — but we, when we have
Gone down where good Aeneas,
Where rich Tullus and Arcus
Have gone — we are dust and shade.

Who knows if the gods will add
Tomorrow's time to our sum?
The only thing that escapes
Your heir's grasping hands will be
What you've added to your soul.

When once you've died and Minos
Has given his distinguished
Judgment, nothing, Torquatus —
Not birth nor eloquence nor
Goodness — will restore your life.

For Diana can't release
Good Hippolytus from the
Darkness, nor has Theseus
The power to burst the chains
Of his dear Perithoös.

"Keep a Tranquil Mind"

(Horace Odes II.3)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

Remember in difficult times to
Keep a tranquil mind, and in good times
To keep from becoming overjoyed,
My Dellius who is yet to die,

Whether you live always in sadness
Or on festal days in far-off field
Reclining you take delight in a
Famed vintage of Falernian wine.

Why do the tall pine and white poplar
Love to unite their foliage in
Inviting shade? Why does the rushing
Water press on through its winding banks?

Bring wines and perfumes and the too-brief
Flower that blooms on the lovely rose
While good fortune and our youth allow,
And the dark threads of the three Sisters.

You'll leave your boughten lands and your house
In the country, washed by the Tiber —
You'll leave them, and some heir will acquire
The wealth you piled high. And whether

You're rich and of ancient lineage
Or you're poor and sleep beneath the stars,
In the end it makes no difference: for
Pitiless Orcus will have your soul.

We are all gathered to the same place:
The lot of all is turned in the urn
Of Fate, who will come forth and place us
In the skiff, for eternal exile.

"The Fleeting Years"

(Horace, Odes II.14)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

Alas, Postumus, the fleeting years
Fall away, nor will piety cause
Delay to wrinkles or advancing
Old age or indomitable death.

Even if you sacrificed a bull
Each day you couldn't placate tearless
Pluto, who with his waves imprisons
Thrice-strong Geryon and Tityos —

And those waves, my friend, must needs be crossed
By all who feed on the earth's bounty,
Whether we're kings or wretched peasants.
In vain we'll try to avoid cruel Mars

And the inconstant disturbances
That course the roaring Adriatic —
In vain through the autumn will we fear
The south wind, harmful to our bodies.

We must see the wandering, sluggish
Cocytos — the infamous offspring
Of Danaus — the son of Aeolus:
Sisyphus damned to his ceaseless toil.

We must leave behind the earth and home
And pleasing spouse, and none of those trees
You tend will follow you, its short-lived
Master, except the hated cypress.

A worthier heir will drink the wine
You guard now with a hundred keys: he'll
Drench the pavement with your best — more fine
Than that on which the highest priests do feast.

"It's Better to Live"

(Horace, Odes II.10)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

It's better to live, Licinius, neither
Always pressing out on the deep nor, trembling
And cautious, hugging overly close to the
Dangerous shoreline.

Whoever cherishes the golden mean
Safely avoids the squalor of a hovel
And discreetly keeps away from a palace
That excites envy.

Most often it's the huge pine that is shaken
By the wind, and the highest towers that fall
The greatest fall, and the tops of mountains that
Attract the lightning.

Hopeful in adversity, apprehensive
In prosperity is the heart that prepares
Well for either fate. Zeus brings the winter, but
Also takes it back.

For even if right now times are bad, they won't
Ever be that way: for Apollo doesn't
Always tense his bow, but sometimes inspires
The silent Muses.

When the straits you sail have narrowed, show yourself
To be undaunted and bold — yet also be
Wise and tuck your sails when they're swelled by too strong
A following wind.

"This Aegean Storm"

(Horace, Odes III.29)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

Maecenas, descended from Etruscan kings,
Smooth wine not yet opened and blooming roses
And fragrant hair oils have long been ready
For you at my house.

