This Morning We Shall Spend a Few Minutes Upon the Study of Symbolism

MONEY

Howard Nemerov

This morning we shall spend a few minutes

Upon the study of symbolism, which is basic

To the nature of money. I show you this nickel.

Icons and cryptograms are written all over

The nickel: one side shows a hunchbacked bison

Bending his head and curling his tail to accommodate

The circular nature of money. Over him arches

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and, squinched in

Between that and his rump, E PLURIBUS UNUM,

A Roman reminiscence that appears to mean

An indeterminately large number of things

All of which are the same. Under the bison

A straight line giving him a ground to stand on

Reads FIVE CENTS. And on the other side of our nickel

There is the profile of a man with long hair

And a couple of feathers in the hair; we know

Somehow that he is an American Indian, and

He wears the number nineteen-thirty-six.

Right in front of his eyes the word LIBERTY, bent

To conform with the curve of the rim, appears

To be falling out of the sky Y first; the Indian

Keeps his eyes downcast and does not notice this;

To notice it, indeed, would be shortsighted of him.

So much for the iconography of one of our nickels,

Which is now becoming a rarity and something of

A collectors’ item: for as a matter of fact

There is almost nothing you can buy with a nickel,

The representative American Indian was destroyed

A hundred years or so ago, and his descendants’

Relations with liberty are maintained with reservations,

Or primitive concentration camps; while the bison,

Except for a few examples kept in cages,

Is now extinct. Something like that, I think,

Is what Keats must have meant in his celebrated

Ode on a Grecian Urn.

                               Notice, in conclusion,

A number of circumstances sometimes overlooked

Even by experts: (a) Indian and bison,

Confined to obverse and reverse of the coin,

Can never see each other; (b) they are looking

In opposite directions, the bison past

The Indian’s feathers, the Indian past

The bison’s tail; (c) they are upside down

To one another; (d) the bison has a human face

Somewhat resembling that of Jupiter Ammon.

I hope that our studies today will have shown you

Something of the import of symbolism

With respect to the understanding of what is symbolized.

My free blogging platform fwrtzed this post when I updated adding this a favorite post ever tag, I am telling you three times fine metaphors abound

THE TOWN DUMP

Howard Nemerov

A mile out in the marshes, under a sky

Which seems to be always going away

In a hurry, on that Venetian land threaded

With hidden canals, you will find the city

Which seconds ours (so cemeteries, too,

Reflect a town from hillsides out of town),

Where Being most Becomingly ends up

Becoming some more. From cardboard tenements,

Windowed with cellophane, or simply tenting

In paper bags, the angry mackerel eyes

Glare at you out of stove-in, sunken heads

Far from the sea; the lobster, also, lifts

An empty claw in his most minatory

Of gestures; oyster, crab, and mussel shells

Lie here in heaps, savage as money hurled

Away at the gate of hell. If you want results,

These are results.

                          Objects of value or virtue,

However, are also to be picked up here,

Though rarely, lying with bones and rotten meat,

Eggshells and mouldy bread, banana peels

No one will skid on, apple cores that caused

Neither the fall of man nor a theory

Of gravitation. People do throw out

The family pearls by accident, sometimes,

Not often; I’ve known dealers in antiques

To prowl this place by night, with flashlights, on

The off-chance of somebody’s having left

Derelict chairs which will turn out to be

by Hepplewhite, a perfect set of six

Going to show, I guess, that in any sty

Someone’s heaven may open and shower down

Riches responsive to the right dream; though

It is a small chance, certainly, that sends

The ghostly dealer, heavy with fly-netting

Over his head, across these hills in darkness,

Stumbling in cut-glass goblets, lacquered cups,

And other products of his dreamy midden

Penciled with light and guarded by the flies.

For there are flies, of course. A dynamo

Composed, by thousands, of our ancient black

Retainers, hums here day and night, steady

As someone telling beads, the hum becoming

A high whine at any disturbance; then,

Settled again, they shine under the sun

Like oil-drops, or are invisible as night,

By night.

             All this continually smoulders,

Crackles, and smokes with mostly invisible fires

Which, working deep, rarely flash out and flare,

And never finish. Nothing finishes;

The flies, feeling the heat, keep on the move.

Among the flies, the purefying fires,

The hunters by night, acquainted with the art

Of our necessities, and the new deposits

That each day wastes with treasure, you may say

There should be ratios. You may sum up

The results, if you want results. But I will add

That wild birds, drawn to the carrion and flies,

Assemble in some numbers here, their wings

Shining with light, their flight enviably free,

Their music marvelous, though sad, and strange.

Howard Nemerov, a beloved gateway drug, born one hundred years ago today, February 29, 1920

THE CONSENT

Howard Nemerov

Late in November, on a single night

Not even near to freezing, the ginkgo trees

That stand along the walk drop all their leaves

In one consent, and neither to rain nor to wind

But as though to time alone: the golden and green

Leaves litter the lawn today, that yesterday

Had spread aloft their fluttering fans of light.

What signal from the stars? What senses took it in?
 

What in those wooden motives so decided

To strike their leaves, to down their leaves,

Rebellion or surrender? and if this

Can happen thus, what race shall be exempt?

What use to learn the lessons taught by time,

If a star at any time may tell us: Now.