Lorine Niedecker

Paean to Place

And the place
                                       was water            
 
Fish
     fowl
           flood
     Water lily mud
My life
 
in the leaves and on water
My mother and I
                     born
in swale and swamp and sworn
to water
 
My father
thru marsh fog
     sculled down
           from high ground
saw her face
 
at the organ
bore the weight of lake water
     and the cold—
he seined for carp to be sold
that their daughter
 
might go high
on land
     to learn
Saw his wife turn
deaf
 
and away
She
     who knew boats
           and ropes
no longer played
 
 
 
 
She helped him string out nets
for tarring
     And she could shoot
           He was cool
to the man
 
who stole his minnows
by night and next day offered
     to sell them back
           He brought in a sack
of dandelion greens
 
if no flood
No oranges—none at hand
     No marsh marigold
           where the water rose
He kept us afloat
 
 
 
 
I mourn her not hearing canvasbacks
their blast—off rise
     from the water
           Not hearing sora
rails’s sweet
 
spoon—tapped waterglass—
descending scale—
     tear—drop—tittle
           Did she giggle
as a girl?
 
 
 
 
His skiff skimmed
the coiled celery now gone
     from these streams
           due to carp
He knew duckweed
 
fall—migrates
toward Mud Lake bottom
     Knew what lay
           under leaf decay
and on pickerel weeds
 
before summer hum
To be counted on:
     new leaves
           new dead
leaves
 
 
 
 
He could not
—like water bugs—
     stride surface tension
           He netted
loneliness
 
As to his bright new car
my mother—her house
     next his—averred:
           A hummingbird
can’t haul
 
Anchored here
in the rise and sink
     of life—
           middle years’ nights
he sat
 
beside his shoes
rocking his chair
     Roped not “looped
           in the loop
of her hair”
 
 
 
 
I grew in green
slide and slant
     of shore and shade
           Child—time—wade
thru weeds
 
Maples to swing from
Pewee—glissando
     sublime
           slime—
song
 
Grew riding the river
Books
     at home—pier
           Shelley could steer
as he read
 
 
 
 
I was the solitary plover
a pencil
     for a wing—bone
From the secret notes
I must tilt
 
upon the pressure
execute and adjust
     In us sea—air rhythm
“We live by the urgent wave
of the verse”
 
 
 
 
Seven year molt
for the solitary bird
     and so young
Seven years the one
dress
 
for town once a week
One for home
     faded blue—striped
as she piped
her cry
 
 
 
 
Dancing grounds
my people had none
     woodcocks had—
     backland—
air around
 
Solemnities
such as what flower
     to take
     to grandfather’s grave
unless
 
water lilies—
he who’d bowed his head
     to grass as he mowed
     Iris now grows
on fill
 
for the two
and for him
     where they lie
     How much less am I
in the dark than they?  
 
 
 
 
Effort lay in us
before religions
     at pond bottom
           All things move toward
the light
 
except those
that freely work down
     to oceans’ black depths
           In us an impulse tests
the unknown
 
 
 
 
River rising—flood
Now melt and leave home
     Return—broom wet
           naturally wet
Under
 
soak—heavy rug
water bugs hatched—
     no snake in the house
           Where were they?—
she
 
who knew how to clean up
after floods
     he who bailed boats, houses
           Water endows us
with buckled floors
 
You with sea water running
in your veins sit down in water
     Expect the long—stemmed blue
           speedwell to renew
itself
 
 
 
 
O my floating life
Do not save love
     for things
           Throw things
to the flood
 
ruined
by the flood
     Leave the new unbought—
           all one in the end—
water
 
I possessed
the high word:
     The boy my friend
           played his violin
in the great hall
 
 
 
 
On this stream
my moonnight memory
     washed of hardships
           maneuvers barges
thru the mouth
 
of the river
They fished in beauty
     It was not always so
           In Fishes
red Mars
 
rising
rides the sloughs and sluices
     of my mind
           with the persons
on the edge
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