The Widening Spell Of The Leaves Poem Rhyme Scheme

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The Carpathian Frontier October	A
for my brother	A
	-
Once in a foreign country I was suddenly ill	B
I was driving south toward a large city famous	C
For so little it had a replica in concrete	D
In two thirds scale of the Arc de Triomphe stuck	E
In the midst of traffic amp obstructing it	F
But the city was hours away beyond the hills	G
Shaped like the bodies of sleeping women	H
Often I had to slow down for herds of goats	I
Or cattle milling on those narrow roads amp for	J
The narrower lost stone streets of villages	K
I passed through The pains in my stomach had grown	L
Gradually sharper amp more frequent as the day	M
Wore on amp now a fever had set up house	N
In the villages there wasn't much point in asking	O
Anyone for help In those places where tanks	P
Were bivouacked in shade on their way back	Q
From some routine exercise along	R
The Danube even food was scarce that year	S
And the languages shifted for no clear reason	H
From two hard quarries of Slavic into German	H
Then to a shred of Latin spliced with oohs	T
And hisses Even when I tried the simplest phrases	K
The peasants passing over those uneven stones	U
Paused just long enough to look up once	V
Uncomprehendingly Then they turned	W
Quickly away vanishing quietly into that	X
Moment like bark chips whirled downriver	A
It was autumn Beyond each village the wind	Y
Threw gusts of yellowing leaves across the road	Z
The goats I passed were thin gray their hind legs	A2
Caked with dried shit seesawed along	R
Not even mild contempt in their expressionless	B2
Pale eyes amp their brays like the scraping of metal	C2
Except for one village that had a kind	Y
Of museum where I stopped to rest amp saw	D2
A dead Scythian soldier under glass	E2
Turning to dust while holding a small sword	F2
At attention forever there wasn't much to look at	X
Wind leaves goats the higher passes	K
Locked in stone the peasants with their fate	G2
Embroidering a stillness into them	H2
And a spell over all things in that landscape	I2
Like	J2
That was the trouble it couldn't be	K2
Compared to anything else not even the sleep	L2
Of some asylum at a wood's edge with the sound	M2
Of a pond's spillway beside it But as each cramp	N2
Grew worse amp lasted longer than the one before	J
It was hard to keep myself aloof from the threadbare	O2
World walking on that road After all	P2
Even as they moved the peasants the herds of goats	I
And cattle the spiralling leaves at least were part	Q2
Of that spell that stillness	C
After a while	R2
The villages grew even poorer then thinned out	S2
Then vanished entirely An hour later	A
There were no longer even the goats only wind	Y
Then more amp more leaves blown over the road sometimes	T2
Covering it completely for a second	U2
And yet except for a random oak or some brush	V2
Writhing out of the ravine I drove beside	W2
The trees had thinned into rock into large	X2
Tough blonde rosettes of fading pasture grass	E2
Then that gave out in a bare plateau And then	Y2
Easing the Dacia down a winding grade	Z2
In second gear rounding a long funneled curve	A3
In a complete stillness of yellow leaves filling	O
A wide field like something thoughtlessly	R2
Mistakenly erased the road simply ended	B3
I stopped the car There was no wind now	C3
I expected that amp though I was sick amp lost	D3
I wasn't afraid I should have been afraid	Z2
To this day I don't know why I wasn't	E3
I could hear time cease the field quietly widen	H
I could feel the spreading stillness of the place	F3
Moving like something I'd witnessed as a child	G3
Like the ancient armored leisure of some reptile	R2
Gliding gray yellow into the slightly tepid	H3
Unidentical gray brown stillness of the water	A
Something blank amp unresponsive in its tough	I3
Pimpled skin seen only a moment then unseen	J3
As it submerged to rest on mud or glided just	K3
Beneath the lustreless calm yellow leaves	L3
That clustered along a log or floated there	O2
In broken ringlets held by a gray froth	M3
On the opaque unbroken surface of the pond	N3
Which reflected nothing no one	H
And then I remembered	O3
When I was a child our neighbors would disappear	S
