ZERO
HOUR
A
POEM (1936)
For
St. Storm
It
was a summer day.
The
street still as a grave lay
baking
in the heat.
A
man turned up the street.
On
a distant pavement a group
of
children played, although that group
carried
but little weight,
rather
the opposite, it made
the
street seem even more deserted.
The
sun reigned undiverted.
Even
those bound by their
second
nature to appear
here
at this hour: the lone
student,
the lady quite unknown,
the
teacher now retired,
had
felt themselves required
to
depart from routine today,
they
were missed, missed in a vague way.
More
so: the workman who
had
till the hour of two
or
three dug a hole apiece
for
the central path’s new trees,
had
left his spade right there
and
now had gone elsewhere.
But
stranger, yes indeed
far
stranger than the street
being
empty, was the fact
of
the silence so compact,
and
that the sound of the feet
of
the man now in the street
left
the silence as it was,
yes,
that each stride as
he
quickly covered ground
made
the silence more profound.
No
thief, no spy could outbid
what
he so effortlessly did;
and
the feathered leather shoes
on
which Hermes would choose
to
descend from his mountain place
did
not as quietly traverse space
as
he could move along the street,
just
walking, shoes on his feet.
The
pavement sound he made
was
ominous and yet stayed
inaudible
– it had the air
of
an early warning flare
shot
high and out of sight:
in
a small cloud light
bursts
into a glaring star
and
along the whole line of fire
no
one can disavow
that
zero hour has come, now
ends
all uncertainty
about
the time allotted me,
now
it’s too late for everything.
The
silence arising then
is
a silence, not just one of form,
a
silence before the storm,
but
a silence of a sort
where
things are heard uncaught
before
by human ear.
Such
was the silence here.
For
as the man fast covered ground
with
measured tread, the sound
of
gas in pipes could be heard
beneath
the houses, the surge
of
water underneath the street,
and,
to make things complete,
in
wires to radio and phone
a
crackling buzzing tone
as
if bees were nearby.
Nobody
peeked on the sly.
For
when somebody goes past
one’s
interest usually grows fast,
one
draws the lace curtain aside
as
it normally seems implied
to
a greater or lesser extent
that
each passer-by’s an event.
Was
there nothing one could see
about
him? Could this be
since
everyone was sleeping tight,
or
since his footsteps were so light
no
curtain moved as he went by?
No,
no, each window was eye,
a
shuttered lid, the slit
of
a peering owl that sits
upon
its branch of oak.
The
silence that nothing broke
throbbed,
and then music was heard.
Panic
is such a big word,
but
well describes the silent fright
that
at that moment quite
possessed
the empty street.
A
languid cloud, like a brief
small
island, unfurled in clear sky,
signalled
the do-or-die
offensive
was soon to be.
All
with binoculars could see
against
the sky’s blue ocean
a
battleship in motion.
And
was it friend or foe?
One
simply could not know,
no
flag was at the mast.
Just
as the man who passed
bore
nothing by which one can
tell
one man from another man.
And the music sang on, grew higher,
swelled to an unseen choir.
For from that very moment
water, gas, buzzing current
could all be heard to stream,
so too had heartbeat, and dream,
and yawn, and circulation,
and silent hope, and desperation –
in short, all that never found voice,
formed a concert of distant noise
which inescapably
increased in clarity
and from silence drew breath.
Longing, mauled to death,
a child slayed in a keep,
cried out, now shaken from sleep,
for plaything and playmate instead.
For that which is dead is dead,
but what’s murdered lives on undeterred,
lives after that time less disturbed
than what lives and never has died.
The deed that never was tried
does more wrong than the deed that was done.
To face death with death once overcome
is mercy, but woe to the man
who in a single span
must suffer the pain and the loss
of living and dying, must cross
with no bridge death’s abyss.
Quite
swift a step was his,
the
man’s, though not swift enough to stop
each
window misting up
with
breath from a mouth gaped wide,
that
found no words inside
no
matter how wide it grew.
And
at the same time too
as
this unnameable woe,
the
music then brought in tow, –
and
note, in a street that less
than
gladly mentions distress,
that,
conversely, with glee
would
only like to see
the
sorrows others meet, -
and
note, in such a street.
when
behind pane on pane
the
stammerers all strained
to
strike up an infernal roar
of
language, – and once more,
smothered
cries only implored, -
when
then this hellish chord
vibrated
through all the hot air,
so
that anyone standing there
most
certainly would have done
the
same – i.e. upped and gone –
as
the man who forgot his spade,
the
one who earlier had made
the
holes but not planted the trees, -
when
that dissonance wrote a frieze
of
spirals shrill and loud
up
to an innocent cloud
afloat
on a sea still and slow, –
the
music then brought in tow,
–
for such is music: it plays –
while
all this time people’s gaze
followed
the stranger who strode
past
the houses flanking the road,
that
every mortal there
had
a vision, became aware
of
euphoric, heavenly bliss.
