The Player Must Go On
Hear an audio version of this piece
of hate, re-incarnation and redemption
First Player speaks:
In the dance of incarnation,
this time you were my son.
On platforms in alleys, taverns, churches,
on the steps of the Steppes,
we played this one.
The smallness of me always underlining
the growing tree of you...
I will not let them see
this time,
how far you might rise above me.
Your grandfather once had a part,
but I lived through it, won
over him, will win
this life over you.
In my play,
my mind sunsparks on a river
of words, my emotions pop off like
the cork of your bottled life.
The wine of you already vinegared by the air
I breathe, and you
go down into the waters, diluted.
And I, not you, am the sunrise again.
But why is it you will end the play?
You’ll live,
and I'll be written out early, to die?
I had seen you in the mirror's eye and even then
tried to blink you, drink you away:
the better part of me.
But your mother asked for a child
and I let her bear you,
our love life ending with you.
You were always there, outside me, now, a son.
A gypsy once said I would end, ashes divided
so that I could not be born again.
So I have learned the spiritist's part,
planned the role I'll play: I'll return
as a lover come late to you
and frost your family life,
raise those forgotten waters of desire in you,
to flood any farm, fence, fire-hearth you've laid,
keep you on the mark I've made, small.
I will not surrender to you, ever, at all.
The son's reply: You were in my hands
You were in my hands.
Softer than sand, with only those bone
bits saying this was not ordinary garbage.
We'd burned you at your death; you were in my hands.
You asked to be buried at sea
and I threw you up into the salt-air, in two places, far apart,
so you would not do a Venus-in-the-clamshell,
reforming as sea foam
coming back as some god's terrible Botticelli seed.
You were there in the sweat from every palm ported heatscape.
I could never scrape you from my skin.
I grew, others said like a mast on one of those tall ships,
but I felt only a porthole, for others to see you, see you looking
at me with those eyes, speaking to me with that mouth, that mind
that ate mine.
I am, I shouted on too many stages,
and never saw or heard anything come back to me,
though others said roses from the women
were as piled high as summer gardens, the hands
reaching for mine like rampant tigerlily beds.
And now, that I have a little island that is me and mine,
stormed, yes, sometimes, but sunned others.
Now, why has she come late in my life to be my lover,
come with your eyes? I have a wife and child, yet
why, when I look at my lover, do I see you, Father, measuring me?
And then you're gone, and it's only she
saying, "Even if you go, I will not surrender you, ever, at all”
The new player speaks:
I am back again, playing
fawn-eyed-fern to his oak by day, then
pawing away
at his roots by night, gnawing to the
heartwood,
with action, ever so slow,
feeling every cell of him
sweat, until girdled all around,
I topple him with my script to this new play:
This is my triumphant return to the life-stage
in not the father's part, but the woman's.
I as his lover will take him down.
But I find her childhood is no better
than a man's, so with fire
in her heart, our heart, my heart, now,
against men and all they take from women,
I enter his scene. I will win, again.
But something else must have come in
when he divided me, something from that sea.
And it swells within me.
'So, this is a woman's lust,' I thought,
'much like a man's,' I thought.
But why when he speaks to me of his life,
do I remember holding the boy in my hands?
I never carried him inside,
but I feel as if he came from me
--Feel waves roll from me
as if I am bathing
him as a child, soothing
him with the balm of honey and orange trees,
a balm that comes from me.
With breasts that ache for him
and legs that part to receive him again, I am
forgetting why I tried to stunt this tree,
forgetting me.
Why, if he wants, am I surrendering
to the thought of setting him free?
Now, he is startled in his sleep,
and his arm is around me,
"I dreamed of my father," he says,
When I turn to hold him, I find I am only she.
And I say, "Tell me, Love, and you’ll be free."
First Player speaks:
In the dance of incarnation,
this time you were my son.
On platforms in alleys, taverns, churches,
on the steps of the Steppes,
we played this one.
The smallness of me always underlining
the growing tree of you...
I will not let them see
this time,
how far you might rise above me.
Your grandfather once had a part,
but I lived through it, won
over him, will win
this life over you.
In my play,
my mind sunsparks on a river
of words, my emotions pop off like
the cork of your bottled life.
The wine of you already vinegared by the air
I breathe, and you
go down into the waters, diluted.
And I, not you, am the sunrise again.
But why is it you will end the play?
You’ll live,
and I'll be written out early, to die?
I had seen you in the mirror's eye and even then
tried to blink you, drink you away:
the better part of me.
But your mother asked for a child
and I let her bear you,
our love life ending with you.
You were always there, outside me, now, a son.
A gypsy once said I would end, ashes divided
so that I could not be born again.
So I have learned the spiritist's part,
planned the role I'll play: I'll return
as a lover come late to you
and frost your family life,
raise those forgotten waters of desire in you,
to flood any farm, fence, fire-hearth you've laid,
keep you on the mark I've made, small.
I will not surrender to you, ever, at all.
The son's reply: You were in my hands
You were in my hands.
Softer than sand, with only those bone
bits saying this was not ordinary garbage.
We'd burned you at your death; you were in my hands.
You asked to be buried at sea
and I threw you up into the salt-air, in two places, far apart,
so you would not do a Venus-in-the-clamshell,
reforming as sea foam
coming back as some god's terrible Botticelli seed.
You were there in the sweat from every palm ported heatscape.
I could never scrape you from my skin.
I grew, others said like a mast on one of those tall ships,
but I felt only a porthole, for others to see you, see you looking
at me with those eyes, speaking to me with that mouth, that mind
that ate mine.
I am, I shouted on too many stages,
and never saw or heard anything come back to me,
though others said roses from the women
were as piled high as summer gardens, the hands
reaching for mine like rampant tigerlily beds.
And now, that I have a little island that is me and mine,
stormed, yes, sometimes, but sunned others.
Now, why has she come late in my life to be my lover,
come with your eyes? I have a wife and child, yet
why, when I look at my lover, do I see you, Father, measuring me?
And then you're gone, and it's only she
saying, "Even if you go, I will not surrender you, ever, at all”
The new player speaks:
I am back again, playing
fawn-eyed-fern to his oak by day, then
pawing away
at his roots by night, gnawing to the
heartwood,
with action, ever so slow,
feeling every cell of him
sweat, until girdled all around,
I topple him with my script to this new play:
This is my triumphant return to the life-stage
in not the father's part, but the woman's.
I as his lover will take him down.
But I find her childhood is no better
than a man's, so with fire
in her heart, our heart, my heart, now,
against men and all they take from women,
I enter his scene. I will win, again.
But something else must have come in
when he divided me, something from that sea.
And it swells within me.
'So, this is a woman's lust,' I thought,
'much like a man's,' I thought.
But why when he speaks to me of his life,
do I remember holding the boy in my hands?
I never carried him inside,
but I feel as if he came from me
--Feel waves roll from me
as if I am bathing
him as a child, soothing
him with the balm of honey and orange trees,
a balm that comes from me.
With breasts that ache for him
and legs that part to receive him again, I am
forgetting why I tried to stunt this tree,
forgetting me.
Why, if he wants, am I surrendering
to the thought of setting him free?
Now, he is startled in his sleep,
and his arm is around me,
"I dreamed of my father," he says,
When I turn to hold him, I find I am only she.
And I say, "Tell me, Love, and you’ll be free."