Cast Like Ashes

Photo: David Rizzo

Something New

Cast Like Ashes, my newest poem, is somewhat of a departure from my previous work. For a long time I’ve wanted to write something expansive, something that explores the themes of modernity, quite possibly at its decline, and traditionalism, often put forward as a presumed antidote for our troubles. Additionally, I wanted this to be composed in a complex metric and poetic form that could express this expansiveness in a nuanced and musical fashion, something symphonic or at least analogous to a musical piece. Lastly, I did not want this to sound like a diatribe or manifesto, still worse any kind of partisan or culture war nonsense.

This poem is several hundred lines long, much longer than my typical poems that run like 14 to 20 lines or so. I began it in mid April which coincided with a recent trip to Venice. Venice is really as beautiful as people say, and the city pervades this poem, which is only fitting since Venice is one of the birthplaces of Modernity, hatched as it were during the Italian Renaissance, the height of Venetian influence, power and wealth. The parts of the poem dealing with Venice make up the primary subject group, while the parts dealing with traditional society especially those affected by the enclosure of the commons in Britain make up the second subject group.

This poem is dedicated to Dougald Hine himself a Substack author. A portion of the third section of the poem derives from his book At Work in the Ruins, which you can find Here. Hine’s book is definitely worth reading.

I hope you like my poem. I feel like I’ve put my heart on a plate so let me know what you think of it, if it lands and if it does what I am hoping it does.

Enough talk, here is the poem Cast Like Ashes by yours truly David Rizzo.

 
CAST LIKE ASHES
 
For Dougald Hine

    I. 

It dances like a gondola dances in an azure canal 
Frolicking on the turbulent water that rolls off the wake of a vaporetto 
Till it laps against the salmon colored walls of one of the mansions
One of the mansions that dot the banks of the canal
And rises toward the sun contemplating its own magnificence 
Its own glorious magnificence.  

Modernity began in such mansions  
Snaking its way into our consciousness 
The way the canals of Venice  
Snake a path and girdle the salmon colored walls  
Binding them tight with spoils, 
Spoils of commerce and fantastic splendor, 
Financial acumen and Machiavellian intrigue.  

In the Doge’s palace girding the piazza, 
San Marco has shape-shifted into the form of a lion 
Fixed high on the baroque walls 
Of the basilica  
No longer proclaiming the Good News of our salvation 
He longs now only to eat the meat of the lamb  
Overcome by spoils of trade and commerce  
And an imperially sanctioned licentiousness.  


Shall we ponder the antecedents, 
The explosions? 
Out of what sea has the arc of progress bent? 
What caused men to drive piles into the sea floor, proclaiming  
Internal contradictions? From where has this new order sprung ?   



Everything traditional shall last 
Or so we thought  
Everything that has proved useful and satisfactory  
And stood the test of time without unintended consequences  
These shall last  
Or so we thought  
Everything traditional that we could rely upon, the well trimmed hedges and amber fields  
Bursting with heads of grain, 
The Manor, our King and country  
These we could rely upon 
Until we couldn’t.  

These things: Community, noblesse oblige, 
Cottages with warm hearths and well fed tenants. 
These could be relied upon  
Until we learned a harsh truth  
The Manor is not safe if the cottage is unhappy   
Rights and a sense of the common good  
There was a commons in those days  
Before the fences  
Hundreds of years of rights and responsibilities  
Rights to graze, use underwood and chestnuts for example 
Mutually overlapping reciprocal rights and duties  
To use, not to commodify  
Not to sell, nor to own, in the commons 
The right to use and not to starve.   



The artisans have been replaced  
By high speed looms and factories  
Traditional society  
Has disappeared without a trace  
Farewell, farewell to priests and kings  
Modernity is all the rage.  


      II.  

The Manor is still safe 
Sun-drenched the amber fields are neatly arranged  
As tenants fell stalks of grain in the bright sun  
Swinging scythes like pendulums  
Each stroke in sync appears effortless. 
Yet perspiration pocks on burnt foreheads. 
For now Christ still sits in tabernacles. 
Fish gather piously under the boat as Saint Brendan prays at sea 
The world is still alive and breathes.   

Before there was an Empire   
There was the Land  
Before there was the Raj   
There was the Realm  
And before our ships headed West  
And hugged the coast of Hudson Bay  
England was a green and pleasant land  
We worked the open fields and paid our rent,
Ran pigs through the commons,  
We even snared a few rabbits on the sly,  
Tipped back pints of ale in the tavern after dark,  
We worked hard, slept well and rose with the sun.  

Everything traditional shall last   
Or so we thought   
The open fields, how is it that these did not last?  
If the fences must come in the name of necessity,  
If the fences must come in the name of efficiency and a more intensive utilization   And if the fences force us off the land  
Into the mills and factories,  
We will interfere with such machinations.  
Such machinations will have no power over us   
For the Lord of Heaven and the King have granted authority to us.  
We will tear down the fences, and  
Restore the commons,  
Satanic mills shall be thrown down   
And the land restored!    

The land will be restored and dance
As fruit and grain rise high above the land   
The spade and plough shall pierce.  
All shall be blessed with abundance and dance  
In the sun, the glorious sun!      


On the floating platform for the vaporetto   
Under the wooden bridge at Accademia  
In front of the dome, the sun  
Dances on the canal  
The bright sun fractured and reflected like brush strokes on an Impressionist’s canvas.
Ten minutes pass and the crowd spills out onto the Piazza San Marco. 
Down by the Bridge of Sighs  
The gondolier happily stands   
In command of his oar and rows.  
As water laps the hull of the gondola,  
A song issues from his lips:

Si fanno transportare   
Dal gondoliere che rema  
E va  
E si ode un dolce canto  
E una columba in cielo  
Va    

Caravels make all things new, 
Christopher Columbus under Isabella’s flag 
Hoping to cash in on the spice trade  
Bumbles his way across the sea  
Chasing the Sun  
The Sun dancing in wave troughs,  
Square sails of caravels  
Bleached white in the glorious sun   
Dancing in the waters off San Salvador, and Haiti, and Cuba  
Christen the new continent in the inhabitants’ blood.  

