From the Tower At the Top of the Winding Stairs

Painting by Luca Oleastri


From the Tower At the Top of the Winding Stairs


It seemed that the mountains of Vermont
were hunchbacks ringing
their own silent bells, and above them
an opaque, cloudless sky a model of
how to remain calm while other parts
of you might be thunder and rain.
From the tower it didn't take long
to see the dangers in believing that
seeing was knowing - high flying birds
revealing our need for angels,
some wispy scud evidence of a past
I'd yet to resolve. Still, wasn't
the psychological real?
The tower itself had no opinion.
Men and women could be seen
planting tomatoes and rows of lettuce,
touching each other goodbye,
and from this height others
could be imagined creating
something wonderful out of motives
like envy, even spite, warding off,
as they felt it, melancholy's encroachment.
To ascend the tower was
to want not to come down.
There to the south -- because
I had begun to dream -
you could see congressmen suddenly
released from the prisons
of their partisanship, wrestling amiably
with the imperfections of human existence.
And, beyond, enemies dropping their guns,
asking for forgiveness.
Everything felt comic,
how else could it be bearable?
The tower itself was proof
I couldn't escape
when I escaped from the world.
Out of its side window
I could see a house on fire,
and in the distance
cows and goats dotting the hillside,
and dogs everywhere --
no matter their size,
either forlorn or frisky,
entirely dependent
on the good will of others.
Soon the night birds would be calling
other night birds,
the normal influx of eros
begin to mix with music
heard from below.
I'd feel it was time to come down,
to touch and be touched,
take part in a dailiness
for which I'd need words
like welter or maelstrom.
But for now if I looked hard
I could see the random
pine cone, the random leaf,
and if I closed your eyes
something like a pattern,
the semblance of an order.


Stephen Dunn

Posted over on Huffington Post