Break free from all hindrances: do not always
Contemplate the humid Tibur, Aefula's
Sloping fields, and the ridge of that parricide
Old Telegonus;

Forsaking loathsome wealth and sky-high power,
Shaking your head at the smoke and wealth and noise
Of decadent Rome, I urge you to leave: for
Change is pleasant,

And a simple dinner at a peasant's small
Hut all lacking in fine purple tapestries
Loosens the troubled brow of the richest man.
For see already:

Andromeda's shining father shows forth his
Secret fire; Procyon and the savage star
Of Leo rage, and the sun brings back the days,
Drought-filled, without rain;

The shepherd with his sluggish flock seeks out shade
And stream and the wild brambles of savage
Silvanus, and the quiet banks lack even
An unsteady breeze.

Yet you worry about the health of the State;
Troubled over the City, you're anxious about
The Seres and Cyrus-ruled Bactra and the
Fractious Scythians.

Wisely the god suppresses the outcome of
Future times in darkest night, and he laughs if
Mortals are disturbed by that which is beyond
Their proper orbit.

Take care to deal clearly with what's before you —
The rest is carried along like a river:
Now gliding calmly within its channel down
To the Tuscan sea,

Now churning gnawed rocks and uprooted tree-trunks
And cattle and homes until the surrounding
Woods and hills resound with noise when the fierce flood
Roils the placid stream.

Joyous and self-possessed is the life of he
Who each day can say: "I have lived — tomorrow
The Father may fill the sky with black storm-clouds
Or purest sunshine,

Yet even so he can't upset what is past:
He can't complete or alter or make undone
Whatever the fleeting hour has once produced."
For haughty Fortune,

So pleased with her cruel affairs and stubbornly
Playing her games, keeps shifting around all her
Dubious honors, smiling now on me and
Now on someone else.

I praise her while she stays. Yet when she spreads her
Her too-swift wings, I give back what she's granted
And wrapped in my strength I seek out poverty,
Honest and bereft.

It's not my way, when the southern gales roar out
Of Africa, to make abject prayers and
Votive offerings to strike a bargain lest
My exotic wares

Should add to the wealth of the rapacious sea;
It's then that the gods and a favoring breeze
Carry me and my two-oared skiff safely through
This Aegean storm.

"You Who Measured the Sea"

(Horace, Odes 1.28)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

You who measured the sea and the earth and the numberless sands,
You, Archytas, are now confined in a small mound of dirt
Near the Matine shore, and what good does it do you that you
Attempted the mansions of the skies and that you traversed
The round celestial vault — you with a soul born to die?

For these have perished: Tantalus, the father of Pelops,
Guest of the gods; Tithonus, scattered to the far-off winds;
Minos, privy to the secrets of Jove; Pythagoras,
Son of Panthous, held by Tartarus, consigned to Orcus
Not once but twice, who witnessed Trojan times by taking down
The shield and who conceded to dark death nothing at all
But his sinews and skin — and I know you consider him
No mean judge of nature and truth. A common night awaits
Us all, and in the end we must all tread the path of death.

Some are offered by the Furies to bloody Mars as sport;
Sailors are devoured when they go out on voracious seas;
Mixed corpses of young and old are densely packed together;
No head escapes harsh Proserpina. I've been submerged too
In Illyrian waves by Orion's swift friend, the south wind.

So, sailor, don't spite me, don't be sparing with the shifting sands,
Grant instead a little to my unburied bones and skull —
Then may you stay safe whatever the east wind vents against
Hesperian waves when Venusian woods are beaten back,
May a great reward flow down to you from Jove and Neptune.

Would you make light of committing a wrong that might bring harm
To your innocent children? For chance may yet deny you
Due justice and bring you outrageous fortune: in which case
My entreaty would not go unrewarded, nor would any
Atonement release you. Though you're in a hurry, the wait
Won't be long: scatter three handfuls of earth and scurry away.

"Pluck the Day"

(Horace, Odes I.11)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

Don't seek, my friend, we cannot say
What end's in store for you, for me:
Don't trust in vague astrology.
Better to shoulder what will be,
Whether you soon will die, or stay
To watch the shore exhaust the sea.
So drink some wine while your hours flee,
Put small trust in posterity,
And prune your hopes — but pluck the day.

In the Garden

by Peter Saint-Andre

Encampment River Trail, May 27th, 2000

In the garden of my life
I'm done with envy, done with strife.
I cultivate my natural joys
Far from this culture's fearful noise.

