Chapter 3

In the days of President Washington, The glory of the nations, Dust and ashes, Snow and sleet, And hay and oats and wheat, Blew west, Crossed the Appalachians, Found the glades of rotting leaves, the soft deer-pastures, The farms of the far-off future In the forest. Colts jumped the fence, Snorting, ramping, snapping, sniffing, With gastronomic calculations, Crossed the Appalachians, The east walls of our citadel, And turned to gold-horned unicorns, Feasting in the dim, volunteer farms of the forest. Stripedest, kickingest kittens escaped, Caterwauling "Yankee Doodle Dandy," Renounced their poor relations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to tiny tigers In the humorous forest. Chickens escaped From farmyard congregations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to amber trumpets On the ramparts of our Hoosiers' nest and citadel, Millennial heralds Of the foggy mazy forest. Pigs broke loose, scrambled west, Scorned their loathsome stations, Crossed the Appalachians, Turned to roaming, foaming wild boars Of the forest. The smallest, blindest puppies toddled west While their eyes were coming open, And, with misty observations, Crossed the Appalachians, Barked, barked, barked At the glow-worms and the marsh lights and the lightning-bugs, And turned to ravening wolves Of the forest. Crazy parrots and canaries flew west, Drunk on May-time revelations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to delirious, flower-dressed fairies Of the lazy forest. Haughtiest swans and peacocks swept west, And, despite soft derivations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to blazing warrior souls Of the forest, Singing the ways Of the Ancient of Days. And the "Old Continentals In their ragged regimentals," With bard's imaginations, Crossed the Appalachians. And A boy Blew west And with prayers and incantations, And with "Yankee Doodle Dandy," Crossed the Appalachians, And was "young John Chapman," Then "Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed," Chief of the fastnesses, dappled and vast, In a pack on his back, In a deer-hide sack, The beautiful orchards of the past, The ghosts of all the forests and the groves-- In that pack on his back, In that talisman sack, To-morrow's peaches, pears and cherries, To-morrow's grapes and red raspberries, Seeds and tree souls, precious things, Feathered with microscopic wings, All the outdoors the child heart knows, And the apple, green, red, and white, Sun of his day and his night-- The apple allied to the thorn, Child of the rose. Porches untrod of forest houses All before him, all day long, "Yankee Doodle" his marching song; And the evening breeze Joined his psalms of praise As he sang the ways Of the Ancient of Days.

Leaving behind august Virginia, Proud Massachusetts, and proud Maine, Planting the trees that would march and train On, in his name to the great Pacific, Like Birnam wood to Dunsinane, Johnny Appleseed swept on, Every shackle gone, Loving every sloshy brake, Loving every skunk and snake, Loving every leathery weed, Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed, Master and ruler of the unicorn-ramping forest, The tiger-mewing forest, The rooster-trumpeting, boar-foaming, wolf-ravening forest, The spirit-haunted, fairy-enchanted forest, Stupendous and endless, Searching its perilous ways In the name of the Ancient of Days.

III. ~The Indians Worship Him, but He hurries on~

Painted kings in the midst of the clearing Heard him asking his friends the eagles To guard each planted seed and seedling. Then he was a god, to the red man's dreaming; Then the chiefs brought treasures grotesque and fair,-- Magical trinkets and pipes and guns, Beads and furs from their medicine-lair,-- Stuck holy feathers in his hair, Hailed him with austere delight. The orchard god was their guest through the night.

While the late snow blew from bleak Lake Erie, Scourging rock and river and reed, All night long they made great medicine For Jonathan Chapman, Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed; And as though his heart were a wind-blown wheat-sheaf, As though his heart were a new-built nest, As though their heaven house were his breast, In swept the snow-birds singing glory. And I hear his bird heart beat its story, Hear yet how the ghost of the forest shivers, Hear yet the cry of the gray, old orchards, Dim and decaying by the rivers, And the timid wings of the bird-ghosts beating, And the ghosts of the tom-toms beating, beating.

