Poetry Porch 2: Poetry
The Gardens of Flora Baum
by Julia BudenzExcerpt from the five-book poem in progress (now over 1,000 pages in length)
From Book Three, "Rome"Replies to Petrarch's poem 107
15 sonnets
by Julia Budenz
List of first lines:
1. A pallid wingless utterance, O my . . .
2. Trapped! I feel the fetters, nothing more . . .
3. The rhythm, rhyme, or reason is an oak . . .
4. I sat and read. The sturdy letters strode . . .
5. Approved? By whom? Not by the literati . . .
6. Twice seven years it will be very soon . . .
7. I wrote to you when I still wrote to Joe . . .
8. How many women must I share you with. . .
9. Silence alone is golden when the sound . . .
10. Can there be grandeur in the amorous . . .
11. The artist lives within the art alone . . .
12. Power I hate and power is your mark . . .
13. I lied. I loved. I love. I will not lie . . .
14. Was I undone as Dido was undone . . .
15. Why when my admiration is so great . . .
(Reply by the rhymes to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzA pallid wingless utterance, O my,
Crept from my lips and helplessly began
To crawl along the long blue lines that ran
Across the flat blank pad. It yearned to fly,Rising on silver pinions towards a sky
Of blue infinitudes within the span
Of aquilinian wings and eyes to scan
Black seas and whitest stars of fit reply.But all its aspirations fall apart
Like feathers littering its little cage
As its thin throat is broken in the noose.Somewhere, afar, upon a better page
Scratched with miraculous and alate art
A song is launched. It soars without excuse.(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
To see the rhymes for the reply.
Return to list of first lines.(Reply 2 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzTrapped! I feel the fetters, nothing more.
Beaten! I cannot move a molecule
Of muscle. Still I strive and strive to drool
The issue not the causes of the war.The cause was love. The cause was beauty. Pour
Your scorn upon the Helen, proud and cruel,
From whom the battle raged. I was the fool.
I loved a language. No, I love, adore.I thread the needle, but I cannot sew,
Struggling to clutch each syllable just wrung
From little learned. The will is not the way.I tie my mind as I have tied my tongue,
Daring to think no more than what I know,
Able to think only what I can say.(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to list of first lines.(Reply 3 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzThe rhythm, rhyme, or reason is an oak
Tossing its golden tassels through the air
Of sweetest spring. The rosy leaflets dare
To meet the breeze with kisses. I awoke.The tiny opening had been a joke.
My little slit of window was a snare.
The leaves are greening. I became aware
That all their essences went up in smoke.And the image of them went up so sparkly
A thousand thousand sparklers charged the sky,
Arising, widening, and showering.Only one golden drop could enter my
Prison, equipped so dimly and so starkly.
Yet that one seed was instant flowering.(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to list of first lines.(Reply 4 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzI sat and read. The sturdy letters strode
Before my eyes and pranced across my mind.
I was immobilized. They were aligned
As infantry and cavalry. They flowedOver the fields along the lengths of road
On to the city where the plane trees lined
The river and the seven hills inclined
Towards that eternity which often showedIts features there. There, sitting, night and day,
I did not move. The marching phrases moved.
The clauses and the sentences came thronging.Suddenly, subtly, summoned and approved,
Through streets and gardens I, I, took my way,
Vague with love, the vagabond of longing.(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to list of first lines.(Reply 5 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzApproved? By whom? Not by the literati.
Not by the poets of our prizes’ styles.
Not by the scholars’ or the critics’ smiles.
Not by the new elite, the digerati.Not by the listings, legible but spotty,
Of bibliographies. Not by big files
Caught in the brimming net that webs the miles
Of information. By the present? Haughty,I page the past. I call upon the dead,
Appeal to Caesar. Humble, will I win
Pity, O Petrarch? Is the question moot?Would you have liked to be Pygmalion?
Had Laura answered, what could you have said?
If you responded, would I not be mute?(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to list of first lines.(Reply 6 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzTwice seven years it will be very soon,
And I remember. What do I recall?
I feel that spring, that summer, and the fall.
The winter will not enter, for my tuneIs all of rose of dawn, of gold of noon,
Of glint of glimpse of azure, of the small
Blue blooming in the huge green field, is all
Of green of leaf, of leafiness. To pruneThe oak of recollection when the snow
Has gashed the branches is perhaps a duty.
The laurel must be summering for us.Shores of some other ocean saw and know
Lineaments of such a complex beauty
That I am simply still complicitous.(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to list of first lines.(Reply 7 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzI wrote to you when I still wrote to Joe,
Yet there was no connection. Did you write
To Laura, pope, and emperor one night?
Was that the night you wrote to Cicero?Cicero spoke to me. To you, I know,
Homer, known only as one catches sight
Of a friend’s hair or distant eye’s quick light,
Addressed a letter dated from below.Joe answered. Then the man became the elm
Whose golden tresses aureoled a fall
Three thousand miles of continent from wherePacific violence might overwhelm
With azure vasts implicit in its call:
Come, angel, haloed in your golden hair.(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to list of first lines.(Reply 8 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzHow many women must I share you with?