The
doctor, for one, who’d set up his
practice
here as a local GP
in
the street after he,
then
a young assistant, had quit
an
experiment merely since it,
though
far-reaching, only had fed
him
with meagre crusts of bread, –
back
the wild music bore
him
to a still clinic: he saw
himself
standing, remote,
rubber
gloved, in a white coat:
in
a cabinet on the wall
things
of glaze and metal,
of
enamel and glass broke
into
sparkling language that spoke
of
a rising dawn behind
evil
of every kind. –
The
judge now saw himself shorn,
no
official attire to be worn:
no
wig, no bands, no gown:
from
a sense of law alone
and
with high-raised hand
he
stuck to his oath’s command:
in
the name of justice he
let
sin off perfectly free
and
his personal guilt had to own. –
The
lady quite unknown,
the
vixen as she’s referred
to,
saw herself without her
flowery
blouse, a
Diana quite bare
in
a wood: a deer drew near:
and
when she saw how he
knelt
down, so then did she:
her
hand quivered, her eye gleamed
now
she drank from a living stream.
So
everyone gazed at
something
– one this, one that.
But
the pure bliss to be tasted:
an
instant was all it lasted
before
it had vanished and gone.
It
was rather like being on
an
abandoned ship, on deck
where
one keenly follows the speck
of
the lifeboat that disappears:
so
dire are then one’s fears
that
one, as belief dictates,
pours
oil onto the waves:
and
for one split second alone
there
is calm, a calm unknown:
the
ship holds itself in check:
but
already over the deck
rolls
a heavy wave mixed with oil,
and
that which was meant to foil
the
sea catches fire, explodes,
and
the clogged wreck sags from the load
like
a sludge-filled barge under strain.
So
behind each window pane
in
the waters, glass-smooth and clear,
a
man sees his image sink near,
his
own image, now all awry. –
Oh,
that oil then gambled away
had
for sure not been spilt in vain!
For
briefly the spirit had strayed
through
panoramas quite vast,
and
like the camel had passed
through
the narrow needle’s eye.
In
what land did he arrive?
On
earth. – In his own land. –
Just
like a moon was the hand
that
slid across his brow
and
slowly seemed to plough
on
through a dew of sweat;
so
too his staring eye that
was
constantly open wide –
it
seemed more qualified
to
be a moon than a sun.
Soon
though the blood had sprung
in
spurts from a thawing spring,
and
already had borne everything,
the
dream and its wake out of sight
on
that stream – like a tree might
after
a storm drift downstream.
A
sermon’s amen then seemed
to
be formed in relief like a sigh.
And
down from an empty sky
the
spirit, at one stroke
returned
again to the yoke
of
fixed job and daily bread,
was
grateful that this death
had
freed him from fear of space.
He
was, now back in the flesh,
tired,
to be sure, very tired,
but,
plainly put, chuffed and inspired
although
flesh was feeble stuff:
no
deficit blatant enough
that
could not be pinned on this
paltry
partner of his,
allotted
to him by fate. –
But
look, that companion sat
there
once more toiling away
at
his desk – and in such a way
that
the spirit looked down ashamed
at
that loyal zealous friend
and
found he dared only draw near
after
quelling an awkward tear.
Out
of silent defence, though, the man
did
not even put down his pen,
pull
a chair up, or look his way. –
The
spirit thus could not stay,
had
no choice but to re-ascend to
his
place of exile, void and blue,
between
earth and sun.
His
partner followed for one
moment
the willing one’s soar,
pondered,
and in the air saw
a
tiny cloud, and saw too
the
stranger still passing through –
still
that man in the street.
But,
as can be surmised, at such speed
–
for people slowly came round
from
their reverie so profound
and
he fairly swiftly made tracks –
what
they now saw was his back.
His
welcome had hardly been
all
that festive or keen;
nor
would that have seemed justified;
but
luckily he kept up his stride,
and
when the likelihood
of
maybe now – for good –
getting
shot of him grew more
and
more likely than before
at
every step of his,
the
whole street made, that is
each
and everyone
–
with the exception of one
whom
the careful reader may guess
was
the judge himself, no less –
all
made the sign of the cross,
except
the judge of course
–
sit verbo venia –
behind
the retreating man.
But
for the umpteenth time to be sure
this
was counting one’s chickens before
they
were even hatched. And so
would
bitter experience show,
for
the man in the street was still there.