[Sidenote: _While you read, hear the hoof-beats of deer in the snow. And see, by their track, bleeding footprints we know._]

But he left their wigwams and their love. By the hour of dawn he was proud and stark, Kissed the Indian babes with a sigh, Went forth to live on roots and bark, Sleep in the trees, while the years howled by--

Calling the catamounts by name, And buffalo bulls no hand could tame, Slaying never a living creature, Joining the birds in every game, With the gorgeous turkey gobblers mocking, With the lean-necked eagles boxing and shouting; Sticking their feathers in his hair,-- Turkey feathers, Eagle feathers,-- Trading hearts with all beasts and weathers He swept on, winged and wonder-crested, Bare-armed, barefooted, and bare-breasted.

[Sidenote: _While you read, see conventions of deer go by. The bucks toss their horns, the fuzzy fawns fly._]

The maples, shedding their spinning seeds, Called to his appleseeds in the ground, Vast chestnut-trees, with their butterfly nations, Called to his seeds without a sound. And the chipmunk turned a "summer-set," And the foxes danced the Virginia reel; Hawthorne and crab-thorn bent, rain-wet, And dropped their flowers in his night-black hair; And the soft fawns stopped for his perorations; And his black eyes shone through the forest-gleam, And he plunged young hands into new-turned earth, And prayed dear orchard boughs into birth; And he ran with the rabbit and slept with the stream. And he ran with the rabbit and slept with the stream. And so for us he made great medicine, And so for us he made great medicine, In the days of President Washington.

III. ~Johnny Appleseed's Old Age~

[Sidenote: _To be read like faint hoof-beats of fawns long gone From respectable pasture, and park and lawn, And heartbeats of fawns that are coming again When the forest, once more, is the master of men._]

Long, long after, When settlers put up beam and rafter, They asked of the birds: "Who gave this fruit? Who watched this fence till the seeds took root? Who gave these boughs?" They asked the sky, And there was no reply. But the robin might have said, "To the farthest West he has followed the sun, His life and his empire just begun."

Self-scourged, like a monk, with a throne for wages, Stripped like the iron-souled Hindu sages, Draped like a statue, in strings like a scarecrow, His helmet-hat an old tin pan, But worn in the love of the heart of man, More sane than the helm of Tamerlane, Hairy Ainu, wild man of Borneo, Robinson Crusoe--Johnny Appleseed; And the robin might have said, "Sowing, he goes to the far, new West, With the apple, the sun of his burning breast-- The apple allied to the thorn, Child of the rose."

Washington buried in Virginia, Jackson buried in Tennessee, Young Lincoln, brooding in Illinois, And Johnny Appleseed, priestly and free, Knotted and gnarled, past seventy years, Still planted on in the woods alone. Ohio and young Indiana-- These were his wide altar-stone, Where still he burnt out flesh and bone. Twenty days ahead of the Indian, twenty years ahead of the white man, At last the Indian overtook him, at last the Indian hurried past him; At last the white man overtook him, at last the white man hurried past him; At last his own trees overtook him, at last his own trees hurried past him. Many cats were tame again, Many ponies tame again, Many pigs were tame again, Many canaries tame again; And the real frontier was his sun-burnt breast.

