A Grain of Mustard Seed

by May Sarton

Overview

May Sarton presents a collection of socially charged yet universal poems
One of the many gems of this volume is “The Invocation to Kali,” which explores a dark and destructive femininity. Sarton writes of “Crude power that forges a balance / Between hate and love,” finding an amalgam of dark and light within a single act. This graceful and nuanced work forges powerful connections between timeless ideas and specific moments in history. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781480474376
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	03/25/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	72
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

May Sarton (1912–1995) was born on May 3 in Wondelgem, Belgium, and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her first volume of poetry, Encounters in April, was published in 1937 and her first novel, The Single Hound, in 1938. Her novels A Shower of Summer Days, The Birth of a Grandfather, and Faithful Are the Wounds, as well as her poetry collection In Time Like Air, all received nominations for the National Book Award.

An accomplished memoirist, Sarton came out as a lesbian in her 1965 book Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing. Her memoir Journal of a Solitude (1973) was an account of her experiences as a female artist. Sarton spent her later years in York, Maine, living and writing by the sea. In her memoir Endgame: A Journal of the Seventy-Ninth Year (1992), she shares her own personal thoughts on getting older. Her final poetry collection, Coming into Eighty, was published in 1994. Sarton died on July 16, 1995, in York, Maine.

May Sarton (1912–1995) was born on May 3 in Wondelgem, Belgium, and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her first volume of poetry, Encounters in April, was published in 1937 and her first novel, The Single Hound, in 1938. Her novels A Shower of Summer Days, The Birth of a Grandfather, and Faithful Are the Wounds, as well as her poetry collection In Time Like Air, all received nominations for the National Book Award.

An accomplished memoirist, Sarton came out as a lesbian in her 1965 book Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing. Her memoir Journal of a Solitude (1973) was an account of her experiences as a female artist. Sarton spent her later years in York, Maine, living and writing by the sea. In her last memoir, Endgame: A Journal of the Seventy-Ninth Year (1992), she shares her own personal thoughts on getting older. Her final poetry collection, Coming into Eighty, was published in 1994. Sarton died on July 16, 1995, in York, Maine.

Read an Excerpt

A Grain of Mustard Seed

Poems

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By May Sarton

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Copyright © 1971 May Sarton
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4804-7437-6

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CHAPTER 1

    Ballad of the Sixties

    In the west of the country where I was
    Hoping for some good news,
    Only the cripple had fire,
    Only the cripple knew the mind's desire;
    In the wheel chair alone
    Poetry met the eyes
    That see and recognize,
    There in the wizened bone.
    For only the ill are well,
    And only the mad are sane.
    This is the sad truth plain,
    The story I have to tell.

    In the North of the country where I saw
    The anxious rich and the angry poor,
    Only the blasted life had reason;
    Only the stricken in the bitter season
    Looked out of loss and learned
    The waste of all that burned,
    Once cared and burned.
    For only the mad are sane,
    And only the lost are well,
    And loss of fire the bane
    Of this season in Hell.

    In the South of the country where I passed
    Looking for faith and hope at last,
    Only the black man knew
    The false dream from the true;
    Only the dark and grieving
    Could be the still believing.
    For only the ill are well,
    Only the hunted, free,
    So the story I have to tell
    In the South was told to me.

    In the East of the country where I came
    Back to my house, back to my name,
    Only the crazy girl was clear
    That all has been betrayed to fear;
    Only the mad girl knew the cost,
    And she, shut up from wind and rain
    And safely plucked out from her pain,
    Knew that our love is lost, is lost.
    For only the sick are well;
    The mad alone have truth to tell
    In the mad games they play—
    Our love has withered away.


    The Rock in the Snowball
    (for Mark Howe)

    How little I knew you, Mark, to mourn so wild
    As if death hit square in the mouth today.
    That snowball held a rock and it hurt hard.
    But even outraged, am I still a child
    To take death with raw grief and howl my way
    Hand against mouth to ward off the word?

    How little I knew you, Mark, but for the blue
    Those deep-set eyes shafted across a room
    To prick the ghost of pride or of pretence,
    That straight look into doom if it were true,
    That poker look that made our laughter bloom
    And burned up sham like paper with a glance.

