Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World Read online

  Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World

  Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World

  Poems

  Kathryn Cowles

  MILKWEED EDITIONS

  © 2020, Text by Kathryn Cowles

  All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415. (800)520-6455

  milkweed.org

  Published 2020 by Milkweed Editions

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover design by Mary Austin Speaker

  Cover art by Kathryn Cowles

  20 21 22 23 24 5 4 3 2 1

  First Edition

  Milkweed Editions, an independent nonprofit publisher, gratefully acknowledges sustaining support from the Alan B. Slifka Foundation and its president, Riva Ariella Ritvo-Slifka; the Ballard Spahr Foundation; Copper Nickel; the Jerome Foundation; the McKnight Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the National Poetry Series; the Target Foundation; and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Also, this activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. For a full listing of Milkweed Editions supporters, please visit milkweed.org.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Cowles, Kathryn, author.

  Title: Maps and transcripts of the ordinary world : poems / Kathryn Cowles.

  Description: Minneapolis : Milkweed Editions, 2020. | Summary: “Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World is a collection of poems about memory, place, and distance between reality and its transcriptions”-- Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019041953 (print) | LCCN 2019041954 (ebook) | ISBN 9781571315021 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781571319791 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry.

  Classification: LCC PS3603.O8894 M37 2020 (print) | LCC PS3603.O8894 (ebook) | DDC 811/.6--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041953

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041954

  Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the world’s endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper by Sheridan.

  [ For Sue ]

  CONTENTS

  Origin Story

  Island

  Map [water boat water]

  Hymn [all is well]

  A completely different alphabet

  Map [Two-dimensional circles]

  Postcard [Dear Brenda]

  Map [the way to the ladder]

  Transcript of birds

  The map keeps things put

  This donkey path

  Tide

  [the shadow maps]

  Lesson

  List

  Recipe [Goat cheese]

  Three hours at the blue table on the terrace in the shade of the rock wall

  Recipe [A set of instructions]

  [the still tree holds its wind]

  Sea change

  Transcript of birds, continued

  The day before the day before we have to leave

  Unmoor

  Plain

  I am on a plane

  Paper with tape

  Farm plot

  Interview

  Lay of the land

  [silo shade]

  Poem for the putting in of the new carpet

  [take your]

  [can’t you see darling]

  Ohio

  Shower water

  [a picture holds]

  Port

  Boat tour

  [wave not wave]

  Fieldguide

  Fieldguide marginalia

  Three poems called “The basil”

  Keeping track

  [a whole page]

  Proof

  Photograph of a friend taken after he has disappeared

  I am wearing a pinkish shirt

  Hymn [A song]

  Three hours in a rocking chair outside the blue-roofed bunkhouse in the wind

  A record of water you can’t see

  Metaphor: Description, uses thereof, side effects, interactions, etc.

  Map legend

  Postcard [A picture]

  Directions [seems fairly clear]

  Directions [Start here]

  [can’t catch]

  Acknowledgments

  The waters change all the while and stay the same only on the map.

  —JOHN BERGER, To the Wedding

  Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World

  ORIGIN STORY

  I stepped out of the blue paper

  of map water

  onto an island in Greece

  corrugated ground

  world was all around me little blue skirt

  and I wanted it down

  in paper

  sun rose and I wrote

  sun rose

  and then I wrote that I wrote it,

  scratch

  never in my life

  wrapped in paper

  have I ever so much

  wanted it down

  Island

  HYMN

  with 8 birds on a wire

  or rather on 3 wires …

  4 birds on 3 wires, one bird on one …

  5 of ’em now on 2;

