BRAZIL, JANUARY 1, 1502

embroidered nature . . . tapestried landscape.

— Landscape into Art, by Sir Kenneth Clark

Januaries, Nature greets our eyes

exactly as she must have greeted theirs:

every square inch filling in with foliage —

big leaves, little leaves, and giant leaves,

blue, blue-green, and olive,

with occasional lighter veins and edges,

or a satin underleaf turned over;

monster ferns

in silver-gray relief,

and flowers, too, like giant water lilies

up in the air — up, rather, in the leaves —

purple, yellow, two yellows, pink,

rust red and greenish white;

solid but airy; fresh as if just finished

and taken off the frame.

A blue-white sky, a simple web,

backing for feathery detail:

brief arcs, a pale-green broken wheel,

a few palms, swarthy, squat, but delicate;

and perching there in profile, beaks agape,

the big symbolic birds keep quiet,

each showing only half his puffed and padded,

pure colored or spotted breast.

Still in the foreground there is Sin:

five sooty dragons near some massy rocks.

The rocks are worked with lichens, gray moonbursts

splattered and overlapping,

threatened from underneath by moss

in lovely hell-green flames,

attacked above

by scaling—ladder vines, oblique and neat,

‘one leaf yes and one leaf no’ (in Portuguese).

The lizards scarcely breathe; all eyes

are on the smaller, female one, back-to,

her wicked tail straight up and over,

red as a red-hot wire.

CASABIANCA

Love's the boy stood on the burning deck

trying to recite "The boy stood on

the burning deck." Love's the son

        stood stammering elocution

        while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,

even the swimming sailors, who

would like a schoolroom platform, too,

        or an excuse to stay

        on deck. And love's the burning boy.

THE SHAMPOO

The still explosions on the rocks,

the lichens, grow

by spreading, gray, concentric shocks.

They have arranged

to meet the rings around the moon, although

within our memories they have not changed.

And since the heavens will attend

as long on us,

you've been, dear friend,

precipitate and pragmatical;

and look what happens.  For Time is

nothing if not amenable.

The shooting stars in your black hair

in bright formation

are flocking where,

so straight, so soon?

--Come, let me wash it in this big tin basin,

battered and shiny like the moon.

ARRIVAL AT SANTOS

Here is a coast; here is a harbor; 

here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery: 

impractically shaped and--who knows?--self-pitying mountains, 

sad and harsh beneath their frivolous greenery,

with a little church on top of one. And warehouses,

some of them painted a feeble pink, or blue, 

and some tall, uncertain palms. Oh, tourist,

is this how this country is going to answer you

and your immodest demands for a different world, 

and a better life, and complete comprehension

of both at last, and immediately, 

after eighteen days of suspension?

Finish your breakfast. The tender is coming, 

a strange and ancient craft, flying a strange and brilliant rag. 

So that's the flag. I never saw it before. 

I somehow never thought of there being a flag,

but of course there was, all along. And coins, I presume,

and paper money; they remain to be seen. 

And gingerly now we climb down the ladder backward, 

myself and a fellow passenger named Miss Breen,

descending into the midst of twenty-six freighters

waiting to be loaded with green coffee beaus.

Please, boy, do be more careful with that boat hook!

Watch out! Oh! It has caught Miss Breen's

skirt! There! Miss Breen is about seventy, 

a retired police lieutenant, six feet tall, 

with beautiful bright blue eyes and a kind expression.

Her home, when she is at home, is in Glens Fall

s, New York. There. We are settled. 

The customs officials will speak English, we hope, 

and leave us our bourbon and cigarettes.

Ports are necessities, like postage stamps, or soap,

but they seldom seem to care what impression they make, 

or, like this, only attempt, since it does not matter, 

the unassertive colors of soap, or postage stamps-- 

wasting away like the former, slipping the way the latter

do when we mail the letters we wrote on the boat, 

either because the glue here is very inferior 

or because of the heat. We leave Santos at once; 

we are driving to the interior.