And there wasn't a pond of crocodiles at all	R2
And they hadn't moved They couldn't move They	M
Lived in the small fenced off backwater	A
Of a canal I'd never seen them alive They	M
Were in still photographs taken on the Ivory Coast	P3
I saw them only once in a studio when	Y2
I was a child in a city I once loved	Q3
I was afraid until our neighbor a photographer	A
Explained it all to me explained how far	R3
Away they were how harmless how they were praised	S3
In rituals as quot powers quot But they had no quot powers quot	S3
He said The next week he vanished I thought	S3
Someone had cast a spell amp that the crocodiles	T3
Swam out of the pictures on the wall amp grew	U3
Silently amp multiplied amp then turned into	U3
Shadows resting on the banks of lakes amp streams	V3
Or took the shapes of fallen logs in campgrounds	W3
In the mountains They ate our neighbor Mr Hirata	S3
They ate his whole family That is what I believed	S3
Then that someone had cast a spell I did not	S3
Know childhood was a spell or that then there	O2
Had been another spell too quiet to hear	X3
Entering my city entering the dust we ate	S3
No one knew it then No one could see it	S3
Though it spread through lawnless miles of housing tracts	Y3
And the new bare treeless streets it slipped	S3
Into the vacant rows of warehouses amp picked	S3
The padlocked doors of working class bars	Z3
And union halls amp shuttered empty diners	A4
And how it clung forever if one had noticed	S3
To the brothel with the pastel tassels on the shade	S3
Of an unlit table lamp Farther in it feasted	S3
On the decaying light of failing shopping centers	A4
It spilled into the older tree lined neighborhoods	B4
Into warm houses sealing itself into books	C4
Of bedtime stories read each night by fathers	A4
The books lying open to the flat neglected	S3
Light of dawn amp it settled like dust on windowsills	A4
Downtown filling the smug caf eacute s schools	A4
Banks offices taverns gymnasiums hotels	A4
Newsstands courtrooms opium parlors Basque	D4
Restaurants Armenian steam baths	A4
French bakeries amp two of the florists' shops	A4
Their plate glass windows smashed forever	A
Finally it tried to infiltrate the exact	S3
Center of my city a small square bordered	S3
With palm trees olives cypresses a square	O2
Where no one gathered not even thieves or lovers	A4
It was a place which no longer had any purpose	A4
But held itself aloof I thought the way	M
A deaf aunt might from opinions styles gossip	E4
I liked it there It was completely lifeless	A4
Sad amp clear in what seemed always a perfect	S3
Windless noon I saw it first as a child	S3
Looking down at it from that as yet	S3
Unvandalized makeshift studio	S3
I remember leaning my right cheek against	S3
A striped beach ball so that Mr Hirata	S3
Who was Japanese who would be sent the next week	F4
To a place called Manzanar a detention camp	N2
Hidden in stunted pines almost above	G4
The Sierra timberline could take my picture	A
I remember the way he lovingly relished	S3
Each camera angle the unwobbling tripod	S3
The way he checked each aperture against	S3
The light meter in love with all things	A4
That were not accidental amp I remember	A
The care he took when focusing how	C3
He tried two different lens filters before	J
He found the one appropriate for that	S3
Sensual late slow blush of afternoon	H4
Falling through the one broad bay window	S3
I remember holding still amp looking down	I4
Into the square because he asked me to	U3
Because my mother amp father had asked me please	A4
To obey amp be patient amp allow the man	J4
Whose business was failing anyway by then	Y2
To work as long as he wished to without any	K2
Irritations or annoyances before	J
He would have to spend these years my father said	S3
Far away in snow amp without his cameras	A4
But Mr Hirata did not work He played	S3
His toys gleamed there That much was clear to me	K2
That was the day I decided I would never work	K4
It felt like a conversion Play was sacred	S3
My father waited behind us on a sofa made	S3
From car seats One spring	O

Larry Levis

The Widening Spell Of The Leaves Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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