Life and letters
The forgotten notebook
for PKD I warn you, Peter, should you look At what I've written in this book Since we were last together, You'll be dismayed, among the words (Autumn nuts the squirrel hoards) At what does not appear.
You'll find a song of winter snows — Or three, or four. As though the muse Blizzard-bound, as we were, Stayed till thaws, then fled; because Of all this Spring and Summer was Not a word is said: Suggests I carry in my head So much constriction, meanness, dread, Bleak pictures by the storefull, These can only coincide With what is happening outside When the weather's awful.
And yesterday, because a mist Draped everything in white, like frost (Cobwebs, dewed, in layers), I wrote that down, as though no thought, No jokes, illuminations, prayers, Unclenchings of the heart, Or fellowship with other's cares, Or politics, our nation's jars, Affected me one jot.
As though some stroke had made me dumb, Bucolic, inward-looking, glum, (Irrelevant, to boot.) I learn that others think this too, Each morning brings some new reviews (Kindly) of my Selected Verses, calls me 'quiet', 'true', A man who woos a rural muse, And suitably dejected.
Then when I look at what they've seen, Stuffed with bushes, stuffed with green, I'm not surprised they think so.
Glad they like it, I suppose, (They yawn in unison, snore in rows) — How did I come to sink so?
Peter, I didn't, I floated, caught Whatever light I could. . A sudden Darkness fill the air, Now, as I write; a choke of thunder.
I stretch to switch the desk-light on — A crack — it flickers out, A great light snuffs a lesser one, And I am forced to hear again The language of wild weather.
Which fits. For on the black horizon Thunder-weather lifts, a thin, A thinnest, peel of lemon Light on autumn trees against the dark Makes leaves alive as eyes, and bark A skin that glistens.
Living metallic silhouettes, Each throws back the light it gets.
And one gull floats.
Lighted from under, it turns in the bright Of dark, a stage star in limelight.
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