Congress hall and marketplace,
Fame's small change and honor's race,
Academe's cold, haughty tower —
Have no meaning, hold no power.

Letting go of shoulds and oughts,
I concentrate on greener thoughts
And find as I fulfill my soul
That things spin calmly in control —

That though events conspire still,
They tend to bend toward my will.
No greater cause achieves the measure
Than that of my own reasoned pleasure.

The Measure

by Peter Saint-Andre

Encampment River Trail, October 7th, 2000

A million grains lie in the glass:
The hours that fate may let me pass,
The hours of striving or of rest
(What at that moment I deem best).

Half of the grains wait in the top,
Half of the grains lie where they've dropped,
One grain alone moves as I live:
The hour that's full of what I give.

This hour can seem to last a day
If I but let my powers play
And give what's of my deepest core:
Thought, choice, and action — nothing more.

Yet what for me is nothing less
Are powers mixed with interest
That long and deep in me abides
Where life and nature coincide.

It's here that, when attention's strong,
Each moment seems an hour long,
The flow of time is one with pleasure,
And life achieves its natural measure.

Cobalt

by Peter Saint-Andre

My friend is a cobalt poetry goddess:
She turns her phrases with a quiet power
And dances among her words with style and grace,
Like Sappho herself.

But she's often, so often, blue: the color
Of the twilight sky, deep and clear, bordering
On the blackest night, yet never losing hold
Of the light of day.

Sometimes I wish I could brighten her a shade
Or two — make her azure or cerulean.
But then I know I'd never want to change her
Blue poetic soul.

Troubadour

by Peter Saint-Andre

I write no wondrous stories
Of mankind's vast potential;
I sculpt no human glories
Of what I deem essential.

Mine's a smaller, subtler art
Made of separate arts combined:
Music lets me voice my heart,
Poems let me sing my mind,

But a song's the wedded bliss
Of consummated pleasure
Where my soul and mind can kiss
In free melodic measure.

Liaison d'Etre

by Peter Saint-Andre

The glow of joy does not consist
In the absence of pain and fear:
I measure not my happiness
By the lack of life's negation.

In love's intimate relation
(Than which all other bonds are less),
I've found my other hemisphere
And a reason that I exist.

No Exit

by Peter Saint-Andre

If hell is other people,
As all the gloomsters say,
Then emphatic I agree:

For heaven's other people —
And the closer we lie together
The nearer my god to thee.

Moving Violation

by Peter Saint-Andre

When I heard the news, I practically choked:
My poetic license had been revoked!
It seems that the Central Poetry Board
Decided it was over me they'd lord
By taking away my avocation,
From which I gain no remuneration.

I found their reasoning convoluted
They found my reaction less than muted:
I vowed not to go from better to worse
By writing any of their fine free verse!
I'll take my metrical lines underground
Before I make verse without sense or sound.

But worst was the "crime" that incited this measure:
They claimed I'd been giving my audience pleasure!

On a Visit to the Musée Rodin

by Peter Saint-Andre

Although I know no French, the usher's glare is universal:
"Look but do not touch." Yet can one know the passion of the kiss
Just by looking? The eyes are not enough; and neither are the hands.
I require no reminder, yet here it is: in comes a girl,
Stark blind, her family leading her from room to room as I watch —
Roiled by envy, wakened by pity, held by fascination.
Her gentle warm hands move slowly over the cold unmoving
Marble, changed brusquely by its maker from unfeeling stone to
These violent images of longing, love, and living passion.
In her darkness she holds a way of knowing that's not allowed
To me. I sneak a touch while the usher is turned but it is as
Nothing to her loving caress. Once again, authorities
Enforce the dualism of eye and hand. Why can we not join
The understanding of sight and touch? It's what we need so we can feel
As much as we would feel, and live in light that does not end at stone.

Indivisible

by Peter Saint-Andre

Imagine if you were a number:
Which would you choose to be?
Something stable and solid, like two,
Or something odd, like three?

Zero would be numeric slumber,
The life of i, complex;
The air of million might entice you,
Or largest googolplex.