    You were exposed, a man stripped down to care,
    Thin as a boy, tempest-torn as a boy,
    And sick with pity, conscience-caught-and-bound.
    Courage is easy—every boy can dare—
    But harder to keep justice from that joy,
    And bury feeling, your self-inflicted wound.

    And yet you burned. And yet you burned so deep,
    Mastering fire, controlling fire with wit,
    That eulogies seem pale beside your breath,
    And we are fools, since you would not, to weep.
    We mourn ourselves, that is the truth of it,
    Hit by the savage rock that is your death.

    Whatever end we hoped with you alive,
    To be those few, and happy, growing old,
    To talk of battles shared, of false and true,
    That light is gone. We shall have to survive
    As remnants in a world turned grim and cold
    Where once we laughed at Hell itself with you.


    The Ballad of Ruby

    Her mother dressed the child in white,
    White ribbons plaited in her hair,
    And sent her off to school to fight
    Though it was very cruel there.
    "Ruby, we have to show our pride.
    Walk slow, and just be dignified."

    So Ruby walked to school each day
    While the white mothers screamed "Black scum!"
    Never got dirty out at play
    For she spent recess in her room,
    And felt the hatred seeping in.
    "What is it, mother? What have I done?"

    But still her mother had to trust
    That that white dress so clean and neat
    Would show the truth because it must,
    Her Ruby was so bright and sweet.
    And every day the crowd grew bigger
    And threw stones at the "dirty nigger."

    Then Ruby shook her ribboned head,
    Refused to eat a chocolate cookie,
    Had nightmares every night in bed,
    Broke her brown crayons—"They are mucky!
    "Ugly is black. Ugly is last."
    (Ruby at six was learning fast).

    And when the teacher let them draw,
    Ruby made all black people lame,
    White people tall, strong, without flaw.
    Her drawing did not need a name.
    "It is plain black and white, you see.
    And black is ugly. Black is me."

    "We'll poison you" became the taunt.
    "You'll learn to keep away from white!"
    And so a new fear came to haunt
    The child who had no appetite,
    Locked into blackness like some sin.
    "Why mother? Is it only my skin?"

    But still she walked to school with glory,
    And ran the gauntlet, dignified ...
    Did she grow up to tell a different story?—
    "White folks are black, all dirty down inside.
    What makes them like they are, ugly within?
    Is it only the color of their skin?"


    The Ballad of Johnny
    (A News Item)

    For safety on the expedition
    A name-tag on each child was hung,
    A necklace-name, his very own,
    So he could not get lost for long.

    Johnny jumped up and down for joy
    To have a name forever true.
    "I'm Johnny," cried the little boy.
    "Johnny is going to the zoo!"

    "Johnny," he whispered in the subway.
    His whole face was suffused with bliss.
    This was the best, the greatest day.
    Boldly he gave his name a kiss.

    But soon forgot it at the zoo
    And let the name-tag swing out free,
    For could that elephant be true?
    And there was so much there to see ...

    Look, Johnny, at the monkey swinging
    High in the air on his trapeze!
    He heard the gibbon's sharp shrill singing
    And begged to hold the monkey, please.

    Then saw a goat and ran off fast
    To hug the dear fantastic thing,
    An animal to stroke at last,
    A living toy for all his loving.

    The soft lips nibbled at his sweater
    And Johnny laughed with joy to feel
    Such new-found friendliness and, better,
    To know this animal was real.

    His face was breathing in fur coat,
    He did not notice anything
    As gentle lips and greedy throat
    Swallowed the name-tag and the string.

    But when he found that they were gone
    And he had lost his name for good,
    Dreadful it was to be alone,
    And Johnny screamed his terror loud.

    The friendly goat was strange and wild,
    And the cold eyes' indifferent stare
    Could give no comfort to the child
    Who had become No one, Nowhere.

    "I've lost my name. I'm going to die,"
    He shouted when his teacher came
    And found him too afraid to cry.
    "But, Johnny, you still have your name!

    "It's not a tag, it's in your head,
    And you are Johnny through and through.
    Look in the mirror," teacher said,
    "There's Johnny looking out at you."

