Lorine Niedecker - Paean to Place lyrics

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 watergla**- 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 woodco*ks 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 gra** 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