  on 3; 7 on 4

  —EZRA POUND, THE PISAN CANTOS

  1

  all is well, I sang, little

  learning how to do the harmony parts,

  Saturday church choir, all is well

  the blue sparrow babies have hatched

  and we have kept the cats

  away thus far

  and one day everyone decides

  to bale their hay

  every single field down

  all at once everyone

  all at once

  my friend is sick

  sick and far away and I hear

  will die and I

  can’t get my head

  to think it through

  all is well, I sang, all is well

  tho hard to you

  2

  so I wrote another friend

  a goat on a spit for you, Brenda

  we took a photo, I said, transcribed,

  put it down, list, list,

  sent a postcard

  is it getting hot in here

  3

  I am cycling in the mountains

  here is what I see

  my arms stretched out in my shadow

  three horses facing away

  the cows have got out, one white

  excuse me while I take this hill

  4

  don’t you call coward on me

  I put the knife through the fish’s skull

  once caught, all alone,

  into its hot, hot brain, again, again

  to be sure it’s just

  here lies / the Idaho kid

  the only time /he ever did

  he transcribed bird bird bird bird in Pisa

  counted them for comfort

  because everyone needs a latch

  comfort, comfort

  knif
e caught hold

  in a cliff

  and if I die, I sang, and if I die

  5

  the spit is picking up, Brenda

  I have a bug in my eye

  I can ride a hill down w/ no breaks now

  my one eye is streaming from the bug

  the spit is turning fast, Brenda

  a knife to the brain is quicker

  than a whack, whack, more humane

  I cannot get it in my head

  I see a blue bird, a bale,

  a white cow

  every single field down

  happy day, I sang, all is well

  every single thing down, picking up

  A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ALPHABET

  Transcript. A printed version of a recorded version of a sound. A written version of an audio version of a person talking. A mountain taken down. A printed version of a mountain, printing pressed. A copy. A copy of a copy. The letters pressed into paper resemble the tree’s branches. From the Chinese character. A tree. From which issues a bird sound. A printed version of the bird sound, representing the sound a mama bird makes as it feeds its baby birds. A black bird with orange parts. A chicken and an egg. Transliteration. Using the closest corresponding letters or sounds of a completely different alphabet. Shorthand into full sentences. A new arrangement with an entirely other instrument. Transcribed for cello. For piano. For a choir. A bird sound rendered in hyphenated lettering. A mountain. A mountain.

  MAP

  Two-dimensional circles stand

  for three-dimensional hills,

  so Profitis Elias (one so called

  on every Greek island, the highest point

  on which to build a church)

  I can tell in advance to be, well,

  very tall, but the hewn

  marble stairs on the donkey path

  are a complete surprise,

  also the donkeys themselves

  and their riders with Yassas, Yassas,

  (one hello for each of us)

  also the view looking down from the top.

  I take seven photographs turning

  in a circle, a panorama,

  but how will I place them hanging

  on a wall back home? Something already slipping.

  And a world-sized map takes a beating

  when it’s all spread out,

  covers ground but does not match.

  And my rugged circles are conceptual, darling.

  All they do

  is point fingers at loosened hills.

  POSTCARD

  Dear Brenda, We saw

  a lamb on a spit

  and took pictures

  of it for you,

  its bared teeth

  and arms tied

  and a battery-powered turner,

  saw it turn

  oh and loved its half-bakedness

  for you O Brenda.

  And our kitty Artemis

  sits on one particular rock

  on our rock staircase today,

  sits for no reason

  and is lovely

  and teeming with bugs

  though Geoff bathed her in the sink

  entirely against her will

  though we picked off

  two ticks stuck

  in her hard

  and ugly.

  And a ship pulls into the harbor,

  pulls in its sails,

  wraps them like arms around themselves O

  if you could see it.

  TRANSCRIPT OF BIRDS

  The two birds on the left

  sit and the third bird says

  [third bird:] ---------

  ---------

  ---------

  [shakes its wings]

  ---------

  ---------

  [second bird flies off, back again, off]

  ---------

  ---------

  [---------is the bird sound]

  [second bird:] [makes the bird sound]

  [second bird opens its mouth, shakes

  its wings:]---------

  [bug falls on page]

  [dead bug]

  [from above]

  [tree]

  THE MAP KEEPS THINGS PUT

  1

  Every morning we open the curtains.

  Every evening we sit on the porch.

  We have a topographical map

  that names the highest peak

  we see out the window.

  Two mountain ranges tell us where we are:

  We are between two ranges.

  Mapped but minus paper.