From the fiery core of that apple, the earth, Sprang apple-amaranths divine. Love's orchards climbed to the heavens of the West, And snowed the earthly sod with flowers. Farm hands from the terraces of the blest Danced on the mists with their ladies fine; And Johnny Appleseed laughed with his dreams, And swam once more the ice-cold streams. And the doves of the spirit swept through the hours, With doom-calls, love-calls, death-calls, dream-calls; And Johnny Appleseed, all that year, Lifted his hands to the farm-filled sky, To the apple-harvesters busy on high; And so once more his youth began, And so for us he made great medicine-- Johnny Appleseed, medicine-man. Then The sun was his turned-up broken barrel, Out of which his juicy apples rolled, Down the repeated terraces, Thumping across the gold, An angel in each apple that touched the forest mold, A ballot-box in each apple, A state capital in each apple, Great high schools, great colleges, All America in each apple, Each red, rich, round, and bouncing moon That touched the forest mold. Like scrolls and rolled-up flags of silk, He saw the fruits unfold, And all our expectations in one wild-flower-written dream, Confusion and death sweetness, and a thicket of crab-thorns, Heart of a hundred midnights, heart of the merciful morns. Heaven's boughs bent down with their alchemy, Perfumed airs, and thoughts of wonder. And the dew on the grass and his own cold tears Were one in brooding mystery, Though death's loud thunder came upon him, Though death's loud thunder struck him down-- The boughs and the proud thoughts swept through the thunder, Till he saw our wide nation, each State a flower, Each petal a park for holy feet, With wild fawns merry on every street, With wild fawns merry on every street, The vista of ten thousand years, flower-lighted and complete.

Hear the lazy weeds murmuring, bays and rivers whispering, From Michigan to Texas, California to Maine; Listen to the eagles, screaming, calling, "Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed," There by the doors of old Fort Wayne.

In the four-poster bed Johnny Appleseed built, Autumn rains were the curtains, autumn leaves were the quilt. He laid him down sweetly, and slept through the night, Like a bump on a log, like a stone washed white, There by the doors of old Fort Wayne.

I KNOW ALL THIS WHEN GIPSY FIDDLES CRY

Oh, gipsies, proud and stiff-necked and perverse, Saying: "We tell the fortunes of the nations, And revel in the deep palm of the world. The head-line is the road we choose for trade. The love-line is the lane wherein we camp. The life-line is the road we wander on. Mount Venus, Jupiter, and all the rest Are finger-tips of ranges clasping round And holding up the Romany's wide sky."

Oh, gipsies, proud and stiff-necked and perverse, Saying: "We will swap horses till the doom, And mend the pots and kettles of mankind, And lend our sons to big-time vaudeville, Or to the race-track, or the learned world. But India's Brahma waits within their breasts. They will return to us with gipsy grins, And chatter Romany, and shake their curls And hug the dirtiest babies in the camp. They will return to the moving pillar of smoke, The whitest toothed, the merriest laughers known, The blackest haired of all the tribes of men. What trap can hold such cats? The Romany Has crossed such delicate palms with lead or gold, Wheedling in sun and rain, through perilous years, All coins now look alike. The palm is all. Our greasy pack of cards is still the book Most read of men. The heart's librarians, We tell all lovers what they want to know. So, out of the famed Chicago Library, Out of the great Chicago orchestras, Out of the skyscraper, the Fine Arts Building, Our sons will come with fiddles and with loot, Dressed, as of old, like turkey-cocks and zebras, Like tiger-lilies and chameleons, Go west with us to California, Telling the fortunes of the bleeding world, And kiss the sunset, ere their day is done."

Oh, gipsies, proud and stiff-necked and perverse, Picking the brains and pockets of mankind, You will go westward for one-half hour yet. You will turn eastward in a little while. You will go back, as men turn to Kentucky, Land of their fathers, dark and bloody ground. When all the Jews go home to Syria, When Chinese cooks go back to Canton, China, When Japanese photographers return With their black cameras to Tokio, And Irish patriots to Donegal, And Scotch accountants back to Edinburgh, You will go back to India, whence you came. When you have reached the borders of your quest, Homesick at last, by many a devious way, Winding the wonderlands circuitous, By foot and horse will trace the long way back! Fiddling for ocean liners, while the dance Sweeps through the decks, your brown tribes all will go! Those east-bound ships will hear your long farewell On fiddle, piccolo, and flute and timbrel. I know all this, when gipsy fiddles cry.

That hour of their homesickness, I myself Will turn, will say farewell to Illinois, To old Kentucky and Virginia, And go with them to India, whence they came. For they have heard a singing from the Ganges, And cries of orioles,--from the temple caves,-- And Bengal's oldest, humblest villages. They smell the supper smokes of Amritsar. Green monkeys cry in Sanskrit to their souls From lofty bamboo trees of hot Madras. They think of towns to ease their feverish eyes, And make them stand and meditate forever, Domes of astonishment, to heal the mind. I know all this, when gipsy fiddles cry.