    But he had never had a mirror,
    And Johnny met there a strange child
    And screamed dismay at this worse error,
    And only grew more lost and wild.

    "No, no," he screamed, "that is not me,
    That ugly boy I don't know who ..."
    Great treasure lost, identity,
    When a goat ate it at the zoo.


    Easter, 1968

    Now we have buried the face we never knew,
    Now we have silenced the voice we never heard,
    Now he is dead we look on him with awe ...
    Dead king, dear martyr, and anointed Word.
    Where thousands followed, each must go home
    Into his secret heart and learn the pain,
    Stand there on rock and, utterly alone,
    Come to terms with this burning suffering man;
    Torn by his hunger from our fat and greed,
    And bitten by his thirst from careless sloth,
    Must wake, inflamed, to answer for his blood
    With the slow-moving inexorable truth
    That we can earn even a moment's balm
    Only with acts of caring, and fierce calm.

    Head of an African, vital and young,
    The full lips fervent as an open rose,
    The high-domed forehead full of light and strong—
    Look on this man again. The blood still flows.
    Listen once more to the impassioned voice
    Till we are lifted on his golden throat
    And trumpet-call of agony and choice
    Out of our hesitating shame and doubt.
    Remember how he prayed before the task.
    Remember how he walked, eyes bright and still,
    Unarmed, his bronze face shining like a mask,
    Through stones and curses, hatred hard as hail.
    Now we have silenced the voice we never heard,
    Break open, heart, and listen to his word.

The Invocation to Kali

"... the Black Goddess Kali, the terrible one of many names, 'difficult of approach,' whose stomach is a void and so can never be filled, and whose womb is giving birth forever to all things ..."

—Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology, The Viking Press, Inc. 1962, p. 5.

    1

    There are times when
    I think only of killing
    The voracious animal
    Who is my perpetual shame,

    The violent one
    Whose raging demands
    Break down peace and shelter
    Like a peacock's scream.

    There are times when
    I think only of how to do away
    With this brute power
    That cannot be tamed.

    I am the cage where poetry
    Paces and roars. The beast
    Is the god. How murder the god?
    How live with the terrible god?


    2

    The Kingdom of Kali

    Anguish is always there, lurking at night,
    Wakes us like a scourge, the creeping sweat
    As rage is remembered, self-inflicted blight.
    What is it in us we have not mastered yet?

    What Hell have we made of the subtle weaving
    Of nerve with brain, that all centers tear?
    We live in a dark complex of rage and grieving.
    The machine grates, grates, whatever we are.

    The kingdom of Kali is within us deep.
    The built-in destroyer, the savage goddess,
    Wakes in the dark and takes away our sleep.
    She moves through the blood to poison gentleness.

    She keeps us from being what we long to be;
    Tenderness withers under her iron laws.
    We may hold her like a lunatic, but it is she
    Held down, who bloodies with her claws.

    How then to set her free or come to terms
    With the volcano itself, the fierce power
    Erupting injuries, shrieking alarms?
    Kali among her skulls must have her hour.

    It is time for the invocation, to atone
    For what we fear most and have not dared to face:
    Kali, the destroyer, cannot be overthrown;
    We must stay, open-eyed, in the terrible place.

    Every creation is born out of the dark.
    Every birth is bloody. Something gets torn.
    Kali is there to do her sovereign work
    Or else the living child will be still-born.

    She cannot be cast out (she is here for good)
    Nor battled to the end. Who wins that war?
    She cannot be forgotten, jailed, or killed.
    Heaven must still be balanced against her.

    Out of destruction she comes to wrest
    The juice from the cactus, its harsh spine,
    And until she, the destroyer, has been blest,
    There will be no child, no flower, and no wine.


    3

    The Concentration Camps

    Have we managed to fade them out like God?
    Simply eclipse the unpurged images?
    Eclipse the children with a mountain of shoes?
    Let the bones fester like animal bones,
    False teeth, bits of hair, spilled liquid eyes,
    Disgusting, not to be looked at, like a blight?

