Clayfeld Holds On
By Robert Pack
()
About this ebook
Beneath this mellow harvest moon,
I can still picture you—a boy content
just fishing with his father from a ledge
above a foaming stream. The flailing trout
you caught is packed in gleaming ice;
the pink stripe all along its side
is smeared across black shiny dots
that seem to shine with their own light.
I’m sure that you can picture me
with equal vividness, and though we’re not
identical, there is a sense
in which I am inventing you
as much as you’re inventing me.
In Clayfeld Holds On, Robert Pack offers his readers a comprehensive portrait of his longtime protagonist Clayfeld, who is also Pack’s doppelgänger, his alternate self, enacting both the life that the poet has lived and the life he might have lived, given his proclivities and appetites. Poet and protagonist, taken together, are self and consciousness of self, the historical self and the embellished story of that literal self.
Written with a masterly ear for rhythm, and interweaving narrative and lyrical passages, the poems recount Clayfeld’s formative memories while exploring concepts such as loyalty, generosity, commitment, as well as cosmic phenomena such as the big bang theory and black holes. Through all of this, Pack attempts to find purpose and meaning in an indifferent universe, and to explore the labyrinth of his own proliferating identity.
Read more from Robert Pack
Still Here, Still Now Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElk in Winter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLaughter Before Sleep Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSearching for Home Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Clayfeld Holds On
Related ebooks
The Stories of Eva Luna Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Run Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpellbound-Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Persistence of Longing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDragonfly Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKlara Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwo Fledglings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComplete Me Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Be Happy Though Human: New and Selected Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man who Loved Landscape Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMemory and Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sheikh's Honor Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Nineteen Seventy-Five: The Seven, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStella & Baccara Burning Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSalvation's Kiss Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDragon King: Ruler of the Realm Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cullen's Bride Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Weighed and Wanting Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCity in the Mountain's Shadow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Delphi Complete Works of Adelaide Crapsey (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYen's World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBaverstock's Allsorts Volume 1, Second Edition: A Short Story Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Chorus of Seven Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNot All Honey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSunlight's Kiss Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSouth in the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Messengers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Doctor's Marriage for a Month Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Poetry For You
Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Enough Rope: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Better Be Lightning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pillow Thoughts II: Healing the Heart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters to a Young Poet (Rediscovered Books): With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (ReadOn Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Clayfeld Holds On
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Clayfeld Holds On - Robert Pack
Clayfeld Holds On
Selected Books by Robert Pack
POETRY
To Love That Well (2013)
Laughter Before Sleep (2011)
Still Here, Still Now (2008)
Composing Voices (2005)
Elk in Winter (2004)
Rounding It Out (1999)
Minding the Sun (1996)
Fathering the Map (1993)
Before It Vanishes (1989)
Clayfeld Rejoices, Clayfeld Laments (1987)
Inheritance (1986)
Faces in a Single Tree (1984)
Waking to My Name (1980)
Keeping Watch (1976)
Nothing but Light (1972)
Home from the Cemetery (1969)
Guarded by Women (1963)
A Stranger’s Privilege (1959)
The Irony of Joy (1955)
LITERARY CRITICISM
Willing to Choose: Volition & Storytelling in Shakespeare’s Major Plays (2007)
Belief and Uncertainty in the Poetry of Robert Frost (2003)
The Long View: Essays on the Discipline of Hope and Poetic Craft (1991)
Affirming Limits: Essays on Morality, Choice, and Poetic Form (1985)
Wallace Stevens: An Approach to His Poetry and Thought (1959)
Clayfeld Holds On
ROBERT PACK
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
ROBERT PACK is the Abernethy Professor of Literature and Creative Writing Emeritus at Middlebury College and Distinguished Senior Professor Emeritus of Humanities in the Honors College of the University of Montana, Missoula. He is the author of five prose works and nineteen previous books of poems, most recently Laughter before Sleep, also available from the University of Chicago Press.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2015 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2015.
Printed in the United States of America
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-30342-0 (paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-30356-7 (e-book)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226303567.001.0001
The author and the University of Chicago Press gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Helene and Richard Rubin—Pearl Robinson Foundation toward the publication of this book.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pack, Robert, 1929– author.
Clayfeld holds on / Robert Pack.
pages ; cm
Poems.