What music will be blended with the wind When gipsy fiddlers, nearing that old land, Bring tunes from all the world to Brahma's house? Passing the Indus, winding poisonous forests, Blowing soft flutes at scandalous temple girls, Filling the highways with their magpie loot, What brass from my Chicago will they heap, What gems from Walla Walla, Omaha, Will they pile near the Bodhi Tree, and laugh? They will dance near such temples as best suit them, Though they will not quite enter, or adore, Looking on roofs, as poets look on lilies, Looking at towers, as boys at forest vines, That leap to tree-tops through the dizzy air. I know all this, when gipsy fiddles cry.

And with the gipsies there will be a king And a thousand desperadoes just his style, With all their rags dyed in the blood of roses, Splashed with the blood of angels, and of demons. And he will boss them with an awful voice. And with a red whip he will beat his wife. He will be wicked on that sacred shore, And rattle cruel spurs against the rocks, And shake Calcutta's walls with circus bugles. He will kill Brahmins there, in Kali's name, And please the thugs, and blood-drunk of the earth. I know all this, when gipsy fiddles cry.

Oh, sweating thieves, and hard-boiled scalawags, That still will boast your pride until the doom, Smashing every caste rule of the world, Reaching at last your Hindu goal to smash The caste rules of old India, and shout: "Down with the Brahmins, let the Romany reign."

When gipsy girls look deep within my hand They always speak so tenderly and say That I am one of those star-crossed to wed A princess in a forest fairy-tale. So there will be a tender gipsy princess, My Juliet, shining through this clan. And I would sing you of her beauty now. And I will fight with knives the gipsy man Who tries to steal her wild young heart away. And I will kiss her in the waterfalls, And at the rainbow's end, and in the incense That curls about the feet of sleeping gods, And sing with her in canebrakes and in rice fields, In Romany, eternal Romany. We will sow secret herbs, and plant old roses, And fumble through dark, snaky palaces, Stable our ponies in the Taj Mahal, And sleep out-doors ourselves. In her strange fairy mill-wheel eyes will wait All windings and unwindings of the highways, From India, across America,-- All windings and unwindings of my fancy, All windings and unwindings of all souls, All windings and unwindings of the heavens. I know all this, when gipsy fiddles cry.

We gipsies, proud and stiff-necked and perverse, Standing upon the white Himalayas, Will think of far divine Yosemite. We will heal Hindu hermits there with oil Brought from California's tall sequoias. And we will be like gods that heap the thunders, And start young redwood trees on Time's own mountains. We will swap horses with the rising moon, And mend that funny skillet called Orion, Color the stars like San Francisco's street-lights, And paint our sign and signature on high In planets like a bed of crimson pansies; While a million fiddles shake all listening hearts, Crying good fortune to the Universe, Whispering adventure to the Ganges waves, And to the spirits, and all winds and gods. Till mighty Brahma puts his golden palm Within the gipsy king's great striped tent, And asks his fortune told by that great love-line That winds across his palm in splendid flame.

Only the hearthstone of old India Will end the endless march of gipsy feet. I will go back to India with them When they go back to India whence they came. I know all this, when gipsy fiddles cry.

JAMES OPPENHEIM

HEBREWS

I come of a mighty race.... I come of a very mighty race.... Adam was a mighty man, and Noah a captain of the moving waters, Moses was a stern and splendid king, yea, so was Moses.... Give me more songs like David's to shake my throat to the pit of the belly, And let me roll in the Isaiah thunder....

Ho! the mightiest of our young men was born under a star in the midwinter.... His name is written on the sun and it is frosted on the moon.... Earth breathes him like an eternal spring: he is a second sky over the Earth.

