Pinsky, "Berry Bush"

The winter they abandoned Long Point Village —

A dozen two-room house of pine frames clad

With cedar faded to silver and, not much whiter

Or larger, the one-room church—they hauled it all

Down to the docks on sledges, and at high tide

Boats towed the houses as hulks across the harbor

And set them on the streets of Provincetown.

Today they’re identified by blue tile plaques.

Forgotten the fruitless village, in broken wholes

Transported by a mad Yankee frugality

Sweating resolve that pickled the sea-black timbers.

The loathsome part of American Zen for me

Is in the Parable of the Raft: a traveller

Hacks it from driftwood tugged from the very current

That wedged it into the mud, and lashed it

With bitter roots he strips between his teeth.

And after the raft has carried him across

The torrent in his path, the teacher says,

The traveller doesn’t lift the raft on his back

And lug it with him on his journey: oh no,

He leaves it there behind him, doesn’t he?

There must be something spoiled in the translation,

Surely those old original warriors

And ruling-class officials and Shinto saints

Knew a forgetting heavier than that:

The timbers plunged in oblivion, hardened by salt;

Black, obdurate throne-shaped clump of ancient cane-spikes

At the raspberry thicket’s heart; the immigrant

Vow not to carry humiliations of the old

Country to the new, still infusing the segmented

Sweet berry, illegible ingested seed, scribble

Of red allegiances raked along your wrist;

Under all, the dead thorns sharper than the green.

Robert Pinsky