Nathan Zach's Love

A boy hammers on a girl’s door.

The girl doesn’t open it.

The boy’s head is spinning.

The girl’s head is spinning.

Thousands of angels escort the sun on its way,

LOVE

A boy hammers on a girl’s door.

The girl doesn’t open it.

The boy’s head is spinning.

The girl’s head is spinning.

Thousands of angels escort the sun on its way,

Flying in that unique formation peculiar to angels.

Have you ever loved me? he asks.

I love you, she answers, in a halting voice.

A boy hammers  on a girl’s door.

The girl doesn’t open it.

I love you, answers the girl,

And for the first time the boy discovers

In himself true generosity.

The angels get tired. Everything made of earth

Gets tired. The boy does not get tired.

A boy hammers  on a girl’s door.

Be astonished, O ye heavens and earth! Who knows

why a boy discovers the meaning the meaning of true generosity?

Like the mountain, says the mother. Like the mountain,

Says the child, learning by rote his mother’s old saw.

Like the mountain, says the boy, putting two  and two together.

Who understands why the boy is hammering on the girl’s

door? Who  knows why the girl doesn’t

open it?

I love you whispers the girl. I love you,

Repeat the stars, the pets in the house. 

I love you, whispers the Angel of Death

in his pure, geometric voice.

A boy hammers on a girl’s door.

How does it happen that precisely now

He learns the true meaning of generosity?

From VARIOUS POEMS: 1960

BE CAREFUL

Be careful. Open your life

only to the wind that has touched distance.

Suffer the absent. Speak up

only in the nights of solitude. Know the day,

the fixed season, the moment,

and don’t beg. Pay attention to what is still. Learn to bless

the shadow just beneath the skin. Don’t

hide in words. Sit with the counsel of worms,

the wisdom of the maggot. Don’t expect.

From EARLY POEMS: 1955

WORDS

Such joy, such pain, these are only words.

Conceal you joy. Gather your pain

into a safe place. Write only when your hand

needs nothing, not even the loose change

of the world. That which is crooked

cannot be made straight.

Don’t go on repairing it.

Such joy, such pain, people say.

They mean something other: themselves.

Lie in wait; surprise yourself 

in secrecy, in blood: when such joy appears, 

such pain, tell yourself that a man

is not suited for such joy,

such pain forever, has no right

to strut it out on stage, no right

with such joy, such pain

to wound himself,

more, to wound others. Such joy,

such pain—didn’t you know?—

they come and go.

From ALL THE MILK AND THE HONEY: 1966

Image: Mario Cavaglieri, Giulietta lean on a table, 1922

Reading by Alessandro Cassin