Mighty race! mighty race!--my flesh, my flesh Is a cup of song, Is a well in Asia.... I go about with a dark heart where the Ages sit in a divine thunder.... My blood is cymbal-clashed and the anklets of the dancers tinkle there.... Harp and psaltery, harp and psaltery make drunk my spirit.... I am of the terrible people, I am of the strange Hebrews.... Amongst the swarms fixed like the rooted stars, my folk is a streaming Comet, Comet of the Asian tiger-darkness, The Wanderer of Eternity, the eternal Wandering Jew....

Ho! we have turned against the mightiest of our young men And in that denial we have taken on the Christ, And the two thieves beside the Christ, And the Magdalen at the feet of the Christ, And the Judas with thirty silver pieces selling the Christ,-- And our twenty centuries in Europe have the shape of a Cross On which we have hung in disaster and glory....

Mighty race! mighty race!--my flesh, my flesh Is a cup of song, Is a well in Asia.

ALFRED KREYMBORG

ADAGIO: A DUET

(_For J. S. and L. U._)

Should you lay ear to these lines-- you will not catch a distant drum of hoofs, cavalcade of Arabians, passionate horde bearing down, destroying your citadel-- but maybe you'll hear-- should you just listen at the right place, hold it tenaciously, give your full blood to the effort-- maybe you'll note the start of a single step, always persistently faint, wavering in its movement between coming and going, never quite arriving, never quite passing-- and tell me which it is, you or I that you greet, searching a mutual being-- and whether two aren't closer for the labor of an ear?

DIE KÜCHE

She lets the hydrant water run: He fancies lonely, banal, bald-headed mountains, affected by the daily caress of the tropical sun, weeping tears the length of brooks down their faces and flanks. She lets the hydrant water run: He hearkens Father Sebastian cooking and spreading homely themes over an inept-looking clavier confounding the wits of his children and all men's children down to the last generation. He marvels at the paradox, drums his head with the tattoo: how can a thing as small as he shape and maintain an art out of himself universal enough to carry her daily vigil to crystalled immortality? She lets the hydrant water run.

RAIN

It's all very well for you suddenly to withdraw and say, I'll come again, but what of the bruises you've left, what of the green and the blue, the yellow, purple and violet?-- don't you be telling us, I'm innocent of these, irresponsible of happenings-- didn't we see you steal next to her, tenderly, with your silver mist about you to hide your blandishment?-- now, what of what followed, eh?-- we saw you hover close, caress her, open her pore-cups, make a cross of her, quickly penetrate her-- she opening to you, engulfing you, every limb of her, bud of her, pore of her?-- don't call these things, kisses-- mouth-kisses, hand-kisses, elbow, knee and toe, and let it go at that-- disappear and promise what you'll never perform: we've known you to slink away until drought-time, drooping-time, withering-time: we've caught you crawling off into winter-time, try to cover what you've done with a long white scarf-- your own frozen tears (likely phrase!) and lilt your, I'll be back in spring! Next spring, and you know it, she won't be the same, though she may look the same to you from where you are, and invite you down again!

PEASANT

It's the mixture of peasantry makes him so slow. He waggles his head before he speaks, like a cow before she crops. He bends to the habit of dragging his feet up under him, like a measuring-worm: some of his forefathers, stooped over books, ruled short straight lines under two rows of figures to keep their thin savings from sifting to the floor. Should you strike him with a question, he will blink twice or thrice and roll his head about, like an owl in the pin-pricks of a dawn he cannot see. There is mighty little flesh about his bones, there is no gusto in his stride: he seems to wait for the blow on the buttocks that will drive him another step forward-- step forward to what? There is no land, no house, no barn, he has ever owned; he sits uncomfortable on chairs you might invite him to: if you did, he'd keep his hat in hand against the moment when some silent pause for which he hearkens with his ear to one side bids him move on-- move on where? It doesn't matter. He has learned to shrug his shoulders, so he'll shrug his shoulders now: caterpillars do it when they're halted by a stick. Is there a sky overhead?-- a hope worth flying to?-- birds may know about it, but it's birds that birds descend from.

BUBBLES