Perhaps you'd be the one and only,
Lost in self-absorption;
Perhaps forsake the whole adventure,
Only be a portion.

I'd risk a life that might be lonely,
But mine in all its time:
I'd open myself up to censure
And choose to be a prime.

The Problem of the One and the Many

by Peter Saint-Andre

We are all familiar, I should say, with the way geese gaggle,
bees swarm, and oxen yoke -- the way that sheep and seagulls straggle
when they unwisely stray from their appointed flock.

But do you have an inkling of the strange and wondrous habits
of creatures as divergent as rhinoceri and rabbits?
Animals guard secrets their fancy names unlock . . . .

To begin, we know that a group is made of ones who muster,
and our animal friends gain fantastic names when they cluster --
like the nightingales, who en masse become a watch.

Watches of birds, though, I dare say, are nothing nearly so strange
as troops of kangaroos (in formation) hopping on the range,
or holy exaltations of ecstatic larks!

But turn from sacred to profane: consider the lowly crow,
whose group is called a murder! And the elks, who in numbers show
themselves to be a gang -- yet still they roam our parks!

A litter of piglets, a pod of seals, turtles in a bale:
shall we tie them with a string of ponies, set them out for sale --
on a bed of oysters, for optimum display?

. . . . The words are stuck like a knot of toads, to tell me who I am,
how I should live and travel: whether grouped like whales in a gam
or alone, like a needle in a stack of hay . . . .

A company of parrots may be founded by one who dares,
a school of fish or a band of monkeys formed by one who cares;
the peace of nations dreamt by doves who league in dules.

Hens and chicks, or so I've heard, have tendencies to brood and clutch;
the hogs just drift, the hares are down, and the foxes skulk so much
they've lost their craft at leaping over spans of mules.

See the mustering of the storks, and the vicious hordes of gnats!
Hounds are mute and the woodcocks fall 'midst the clutter of the cats
while the herons' siege runs strong, sounder than the swine.

But hark, glad tidings of magpies! For the finches love to charm:
bouquets of pheasants (they are aware) can surely do no harm;
sparrows play gracious host, and cast their hawks like wine.

Pride, all but the lions know, is commonly counted a sin --
a plague of locusts on your house if you let such vices in
as peacock ostentation, and the sloth of bears.

What can one build? Perhaps a nest, of rabbits or of vipers!
Or a route of wolves for trips of goats, safe from tribes of snipers,
where cattle drove in fear of dragons in their lairs!

Build and build again: rafters of turkeys, colonies of ants:
seek the aid of an elephant herd to help you make your chance,
ignore the starlings' murmurations while you're young . . . .

What can we learn from animal terms against which you may rail,
from teams of horses and ducks, from coveys of partridge and quail?
The question, I'm sure, is on the tip of your tongue:

Am I just part of a swarm or clan,
mere member of some coterie?
Or perhaps, perhaps, am I a man --
alone, myself, uniquely me?

Urban Haiku

by Peter Saint-Andre

Old woman crossing.
Two thin legs and a walker.
Good it's a long light.

~

Orange city glow
Reflected from clouds above
Bathes the swirling snow.

~

There's no foundation
All the way along the line:
Broadway crazy man.

~

Top-down white Corvette
Blaring down Fifth Avenue.
Six below zero.

~

Fighting traffic noise
Underneath a cherry tree
Practicing bagpipes.

~

Trees as thin as poles
Struggle up through sidewalk holes.
How many will live?

~

Around Columbus,
Like the pigeons overhead,
Taxis keep circling.

~

She has no home but
Her nails are always polished,
Waiting for the bus.

~

Summer in the park:
Homeless men spend warm bright days
Sleeping in the shade.

~

Taxis, trucks, and cars
Intertwine without touching...
A delicate dance.

~

Flapping and whirling
Like a streetwise break dancer,
A pigeon's death-throes.

~

A sea of silver
Clouds below, except the tips
Of two white towers.

~

Deep in her smartphone,
Turning the corner she steps
Deep in wet cement.

~

Countless lonely drops
Joined against their will: mighty
Rivers of traffic.

Four Ditties

by Peter Saint-Andre

Mortality

I hate my own mortality,
I wish I could live forever:
then I might have the smallest chance
to show you how much I love you.