The new world bathed from the start   
In conquest and in blood.  
Cortez marching into Tenochtitlan  
Fights his way into the palace,  
Up to the roof of the palace with Motecuzoma in chains   
Takes Tenochtitlan, 
And the Aztec Empire
Succumbs to smallpox. 
A New Spain, a New World   
Bleached white in the glorious sun  
Modernity at last unleashed   
Christens the continent   
In its inhabitants’ blood.


By the nineteenth century it is a fait accompli.
The fruit of what is rational,
The fruit of scientific methodology:
Germ Theory, 
Anesthesia, 
Surgery.

It’s hard to argue with increased profitability 
Shall we fast forward to the 20th century?



A century of war. Nineteen sixteen   
The trenches steeped in poets’ blood   
As mortar drops out of skies lit bright by flares  
Mangled remains lie slumped against barbed wire  
Staring into the night without mind or sense   
Or purpose, staring out at what progress looks like.  

Snap shot nineteen forty-five 
This is what Modernity looks like grown up
Smoke rising over Dresden in the wake of fire bombs  
White ash on the bony remnants of buildings that rise   
Toward a hazy sun  
Contemplating decay and death. 
At Aushwitz, the bony sticks of men  
And women and children   
Are walking as if risen from the dust   
Chanting in unison:

“The true magnitude of tragedy lies  
Not in shaved heads, wasting and dying   
But in the silent faces of our liberators   
Staring at the ripple of our rib bones   
And distrusting the evidence of their own eyes  
Wondering if Odysseus in Hell  
Saw such sights.”



The land cannot dance, a pipe dream.
Neither alive nor common, disenchanted, fixed 
According to the dictates not of divinities
But natural contingencies 
Possessing neither soul nor breath nor mind
Nor purpose.
The land cannot dance 
Built up from the bodies of the non-conscious dead 
The loam, the basalt, quartz, and oil
Possess neither soul nor breath nor mind.
Man alone is the measure.  Neither wolf, nor hawk, 
Nor any living creature is aware, is purposeful
Except for man. 

Man alone is the measure and to serve man the only purpose.
Coal, oil, gas must explode.
Jet fuel must explode, combustible,
Dug from the bowels of the earth,
With hidden power carries us bright and fractured,
Fizzling away the power of the sun accumulated over eons
Fizzled away in just two-hundred years.
The atmosphere shall burn and choke, the oceans froth
Tepid. The coral will bleach white.

On the floating platform for the vaporetto   
Under the wooden bridge at Accademia  
In front of the dome, the sun  
Dances on the canal  
The bright sun fractured and reflected like
Brush strokes on an Impressionist’s canvas.


      III.

The azure waters are rising
And water marks run higher on the salmon colored walls.
The girdling snake tightens its grip as the spoils of empire have become more costly,
More costly than any accountant could have imagined.
The walls of mansions are now the walls of museums, 
And the Doge’s Palace a place where crowds of tourists stand.

At the Bridge of Sighs across from the gondolas
A woman’s gown flows as the wind caresses it.
And she moves through a sequence of continuous motion poses,
Growing a portfolio she hopes will please
The editors of Vogue.
The voice of a gondolier rises as the wind caresses it
Twilight falls, the music dances above an azure canal, 
To the delight of tourists as the last remnants of sun
Cover them in long slanting shadows.



Where some see shallowness 
I see beauty 
And where some see superior reverence 
I see that they see nothing 
A romantic recast of reality by axing it in two 
When I critique the Modern it does not mean that I shall now embrace Tradition 
Or imply that our ruins have brought no benefits, 
Nothing worthy of preservation.
If there are two halves only,
If one must grow lesser while the other is idolized 
Then I shall reject such dichotomy.
If we fashioned a structure that is unsustainable 
If we have built a Tower of Babel
Then assuredly it will crumble under its own weight.

Amidst such ruins
What should we retain? What jewel from Modernity’s forge? 
There are many and we should not forget this.
Germ theory, vaccination, medicine, the secular state?

Amidst such ruins
What shall we resurrect, make new
So that a resurrected culture is more
Than a resuscitated corpse? 
The commons, faith and an enchanted world 
Perhaps?

Amidst such ruins 
What must we allow to fall away
And what must we cast down 
That was not so good 
As we remembered it?

If our tower crumbles under its own weight 
We must be cautious of false dichotomies.


Everything traditional shall last 
At least we thought so
Only that which was allowed to continue has continued
That which has showed itself able to withstand 
Consequences cast in its wake, 
without being swamped or forced onto the bank
Has lasted and will continue to last
Till something better comes along.

Sometimes the traditional which we fathomed lost,
Cast like ashes on an azure sea, has been gathered up, back in vogue.
The land, with her amber fields and long slanting dappled shadows
Cast by a canopy of salmon colored leaves in autumn,
Watered by an array of streams and rivers 
Shall continue, 
Prove useful,
And shall dance with all of us
At her restoration.



Never forget, the bark is not the shore.
Trembling, I wanted lies, could not be brought 
To believe concentration camp stick men
Nor Buddhist monks self immolated. Crack
My hollow shells exquisite porcelain 
That tears may flow and water the burnt grass,
Dark catacombs, voiced wind-chimed requiem.

—David Rizzo