MANUELZINHO

[Brazil. A friend of the writer is speaking.]

Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—

a sort of inheritance; white,

in your thirties now, and supposed

to supply me with vegetables,

but you don't; or you won't; or you can't

get the idea through your brain—

the world's worst gardener since Cain.

Titled above me, your gardens

ravish my eyes. You edge

the beds of silver cabbages

with red carnations, and lettuces

mix with alyssum. And then

umbrella ants arrive,

or it rains for a solid week

and the whole thing's ruined again

and I buy you more pounds of seeds,

imported, guaranteed,

and eventually you bring me

a mystic thee-legged carrot,

or a pumpkin "bigger than the baby."

I watch you through the rain,

trotting, light, on bare feet,

up the steep paths you have made—

or your father and grandfather made—

all over my property,

with your head and back inside

a sodden burlap bag,

and feel I can't endure it

another minute; then,

indoors, beside the stove,

keep on reading a book.

You steal my telephone wires,

or someone does. You starve

your horse and yourself

and your dogs and family.

among endless variety,

you eat boiled cabbage stalks.

And once I yelled at you

so loud to hurry up

and fetch me those potatoes

your holey hat flew off,

you jumped out of your clogs,

leaving three objects arranged 

in a triangle at my feet,

as if you'd been a gardener

in a fairy tale all this time

and at the word "potatoes"

had vanished to take up your work

of fairy prince somewhere.

The strangest things happen to you.

Your cows eats a "poison grass"

and drops dead on the spot.

Nobody else's does.

And then your father dies,

a superior old man

with a black plush hat, and a moustache

like a white spread-eagled sea gull.

The family gathers, but you,

no, you "don't think he's dead!

I look at him. He's cold.

They're burying him today.

But you know, I don't think he's dead."

I give you money for the funeral

and you go and hire a bus

for the delighted mourners,

so I have to hand over some more

and then have to hear you tell me

you pray for me every night!

And then you come again,

sniffing and shivering,

hat in hand, with that wistful

face, like a child's fistful

of bluets or white violets,

improvident as the dawn,

and once more I provide

for a shot of penicillin

down at the pharmacy, or 

one more bottle of

Electrical Baby Syrup.

Or, briskly, you come to settle

what we call our "accounts,"

with two old copybooks,

one with flowers on the cover,

the other with a camel.

immediate confusion.

You've left out decimal points.

Your columns stagger,

honeycombed with zeros.

You whisper conspiratorially;

the numbers mount to millions.

Account books? They are Dream Books.

in the kitchen we dream together

how the meek shall inherit the earth—

or several acres of mine.

With blue sugar bags on their heads,

carrying your lunch,

your children scuttle by me

like little moles aboveground,

or even crouch behind bushes

as if I were out to shoot them!

—Impossible to make friends,

though each will grab at once

for an orange or a piece of candy.

Twined in wisps of fog,

I see you all up there

along with Formoso, the donkey,

who brays like a pump gone dry,

then suddenly stops.

—All just standing, staring

off into fog and space.

Or coming down at night,

in silence, except for hoofs,

in dim moonlight, the horse

or Formoso stumbling after.

Between us float a few

big, soft, pale-blue,

sluggish fireflies,

the jellyfish of the air...

Patch upon patch upon patch,

your wife keeps all of you covered.

She has gone over and over

(forearmed is forewarned)

your pair of bright-blue pants

with white thread, and these days

your limbs are draped in blueprints.

You paint—heaven knows why—

the outside of the crown

and brim of your straw hat.

Perhaps to reflect the sun?

Or perhaps when you were small,

your mother said, "Manuelzinho,

one thing; be sure you always

paint your straw hat."

One was gold for a while,

but the gold wore off, like plate.

One was bright green. Unkindly,

I called you Klorophyll Kid.

My visitors thought it was funny.

I apologize here and now.

You helpless, foolish man,

I love you all I can,

I think. Or I do?

I take off my hat, unpainted

and figurative, to you.

Again I promise to try.