  2

  The sea is such today that I can see

  on its surface almost the map’s white

  dot dot dot, the border conceptual.

  The map keeps things put.

  The islands float above it.

  I can see four islands from my perch.

  I can be on just one.

  3

  Enter through the magnetic gate.

  Requires pushing.

  Path lined with stones

  upside-down trees

  called umbrella pines

  on the left.

  There is a door here there is

  always a door.

  THIS DONKEY PATH

  The map is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional swath of land. As I have said. A diagrammatic rendering. For use with a compass. For use with stars. A printed version of the live line between the island and the sea. The island is an island in Greece. The live line is a concept taken down on the page. The line on the page resembles the line between island and sea. Corresponding parts. A record. A miniature. A paper representation of the mountain. A plan. When taken, this donkey path is likely to lead to such and such a village. The village is a pin point. With an invisible edge. Follow the arrow. Follow the red line.

  Tide

  LESSON

  1

  Akis throws water

  balloons at the kittens

  from the roof.

  This is very funny.

  Akis is a young boy.

  The kittens are young

  and have not learned

  their lesson.

  2

  Akis’s father shows him

  the insides of a motorbike.

  This part causes this belt to go,

  this belt causes this wheel to turn,

  this fan, this timer, this button.

  A word that means arrow, means order.

  This, that then, then this.

  LIST

  Table salt.

  Chickpea soup

  served Sundays.

  Rhododendron-

  like oleander

  comes in pink,

  comes in

  white.

  Green-blue water

  peaks with foam

  shifting, shifting.

  Someone tied a goat

  with roped feet

  to a bush on the rock.

  So it is dead.

  We can see

  through its body

  and smell the inside

  of its head.

  1. salt

  2. goat

  3. white

  4. cat

  5. brine

  6. red clay bowl

  RECIPE

  Goat cheese does not taste like goat smell

  does not taste like goat

  In short we ate a kid

  that had a name but was destined

  for slaughter its name was I think Bob

  maybe not I made

  a goat cheese ball for the occasion

  -2 cloves garlic, hand-cut—use a paring knife

  what you want are tiny squares

  -handful kalamata olives—a big handful, pitted,

  squares again

  -an amount of goat cheese

  Use a big bowl mix it w/ your bare hands

  shape into a ball

  The garlic is strong

  give it s
ome bread baked w/ olive oil

  to hold onto we all need something

  THREE HOURS AT THE BLUE TABLE ON THE TERRACE IN THE SHADE OF THE ROCK WALL

  Geoff in the olive tree and

  Akis the upstairs boy, a cat called Baseball,

  I see cow and whitewashed garage

  lines of terrace holding in olives, figs.

  A city with a single wall turns

  all houses into neighbors, each to each, touching,

  bus goes by

  quick write bus chair table boy boat sun down,

  down, blue slip of sea.

  *

  Little girl in the red shirt

  sings in the whitewashed garage that catches

  even the mean black birds in singing.

  La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

  la as in hat

  her dad puts her in the back of the

  truck still singing.

  *

  A tree making pomegranates

  and one making figs

  some citrus

  these are tomatoes, those

  big purple poofs of onion.

  RECIPE

  A set of instructions. A list. When taken together, and in this order, and in this way, these things are likely to lead to such and such desired outcome. A loaf of bread. A meat pie. As distinguished from recipient or reciprocity. You give the loaf away to—. You give the loaf and get a meat pie in return. You give the loaf and get a good feeling about. Praise be. A copy of a recipe. Transcribed on a new 3 by 5. For use. Grandma Elizabeth’s chickpeas. Traced back to Grandma Lotta’s chickpeas. Back to an island in Greece. Sifnos revithada. Stoneware pea pots all dropped to the baker’s of a Sunday morning before church. Grandma Appolonia’s chickpeas. Pick the pot up after. Some substitutions must be made. ------ for disaster. A copy of a copy. A poor transcription. In shorthand. A completely different alphabet. The original unclear to begin with.

  SEA CHANGE

  As birds fall

  from great heights right

  outside our window, drop down

  but fly back up easy