......................................................................... THE WEATHER WITHIN by Theodore Enslin ......................................................................... In Memory In Homage George Oppen 1908-1984 .......................................................................... out of scale the consciousness brave instance of its life flickers constant inconstant make and brake the engine evident by degrees announces clearing seasonal. The given, which has concerned us, no longer strikes so deep. Age is more adventurous: That is its gift to us, and from us. We might almost wish that it were not so. Old age is poised -- rarely takes that last flight above the peaks that youth tried to scale in vain. That one within me within you asks a question of weathers those that cut those that heal nights for rest before the dawning. A picture from within a very simple picture -- not that simplicity is always the answer. It is necessary that some things grow complicated and various, although the roots are simple. Beginnings are within us. There, they had best be simple figures in quick sure strokes. What I recall is not instant -- not the instant. It was many years ago, and I may not remember all of it -- but parts that superimpose between myself, and this, which is a mirror -not the self-the same. Merely what I recognize one face to another. The air how light it is wind among trees a gentle sussurus a word exact as leaves but air so light the voices of men and women are like that a sussurus within a remembrance of weather the light of winter flaring abruptly out the heart beats on in darkness. Whenever and sometimes the few limits bounding imagination which is only free enough to mark the design of its consciousness a will. I hear the voices. What I hear grows to clearing what is not there not understood. Not disengaged exactly there are always connections which keep me in touch with others they are tenuous as those filament threads that spiders send out one clear still day in summer shimmering and catching flnally anchored each one to its proper web. It is not that by talk we have said more or less than was intended. We have said. From what we have said other things have been possible or have happened where possibility has flourished. There is no good or evil involved as consciousness what is within the talk that sounded indication is amoral and aloof always to be treated with care with respect for what may may not be beyond us. There is no story worth the telling of a story no thing we can know more than the weight of water that passes by its depth either a river or the rain driving in on a storm all wind that carries. It is myself that rages out of a fury just and unjust. How fortunate the man who is just I have never met him mixed with degrees of shade I will allow the good to bring him closer. Let me see him! If the air grows stale there is change in it. I do not know how or when but as I breathe I sense the turn as surely as the tide that freshness which opens chance that change already present. A small reverberation the word a ghost that will not conform easily to what we mean it as an example the axe will cut the word will too not on the page but lifted up to fall where it may The twist of the voice as if it would twine the whole way around these long bones an ivy which might flower and from the seed within -- protected by humus of the mind from inner storms -- a twist quick and light I know I know A fire of small things opens in the wind there are spaces hot but without color or substance. They point the way within to where small things were greater -early- before the fire swept them up. To have arrived in mere number hardly enough from which to make or take heart to have arrived something known within -- more than that not way or place in saying. Bare of sunlight or barely sun this light which surrounds what is not dark in itself barely the glow which it took from the sun a borrowing prisoned in the vital parts bare yet shrouded not echo not reflection. A place swept smooth a place where sand and wind have agreed to keep no record each time a mark appears wind or water tide or storm will erase it. The mind is like that for all its memories it has agreed to none of ours individual conditions what it keeps lies deep an animism collected from all of us in all conditions our sands swept smooth. The need to see past is of our making finally yet we have seen into less often a heedless passing swallows what is to be found spews it out again unfounded. Needs. So many things needed as many harmful often the same without looking inward we do not know the choices how to choose. There is rightness a standing up rectitude the integer of the life integer vitae we will not claim all of it that is settled outside us yet a conduct a weather within. New word new world each time a board is shaped not what its growth intended I grant you possible only a possibility one held between something made and something not. An old man looking at his artifacts this one made this other not made. It will never be the mere translucent sound that allows us to move through what we have never and cannot. Spaces within the mind are more open than we think them. The sound will gather space more than space sound leftover the light. Emotions engaged a consciousness that all has aged around us we alone remain young that is the only way of looking out what we find there only on the surface. What is within does not age. We know only our own part of it. What may be sung well sung may well be sung it is that pitiless singing changes as the bells insist their tones again the ringing in stages many stages one after another ways in or out down corridors long stopped with dust the velvet of neglect done well done may well be done. Voyage loneliness unfinished therefore lonely? no way to put it other than the chance words of loneliness voyage whatever the voyage may be or wherever we looked any of us tending fires in the galleys where we'd cook whatever food would sustain us through that loneliness. A fire even to cook at sea is hazardous business but necessary and loneliness yes. The smoke would remain long enough to blot out the sun to lay ash on the living freeze flesh to marrow all that rejoiced or sorrowed life taken as a simple commodity snuffed out in that instant reduced to the point of our thinking thought which is usual no longer a horror that we starve out the loves and remembrances as if they were no longer needed. Wind rises as a gift to spread the tedious the untidy in patterns so intricate far dispersed that there is no longer a need to dwell on these incongruities which stalk us. We are cleansed a moment ready to move on and away from the wind which is momentary unsteady and gone before us. Let it be small enough to be evident that infinite lesson of *all* the world surely its type merely that we can't take in this boundlessness enthusiasm carries over but will not enter the