    Ages ago we closed our hearts to blight.
    Who believes now? Who cries, "merciful God"?
    We gassed God in the ovens, great piteous eyes,
    Burned God in a trash-heap of images,
    Refused to make a compact with dead bones,
    And threw away the children with their shoes—

    Millions of sandals, sneakers, small worn shoes—
    Thrust them aside as a disgusting blight.
    Not ours, this death, to take into our bones,
    Not ours a dying mutilated God.
    We freed our minds from gruesome images,
    Pretended we had closed their open eyes

    That never could be closed, dark puzzled eyes,
    The ghosts of children who went without shoes
    Naked toward the ovens' bestial images,
    Strangling for breath, clawing the blight,
    Piled up like pigs beyond the help of God ...
    With food in our stomachs, flesh on our bones,

    We turned away from the stench of bones,
    Slept with the living, drank in sexy eyes,
    Hurried for shelter from a murdered God.
    New factories turned out millions of shoes.
    We hardly noticed the faint smell of blight,
    Stuffed with new cars, ice cream, rich images.

    But no grass grew on the raw images.
    Corruption mushroomed from decaying bones.
    Joy disappeared. The creature of the blight
    Rose in the cities, dark smothered eyes.
    Our children danced with rage in their shoes,
    Grew up to question who had murdered God,

    While we evaded their too attentive eyes,
    Walked the pavane of death in our new shoes,
    Sweated with anguish and remembered God.


    4

    The Time of Burning

    For a long time we shall have only to listen,
    Not argue or defend, but listen to each other.
    Let curses fall without intercession,
    Let those fires burn we have tried to smother.

    What we have pushed aside and tried to bury
    Lives with a staggering thrust we cannot parry.

    We have to reckon with Kali for better or worse,
    The angry tongue that lashes us with flame
    As long-held hope turns bitter and men curse,
    "Burn, baby, burn" in the goddess' name.

    We are asked to bear it, to take in the whole,
    The long indifferent beating down of soul.

    It is the time of burning, hate exposed.
    We shall have to live with only Kali near.
    She comes in her fury, early or late, disposed
    To tantrums we have earned and must endure.

    We have to listen to the harsh undertow
    To reach the place where Kali can bestow.

    But she must have her dreadful empire first
    Until the prisons of the mind are broken free
    And every suffering center at its worst
    Can be appealed to her dark mystery.

    She comes to purge the altars in her way,
    And at her altar we shall have to pray.

    It is a place of skulls, a deathly place
    Where we confront our violence and feel,
    Before that broken and self-ravaged face,
    The murderers we are, brought here to kneel.


    5

    It is time for the invocation:

    Kali, be with us.
    Violence, destruction, receive our homage.
    Help us to bring darkness into the light,
    To lift out the pain, the anger,
    Where it can be seen for what it is—
    The balance-wheel for our vulnerable, aching love.
    Put the wild hunger where it belongs,
    Within the act of creation,
    Crude power that forges a balance
    Between hate and love.

    Help us to be the always hopeful
    Gardeners of the spirit
    Who know that without darkness
    Nothing comes to birth
    As without light
    Nothing flowers.

    Bear the roots in mind,
    You, the dark one, Kali,
    Awesome power.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from A Grain of Mustard Seed by May Sarton. Copyright © 1971 May Sarton. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Publisher's Note,
Part One,
Ballad of the Sixties,
The Rock in the Snowball,
The Ballad of Ruby,
The Ballad of Johnny,
Easter, 1968,
The Invocation to Kali,
After The Tiger,
"We'll to the woods no more",
Night Watch,
Part Two,
Proteus,
A Last Word,
Girl with 'Cello,
An Intruder,
The Muse as Medusa,
A Seventy-fifth Birthday,
The Great Transparencies,
Friendship: The Storms,
Evening Walk in France,
Dutch Interior,
A Vision of Holland,
Part Three,
Bears and Waterfalls,
A Parrot,
Frogs and Photographers,
Eine Kleine Snailmusik,
The Fig,
Hawaiian Palm,
Part Four,
A Hard Death,
The Silence,
Annunciation,
At Chartres,
Once More at Chartres,
Jonah,
Easter Morning,
The Godhead as Lynx,
The Waves,
Beyond the Question,
Invocation,
Acknowledgments,
About the Author,