Cosmic Gestalt

New Age Man cultivates arcane arts
and listens for what no other hears;
he thinks that the music of the spheres
is greater than the hum of its parts.

A Distinction

Society is you and me
and a thousand million others;
our interaction sets us free,
but government action smothers.

Revere the Modern

Today if we protested levies on tea
and needed to warn of attacks,
we'd send an email and the message would be:
one if by phone, two if by fax.

Drought

by Peter Saint-Andre

Acorn-pummeled, the house withstands
The onslaught of overhanging oaks,
Whose outstretched arms had once stood guard,
Whose dried-up fruit lies deep now on the yard.

Likewise, the verdure of the lawn
(Green carpet rolled out to greet the world)
Has turned to tawny brown and bare
Except where crabgrass clings, like tufts of hair.

Though droopy plants are nodding off
And the parched earth cries for dew and rain,
The oaks stand strong (their roots run deep)
And life is merely lying low, asleep.

Ivy, My Enemy

by Peter Saint-Andre

There's something quite creepy about ivy
that makes it act all too alivey:
the slithering mass of it climbs up your house
and clings to your stone or your brick;
its feet are like glue and its stalk grows as thick
as a snake in your garden that's swallowed a mouse.

On the ground, I suppose, the plant's not such a pest —
but when it climbs, my loathing cannot be expressed.
No, I'm never afraid to assert my opinion
about this green menace of the vast plant dominion:
though some people say that the vine has its worth,
I'd just as soon see it removed from the earth!

Editor

by Peter Saint-Andre

There's nothing that's quite as horrific
as an editor's pen prolific
marking off which word, which phrase, which page
survives unscathed the editor's rage.
['Rampage', perhaps, is more specific. — Ed.]

You'll start to feel the imposition
of add and cut and transposition,
you'll start to fight for your wordy dream
against those changes that make you scream....
Confronted with his erudition
your protest ends up in contrition.

Eventually you'll drop resistance,
you'll change it all at his insistence,
in this and each and every instance.
And all of this madness for a fee —
you'll dearly wish that he just could be
edited right out of existence!

Fond Wish

by Peter Saint-Andre

Somewhere in the mountains in the
Wilds of Wyoming,
I'll find some land and make my stand
And finally end my roaming.
I'll bide my time by the high tree line
Where the mountains meet the sky.
I'll spend each season in joy and reason,
And live free till I die.

Crossroads

by Peter Saint-Andre

(after José Ortega y Gasset)

When you finally arrive at
The crossroads of your life
Do not plunge blindly on through, but
Stop: inquire deeply
Into yourself, come to know the
Meaning of your ideal,
Shine great light on your vocation,
And only then move on.

Jesus in Atlantis

by Peter Saint-Andre

I never claimed to be the Christ,
The son of God, the savior of man,
A worker of wonders,
The ender of plunder —
Martyred and anointed,
Divinely appointed
To cleanse all living men of sin.

Such sin I did not recognize:
Violations of long-dead rules.
I brooked no division,
No unnatural fission;
I sought one congregation,
One fellowship of nations,
One home on earth for all to live in.

Upon my death they brought me here:
The home of heroes, not of saints.
At first I didn't understand
Why this was my final land,
Why my death upon a cross
Was a world entire's loss,
How sweet the fruits were of my search.

Only slowly did I come to see
The meaning of my too-brief life:
Why some I taught did shun
The man to make god's son,
And why they lost their way
In a crowd of gods and strayed
From simple truths to build a church.

Now every year brings fresh reports
Of violence done (and in my name!)
To what I held divine:
The heart and soul and mind
Of each sacred living man —
Not the so-called higher plans
Of gods above and kings below.

I never lusted for the power
That kings and gods and rulers hold;
I wanted only to teach,
Not really even to preach,
To live with those who'd share
My way of being, bare
Of pretense, falseness, show.

Oh would that I could intervene
And live with men a second time,
Just as some have prophesied:
Straighten out my legacy —
Though not as they imagine —
And wipe away the sin
That lies deep on my land of birth.