With
one’s forehead placed full square
against
the window, one’s flesh
blood-red
from the curtain mesh,
one
could follow his every pace.
It
was then that something took place
beyond
words for those in the street.
The
shock made their hearts skip a beat.
Fuming
with rage, deathly pale,
fists
clenched, they followed wholesale
the
frightful events that below
the
man in the street brought in tow.
The
place where the kids were at play
on
the pavement now lay
directly
ahead of the man, quite near. –
It’s
often not what it appears,
their
play: children sometimes don’t bother
and
simply chat with each other,
the
words in themselves are a joy.
Three
of the group were young boys,
but
a girl was the last of the four.
This
though one only saw
when
it happened to catch one’s eye
that
down towards the thigh
of
her sailor’s blouse it frilled
into
a scotsmanlike kilt.
Foot
on his scooter, one lad
pointed
out that it had
indicators
to show
which
way he intended to go.
‘That
doesn’t make it a car,’
said
the largest, clad in plusfours.
‘Talking
of cars,’ he went on
in
a condescending tone,
‘Haven’t
you lot got a car?’
Over
nickelplated handlebars
the
girl then swung her leg high
–
she was natural in every way:
her
tilted-up nose, and her hair
cut
like a boy’s, had an air
too
artless for manners as yet, –
‘With
ours you cannot do that,’
she
said, swinging it back.
His
arms behind his back
–
what else could he have done
with
only a bathing suit on?
the
smallest one cried: ‘And the bell,
does
it ring?’ It rang. And he: ‘Well,
that’s
something cars don’t do.’
The
owner, though, was not through
with
opening and shutting the wings
of
his indicator things,
his
face now as if made of wood.
A
miracle can’t be withstood.
There
came not a single reply.
And
then the man passed them by.
Now
there’s a certain game
that
children play with the name,
so
I’m told, of ‘treading on shadows’.
As
someone walks, one follows
his
shadow and keeps in his wake.
Normally,
for each step he takes
one
has to take two to his one.
It
cut one right to the bone,
it
tore at the heartstrings to see
the
group in a row to be
skipping
along as they did –
a
stranger followed by kids.
It
cut to the quick to be sure
to
see sailor’s blouse and plusfours
dancing
arm in arm together,
all
the while holding in tether
the
other two at their sides:
sailor
helped swimsuit who
had
managed to lose one shoe
and
the second would follow the first,
while
in a sudden burst
of
speed alongside the plusfours
ran
the owner of the poor
scooter,
dumped at the kerb in full view. –
It
was now long overdue
that
all of this came to a close.
Against
the house windows
there
came the loud tapping
of
fingers all rapping,
like
an angry hen had begun
to
call chickens back to the run.
The
children paid no heed.
What
had just occurred would need
their
attention to the full.
The
shadow now stood still.
Quite
undaunted, they viewed,
their
eyes raised, the stranger who
had
come to a halt close by.
His
head held half to one side
he
gave them a serious look.
Unabashed,
not one of them took
away
either one of their hands.
And
thus interlinked the band
of
the four children stood,
like
Tom Thumb in the wood,
gazing
down at the tiny stones.
It
lasted a minute perhaps, though
one
that was an eternity.
Then
the man moved on, and he
with
his strange, extended walk
was
seen – in no time at all –
to
be round the corner and gone.
At
once, windows were flung open on
all
sides, flung open as wide
as
could be. It was time.
For
what could be observed?
The
meals were about to be served.
How
was this to be seen?
From
the steaming soup tureen
now
given pride of place
and
from the array of plates
each
with their silver spoon.
Through
open front doors one soon
saw
mothers go outside and,
commandingly
clapping their hands,
call
out their children’s names.
From
elsewhere too there came
a
similar such cry.
It
came from high in the sky.
It
was the starling and sparrow,
the
blackbird and gull, like arrows
diving
down from the gutter.
They
flapped their wings and twittered,
breasts
quivering poured out scales,
till
right in mid-street, on the rails,
along
which the tram, delayed
by
a power breakdown now made
its
appearance, and that,
hurtling
along jam-packed,
was
trying at every cost
to make up all time lost.
to make up all time lost.
never
come home on the trot.
That’s
how they are, and were here.
Before
they were all in their chairs
at
table, napkins to the fore
fifteen
minutes had passed or more.
And
by the door, on the tiles,
even
resting awhile
on
the open window-sill,
a
little bird fluttered a trill
for
some crumbs, completely at ease.
There
were no birds, though, in the trees,
No
none in the trees could be found,
for
those were not yet in the ground.
How
lovely though – yes, every time –
are
blossom and leaves in their prime.
How
lovely? Heaven knows how.
But
that’s well and good for now.
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