ISBN 978-0-226-30356-7 (ebook) — ISBN 978-0-226-30342-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
i. Title.
ps3566.a28c536 2015
811'.6 — dc23
2015010510
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Bob Pack’s lnvocation to Clayfeld
Clayfeld’s Encounter by the Sea
Clayfeld Encompasses a Paradox
Clayfeld Beholds a Miracle
Clayfeld Attends a Seder
Clayfeld Admonishes the Bard
Clayfeld Defines Sublimity
Clayfeld Goes Birding
A Blue Heron Appears to Clayfeld
Clayfeld’s Kidney
Clayfeld Observes a Herd of Elk
Clayfeld Organizes His Jokes
Confronting Clayfeld
Clayfeld among the Fireflies
Clayfeld Takes Flight
Clayfeld Listens to the Aspens
Paean for a Turtle
Clayfeld Encircled
Clayfeld Unresolved
Clayfeld’s Vampire Fantasy
Clayfeld on Jury Duty
Clayfeld Throws His Hat into the Ring
Clayfeld’s Reversal
Clayfeld Reading by the Fire
Clayfeld Grieves for Annie
Clayfeld’s Inheritance
Clayfeld Addresses His Father
Drifting and Gliding
Clayfeld’s Interpretation
Clayfeld Thinks about Women
Clayfeld’s Pride
Clayfeld Bedeviled
Clayfeld’s Cogito
Clayfeld’s Inspiration
Clayfeld Contends with Entropy
Star-Crossed Clayfeld
Clayfeld in the Rain
Clayfeld’s Injury
Humming in the Air
Clayfeld Embellishes a Willow Tree
Clayfeld’s Farewell Epistle to Bob Pack
Epilogue: Swan River in October
Epilogue: Abundance
Clayfeld Holds On
Bob Pack’s Invocation to Clayfeld
By listening to what you say about
ephemerality and love,
I memorize your memories of what
in fact occurred, but also I’m enhanced
by your far-ranging fantasies, which have
a substance of their own and thus
possess the power to affect my life.
The pleasure that you take adds to my own
when you evoke the twistings of desire,
a sheep clothed in the body of a wolf,
through innuendoes and equivocations,
not to be evasive, only to be
accurate about uncertainty
of motivation and intent—
as when a photon beam is flashed
through two small slits in an obstructing wall
behind which a reflecting screen displays
what the experimenter sees: the pattern
of a wave or else a particle,
with double meanings like a pun.
Might not that unpredictability
apply to you and me—each one of us
the other’s plausible alternative,
although each double thought remains
a rumination of my own?
The waterfall you hiked to in your youth
exists without someone’s observing it,
but the pale girl who walked with you
through brambles up the mountainside,
who shared your rapture as the spume
composed a rainbow of its own, she might
be a composite of some other girls
you loved—or maybe you invented her
out of a wish, a dream, a reverie.
I need your fantasies so I
can witness my own life as if
it were a story in a gilded book,
replete with sorrows, disappointments,
foolishness, but still a comedy
affirming laughter aged perspective brings
of how lust lights the way to love.
Ah! love, redeeming love, although
at bottom bodily, first sexual,
yet reaching out to humankind—
such love sought always to emerge in you
as if Be fruitful, multiply!
was a commandment to conceive
your self-proliferating self anew.
Clayfeld, my doppelgänger, as I’m yours—
quadruple if you count the two of us
as one—go forth with widened eyes
among proliferating bear grass like
a constellation in the spangled woods,
and journey where your heart revives
the need to reinvent yourself.
The waterfall, composed of molecules,
quarks indivisible, is also
an epiphany incarnate
in the airy ambience of words evoking
your own covenant with Nature,
represented as a girl reposing on
a lichen-softened ledge, her forehead gleaming
with the waterfall’s transparent spray—
a girl whose name you might remember
and hold dear. Perhaps you can recall
the shimmer of her hair, her heated cheeks,
the leaf-entangled light that glistened
on her shoulders as you kissed her
and, without constraint, she put her arms around
your neck, returning your uncertain kiss.
And so your memory, though improvised,
completes what might have been, and so
the past can be doubly restored
by apprehending my own finite self,
aware of its own finitude,