For Christians with their hundred sects,
And even their many heretics,
Came to love authority
Of the kind that murdered me,
Lost their love for that thing —
The human soul — that brings
Good will to men and peace on earth.

Reflections on My Father's Life

by Peter Saint-Andre

As the generations of leaves,
So the generations of men.
Down to earth the wind shoots the leaves,
But forest trees burst forth again
In the hour when spring is born:
So one generation of men
Dies off while another grows strong.
The Iliad, VI.146-149

As the generations of leaves,
So the generations of men.
Yet what's the value of one leaf?
Can it be just to grow the stem?
I think not, but I'm not sure why:
For if I say, as I am wont,
That meaning's made whenever I
Create some value in the world,
Then it would seem the worth of one
Is only in his strength to serve,
To build the beam and build the bough
So others yet may bud and grow
And, having built, may fall to earth
When winter of their time has come.

But so to speak ignores the joy
And pride that comes from bringing new
And unique value to the world
Or keeping whole what's come before,
For sake of others and oneself.
For there's no conflict here: we each
Pursue an interest in the good
Through single acts that are yet whole
And so create without intent
A world that's better for us all.

Thus my father lived: he healed men
Who fought in war then fought again
To gain their health; he sought to save
The land he loved and to preserve
A life long lost through buildings that
The farmers made before our time
(He tried to keep their virtues, too:
Straight honesty with all he knew);
He kept his wife till death did part
And raised four children, all with love
And joy in that most awesome task.

A leaf has fallen from the tree:
And all I ask is that he gain
A due amount of honor from
The ones he touched and left behind.
A leaf has fallen from the tree:
He lived with pride, he lived with joy,
And we who gather here today
Are better for his having lived.

First read at the memorial service for my father, Christ Church, Gardiner, Maine, on September 2, 1999. Slightly adjusted on November 20, 2012 in response to a friend's request for a funeral poem; see here for details.

Paying for Shade

by Peter Saint-Andre

Paying for shade,
I herd branches,
Leaves, and needles
Across the lawn —
An advancing
Line of debris,
The jetsam of
Apple and spruce.

An early snow
Means water and
Ice are mixed in
And that I'm late —
Late to garbage bags
And rakes, late to
Gathering this year's
Harvest of death.

Yet with this slough
Cleared away, there's
Room now for the
Sun to provide
What winter warmth
It can, then melt
The snows and burst
The buds of spring.

An old woman
Passes — I smile
And wave, yet her
White hair and my
Pile of fallen
Leaves remind me
Of those I loved
Who now are gone.

Looking up at the Sky

by Peter Saint-Andre

December 22, 1999

My friend, this solstice moon reminds me to look up at the sky —
The brightest moon in a hundred years, they say, but right now I
Can't make out the features I like best for all this blinding light:
The features my father taught to me on moonless winter nights
When we would walk up to Clifton Park (where summers I played ball)
And peer at the deep of space to find the Dippers large and small,
The twins, the bull, Orion's Belt, but most of all the Queen's Chair,
My favorite because harder to find and closer to my scale
And the scale of my father's love — my eye seeks it even still
Among the million numberless stars, the stars that I feel will,
Fighting distance, connect me to you, to my passed father's life,
To the numberless millions who lived on earth before my time,
To the numberless more who'll live here once I'm gone — or who may,
For all I know, not live here at all but venture out away
Into space, expand the home of man — for them the stars will be
Their park (will they play with comets as I played ball?) — yet I see
In my mind's eye that sometimes they'll look back at where the earth must lie
And feel as I do when, thinking of you, I look up at the sky.

The Course of the Sun

by Peter Saint-Andre

How high, we ask, has the sun yet climbed?
We wonder, hope, but do not know.
No other star we can see so shines,
And yet perhaps it's only show.

It can seem our star has risen far
At some times and in some respects;
But then past glory or future hope
Becomes all that our world reflects.

Except the troubled ascent of man
The world's not seen a star like this,
That rises, and falls, to rise again —
Abyss to bliss to precipice.

Yet looking closely the mind discerns
That, even when our sun grows dark,
In the molten core a fire burns,
Ignited by an ageless spark.