A Tall Man Executes a Jig, 1963

ISo the man spread his blanket on the fieldAnd watched the shafts of light between the tuftsAnd felt the sun push the grass towards him;The noise he heard was that of whizzing flies,The whistlings of some small imprudent birds,And the ambiguous rumbles of carsThat made him look up at the sky, awareOf the gnats that tilted against the windAnd in the sunlight turned to jigging motes.Fruitflies he’d call them except there was no fruitAbout, spoiling to hatch these glitterings,These nervous dots for which the mind suppliedThe closing sentences from Thucydides,Or from Euclid having a savage nightmare.

IIJig jig, jig jig. Like miniscule black linksOf a chain played with by some playfulUnapparent hand or the palpitantSummer haze bored with the hour’s stillness.He felt the sting and tingle afterwardsOf those leaving their unorthodox unrest,Leaving their undulant excitationTo drop upon his sleeveless arm. The grass,Even the wildflowers become black hairsAnd himself a maddened speck among them.Still the assaults of the small flies made himGlad at last, until he saw purest joyIn their frantic jiggings under a hair,So changed from those in the unrestraining air.

IIIHe stood up and felt himself enormous.Felt as might Donatello over stone,Or Plato, or as a man who has heldA loved and lovely woman in his armsAnd feels his forehead touch the emptied skyWhere all antinomies flood into light.Yet jig jig jig, the haloing black jotsMeshed with the wheeling fire of the sun:Motion without meaning, disquietudeWithout sense or purpose, ephemeridesThat mottled the resting summer air tillGusts swept them from his sight like wisps of smoke.Yet they returned, bringing a bee who, seeingBut a tall man, left him for a marigold.

IVHe doffed his aureole of gnats and movedOut of the field as the sun sank down,A dying god upon the blood-red hills.Ambition, pride, the ecstasy of sex,And all circumstances of delight and grief,That blood upon the mountain’s side, that floodWashed into a clear incredible poolBelow the ruddied peaks that pierced the sun.He stood still and waited. If everThe hour of revelation was comeIt was now, here on the transfigured steep.The sky darkened. Some birds chirped. Nothing else.He thought the dying god had gone to sleep:An Indian fakir on his mat of nails.

VAnd on the summit of the asphalt roadWhich stretched towards the fiery town, the manSaw one hill raised like a hairy arm, darkWith pines and cedars against the stricken sun—The arm of Moses or of Joshua.He dropped his head and let fall the haloOf mountains, purpling and silent as time,To see temptation coiled before his feet:A violated grass snake that luggedIts intestine like a small red valise.A cold-eyed skinflint it now was, and notThe manifest of that joyful wisdom,The mirth and arrogant green flame of life;Or earth’s vivid tongue that flicked in praise of earth.

VIAnd the man wept because pity was useless.‘Your jig’s up; the flies come like kites,’ he saidAnd watched the grass snake crawl towards the hedge,Convulsing and dragging into the darkThe satchel filled with curses for the earth,For the odours of warm sedge, and the sun,A blood-red organ in the dying sky.Backwards it fell into a grassy ditchExposing its underside, white as milk,And mocked by wisps of hay between its jaws;And then it stiffened to its final length.But though it opened its thin mouth to screamA last silent scream that shook the black sky,Adamant and fierce, the tall man did not curse.

VIIBeside the rigid snake the man stretched outIn fellowship of death; he lay silentAnd stiff in the heavy grass with eyes shut,Inhaling the moist odours of the nightThrough which his mind tunnelled with flicking tongueBackwards to caves, mounds, and sunken ledgesAnd desolate cliffs where come only kites,And where of perished badgers and racoonsThe claws alone remain, gripping the earth.Meanwhile the green snake crept upon the sky,Huge, his mailed coat glittering with stars that madeThe night bright, and blowing thin wreaths of cloudAthwart the moon; and as the weary manStood up, coiled above his head, transforming all.