Your lady love, the mother of your son,
Your daughter’s mother (were there two or one
Mother or mothers?), and your very kithAnd kin, dear mamma, girlchild, grandchild, pith
Of the same living tree? Or is there none
To rise beside the vibrant laurel, spun
Of sound, the image, figure, symbol, myth?Francesca, two Elettas, one or two
Anonymous, and one whose breeze-gold name
Is Love, is Loveliness, is lovely Laura,Ananonymity, sung wreathing fame
Outliving scribbled beech and vivid yew,
Cannot be fascinated fans like Flora.(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to lists of first lines.(Reply 9 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzSilence alone is golden when the sound
Of the great golden song, the golden lute,
Aureate violin, aurific flute,
Chrysostomous Promethean bard boundAs to the brow imperially crowned
Subsides to silence. Must I not be mute?
How can I answer? Do I dare to toot
My hornlet when my skiff has run aground?What drives the pond to emulate the ocean?
What wind, what moon, had power to arouse
The little ripples? What strange avalanchesCame crashing from the anthills set in motion?
What friend, what beast, lurks deep between these boughs?
Some adversary lured me through grand branches.(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to list of first lines.(Reply 10 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzCan there be grandeur in the amorous
Complaints, the lamentations of self-pity,
The sighings suspirated from each ditty,
The long soft sobbings, or the clamorousReiterations? Nothing glamorous,
Glorious, gracious, bracing, gripping, witty,
Weighty appears inherent here. The pretty
Is not our life’s willed diagram or us.The habit does not make the monk. What makes
The poem? Does the subject? Far above
Or far below the matter beats the heartOf purest form. And still my being aches.
Poet, I love you. What is it I love?
The passionate perfection of the art.(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to list of first lines.(Reply 11 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzThe artist lives within the art alone.
Then you were not a man. You could not be.
The poet has no personality.
The poet has no body of his own.His tear, his smile, his glance, his laugh, his groan
Exist as fiction, phantom, fantasy.
The form, the corpus, of his work is he,
His soul, his mind, his flesh, his blood, his bone.You climbed Parnassus, climbed the Capitol,
Triumphed. To poetry belonged the prize.
The Muses all applauded, still rejoice.Fragrance of laurel filled and filled the hall.
Did people hear your sweet strong Latin voice?
Could you have had those soft Italian eyes?(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to list of first lines.(Reply 12 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzPower I hate and power is your mark.
I speak to you no longer. Be now he.
Then they will stop their gossiping that we
Wrestle unequally in this great arcOf closure closing in through this great dark
In which I live though it is light to thee.
Be thou no longer. I am merely she
Who loves the waves whereon she must embark,The course where I have come down to the wire,
The waves he made, the very route you chart.
Must I communicate this miracle?Is he an angel? Is his sword of fire?
My adversary with that marvel, art,
Unveils a heaven and unbolts a hell.(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to list of first lines.(Reply 13 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzI lied. I loved. I love. I will not lie.
There are no battles. There are only tears.
There are no hatreds. There are only fears.
The tree has lived. The tree will never die.The tree is evergreen. It can defy
Sharp fulminations. Still its incense cheers
Dull desolations. Over us it rears
Large shade against too hot and bright a sky.We have gone down, deep down, and reached the roots
Of pleasure, of delight without alloy
In single instants of totality.We know the joy, the joy, the jewelled joy,
Emerald, sapphire, gold, leaves, blooms, and fruits.
We love the light. Into the fire we fly.(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to list of first lines.(Reply 14 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzWas I undone as Dido was undone
Or did I like Aeneas hear the call
To sail away? Could Carthage hold in thrall
One whom the gods have summoned? Does the sunSink to a burning like the love of one
Whose love was death, or will the shining ball
Rise over Rome like love that conquers all?
Was it a person, place, or thing that wonMy undefended heart? I never guessed,
When I began, that Ama, Vide, Veni,
Meant Come, Come, Come, meant For you is the nod,The thunder, of the greatest and the best.
Is it, is he, the sky, the sky’s great god,
Jupiter, golden, bright, or gray and rainy?(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to list of first lines.(Reply 15 to poem 107)
by Julia BudenzWhy when my admiration is so great
Was I so querulous and condescending?
Why when my love is passionate, unending,
Invincible, does it resemble hate?Why does the conversation seem debate,
Dispute, harsh argument, rude rough unbending
Contentiousness and testiness, all tending
To petty pawing at the prison’s grate?Why do the sweetest leaves, that from your tree
Release the sweetest shade, upon me pour
Shadows? And shall I blanch below the raysEmitted by your solar energy?
Stuttering love must grunt and gasp before
The learning and the art far past faint praise.(Copyright © 1996 by Julia Budenz)
Return to list of first lines.
Sonnets 1 through 13 by Julia Budenz are included with permission from YIP: Yale Italian Poetry, printed in vol. 1, no. 2, Fall 1997.
Sonnet 14 by Julia Budenz is included with permission from The Tennessee Review, printed in vol. 4, no. 1, Fall 1997."College of Rome" ---photograph by John Goldie
See notes about Julia Budenz.
To read more excerpts from The Gardens of Flora Baum.
