#328

p.350:

https://books.google.com/books?id=w-jfXz9T_2cC&pg=PA336&lpg=PA336&dq=Penniless,+ill,+abroad,+Henry+lay+skew+to+Henry's+American+fate,+which+was+to+be+well&source=bl&ots=eJA1mJjHUt&sig=pXY-EkReFzq0TeZaLih0xWC0pG4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMImZnOz7SGyQIVTvpjCh1XAwGp#v=onepage&q=Penniless%2C%20ill%2C%20abroad%2C%20Henry%20lay%20skew%20to%20Henry's%20American%20fate%2C%20which%20was%20to%20be%20well&f=false

So this was a good day. “He flourished like a sycamore tree” is a reference to DS 1, where “Once in a sycamore I was glad / all at the top, and I sang.” It’s a recollection of a moment of boyhood happiness, being alive at the top of a tree, singing. Henry’s money woes have subsided for the moment—those can drag at one, no doubt—and some of his physical ailments have lessened: His stomach doesn’t hurt. He can eat! Painful starvation also will drag. So there is new singing. The comparison with The O’Rahilly is important: He was an Irish revolutionary, and in doing his dangerous underground revolutionary work (winding the clock) he naturally wanted to see the revolution succeed (hearing the clock strike). Henry, for all his foibles, has been working hard, on good days like today, and on bad days he writes anyway, garnering his anti-heroic accolades, each one the ring of his clock striking: Money, public recognition, and to my mind, most importantly, the satisfaction of a life that meant something. Well, his did, in a way. Sure.

Good Days

A good day, thinks the eagle

Comes when I take a goose

Piercing my talons through the muscle

Of his hot-feathered torso.

A good day, mused the goose

Is when a storm scours the sky

Of eagles, and I can swim

Wet, and beaded, beneath the cold rain.

Do I get out of bed today?

The wind is blowing cold

The blankets are a coat of feathers

And I dread the traffic.

A good day, thinks the eagle

Comes when I take a hare

Piercing my talons through the muscle

Of his hot-furred torso.

But the hare loves the heat

Of bare sun, shards of light

Glinting through his glass eyes

Sharp enough to kindle grass.

I gather my things and go.

I start the car, and the headlights

Pierce the still, black morning

Setting the lawns ablaze.

KZ