mind in any way equal to these small designs of blood and of water such that we see them clear impounded. Like a shadow but not there is too much not enough a substance not a substance that the mind a conscious will should presume so much so little possible like but not like not but so the world surrounds us. Not the symbol we are in need deep need of scene not what stands for it. We are fed the importance of metaphor yet when it's exact it is the scene itself exact no substitution. It applies to that day we need to bring an axe against the root of the tree. We need not reach for synonyms. The blade's the blade. Sharpen it. Lest any shadow touch the heart the heart be troubled we would be wet our feet in moonlight where the hill and mist joined forces seamed a valley seemed there and a lake and memories old stories told by campfires in the smallest watches of the night. We knew that much we tried to listen and be still yet shadows frighten and the large concerns which blot out memory moonlight the pleasures of the dark. An outlaw wind against our canon set up to move ancient dust what is never what is always done those definitions of our littleness sometimes fear a wind far out come in that does not know or love a given law. I know of no reason other than my own an explanation reasonable will not answer me. It is the true limit. I have reached it from a part of myself and I return for little to what another tells me. Opening the weather. It was here I made a law of measure wholly of my own. My reason does require me. My answer and my full degree. It is a lake its promontories deserted stations along indented shores the hidden coves lie silent except for chance waves rising from a breeze headon. Rippling and marbling a few black cones left over from the winter's drop a silent forest above. It is not unlike the nature held within us all is natural. We cannot in the end deny our nature create a thing which is not natural. Our substance flowing in ruined country that part of the land that will not hold a grave. Ah the dead imply rebirth and the reborn rejouissance. It will inform it will come from death that that dead there is the chance to breathe. The brand of learning that it be lit is enough it will be passed on though few will reach for it recognize its fire among many flames only one more faggot burning. No there is much to be said searing deep as one hand passes to another that nothing stands in the way of it. How did I know that water? I assumed its presence not that I'd been touched or wet. How? did? I? All such words which account for things until they need no saying. That does/can happen. Snapped shut the tiny lens that will not turn loose the prisoner never losing scale a seizure. The words themselves older it does not seem so possible that words which we rearrange with no difficulty should be that old without an ability to deflect our uses yet in the largest sense they do resist and elude us. They make it difficult just at the moment when they seem defenseless. In measure attempted they will assume nobility growing from the rubbish of our thoughtless assault. Oh the words. Words live lives of their own. There is an age a cover of sands which preserves it and within it does not grow old. Alas we attempt to enter it. We cannot. Only to observe to mourn our loss which may not be loss at all. We must live as we live in our own which is no time. So fleet. So fleeting. "Arrival Point" Unsure untenable points of entry more reliable in the time of Bach. Not simply the music although all is music how do we separate what carries peradventure all we are from what it carries? We do not for all attempts to avoid the true things nuggets we are joined to them by this music. Sure. Tenable. Sounds and waters wither elements cross and contain each other as they age and carry over each to each less difference they will diffuse again salts spread and scattered. The land may seem dead behind us out of scale out of color where the light has left it because we are not there to see the angle of light still left to shine on the land no it is not dead it is sleeping alone We do not understand it thinking we have left that the only land is the one we inhabit to which we came immigrants thinking the life was before us. These small distances that open song a plain chant rendering our vanities a single line explored unto its close which with an added voice would strengthen into cadence but a single line we must allow it all to end without conviction that there was an ending this/these small distances the opening of song we try to guess them and to share our pride this little trickling melody is all we have. We explain ourselves not others although we may think to hide through attention drawn away. It is a lesson learned not easily as most others not only by the time we will have no further need. One island to another yet there is more than passage islands set so similarly worlds apart stone teeth among curling lips of wave they are the artifacts distant and distinct one from another it is a voyage of discovery each unique so distant from the mainland they recede and crumble still their shapes and characters will last. Among bones teeth are like that last the longest. The harvest good they must be speaking of death that is the most reliable. Only a few stones mark the most recent but that harvest enriches all that follows and the stones themselves within us scatter and flake in the soft dark earth our roots fresh nurtured in our constant death. To summon the power shadow will appear before the fact we must watch for it aware that not all shadows prepare for anything not memorable they do no more than brush the passing of the light yet power does appear and in some instance that same power welling up alone to summon shadow long after the fact has vanished. The mind in age ascends hovers cannot come down. There is 'nowhere to return.' The turns are silent wheeling shadows high above the landscape all that bewildered us in scale but so far off it does no good to know that. I suppose it is the human condition that its parts come together only at that place where the fit is powerless a design perfect in its just repose. .......................................................................... First publication of THE WEATHER WITHIN was a cooperative effort between Landlocked Press, Woodland Pattern Arts Center, and Membrane Press (Light and Dust). Walter Tisdale produced an exquisitely printed limited edition letterpress, making a set of prints on hard stock from which Karl Young printed an offset trade edition. Some copies were sold through Membrane Press, and some were distributed by Karl Gartung and Anne Kingsbery through Woodland Pattern as a memorial to George Oppen. The John D. & Cathrine T. MacArthur Foundation funded the project. The book is presented here in its entirety. Copyright 1985 by Theodore Enslin. ..........................................................................