Narratives of New Netherland II

“Blue Water View of Old New York”

—John Colman:

My dreams are short.
There are political visions
imprisoned here.

I hunted blue ships in a blue heaven,
slid keel over keel,
each flat sail, a corpse at the pier
at the “Blue Water View of Old New York.”

Leonia, Edgewater & Fort Lee, NJ

On Monday, October 16, 1960, John Colman, murdered in 1621 by the Swannekans, had entered the body and spirit of Edward L. Wyman, 7 years. The boy had been thrown from the Edgewater Palisades. He became John with Edward.”

This son of a Bristol shipwright, John was born in 1578 of Flemish and English parents. In this new Arcadia, John and native wife, Ska Nee, would eventually lead their Algonguian language family, defending with them, lands raised by Manitou, “for all human beings.”

“Enchantment”:
Monday to Sunday,
October 16-28, 1960

Child, Lost
Two Weeks,
Safe!

—Edward Found Eating Hot Dogs,
Foul Play apparently not indicated—

Sunday, October 29, 1960 The Bergen Times, (AP)

A seven year old boy, the only child of the late Edward L. Wyman Sr., awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor during World War II, was found today at Callahans, a Fort Lee Hot dog stand, by Sgt. Anthony Liota, an off duty Fort Lee policeman. Missing since last October 16th, the boy had disappeared after school “with no trace,” the baby sitter said, as there were few if any clues as to the child's whereabouts.

Argument:

On Monday morning, 16 October 1960, Edward L. Wyman by some unexplained process of science or magic, absorbed the body and spirit of John Colman within his own.

First Discovery & General Description
of That Part of the World Called New Netherland.
Tuesday, 6 December 1611

Sometime in my country
at the outward part of river
wild flowers so fragrant
I stand still not knowing
what I am meeting; so many
and rich the birds I can
scarcely go through them
for their whistling
Light can hardly be discerned
where they fly; the fox chases
them like fowl: Their notes
salute the ears of travelers
with harmonious discord,
and in every pond and brook,
green silken frogs warble
their un'tuned tunes
to hear a part in this music.

Strawberries dye the wood red
Instantly, I arm myself
and rush violently into them
never leaving till I have disrobed
them of their color, turning
them into an old habit.

—Return to England: 1612

These Dutch swallow my death too easy;
I watched the palisades of their ship spin
like a half-drowned fly while the waves
in a dream swept the deck clean

Little Fox,
silent witness
on Bristol dock

A carved lady slept on her bow;
red lion with golden mane on stern.

Little Fox, Ship Logs

Wednesday, 8 February 1612

We continued our course toward England, without seeing any land by the way, all the rest of the month of January. On the seventh day of February, being Saturday by the grace of God, we arrived in the range of Dartmouth in Devonshire in the year 1612.

More could have been done had there been goodwill among the crew and if the want of necessary provisions had not prevented it.

While at sea we held counsel together, but were of different opinions. The mate, a Welshman, advised to winter in New Foundland, and to search the Greater passage of Davis throughout. This plan I opposed. I was afraid of this mutinous crew, who had sometimes savagely threatened me, and I feared that during the cold season we would entirely consume our provisions, and would then be obliged to return with many of the crew ill and sickly…

…There was also the death of the ship's mate, John Colman and the varied apparitions many of the crew had concerning that time at the Great River, for on our leaving the Great River, a devil-like wind covered the ship. Mr. Block told how several of the crew became mad, and threw them selves into the sea. Others reported in Juet that the man's face had lit the heavens amid the brawling waves while his face and figure had transformed into a beast that was more wench than man. They told how Colman’s eyes had hung from heaven, one red witch succubus appearing as a “rag without skull and breasts with fangs.”

At last, Juet had said in Journal, the force of the dead settled on the crew until their breath had stopped, but as quickly as Colman’s figure had come over the sea, witness was lost, and when ocean becalmed, they rejoiced for being saved.

JOURNEY TOWARD NEW NETHERLAND
Conversations with John Colman

—In After time I set sail
on Dutch ship, Little Fox.
bound for New Netherland,
Murdered there, I died twice,
but on the third day, rose again.

More than 400 years
I had passed from the bear, —
the winds did push;
Next morning,
I woke beside Great river, –
No blood was lost
during passage.
Now, I race home
the perfect orphan.

Edward:

Thursday, 1 October 1980:

—As a child, I had often hiked alone in the woods of the Palisades near the ledge of the George Washington Memorial Bridge. Arriving at the natural course before Horizon House and other questionable landmarks, I had sharply, (and not too easily) climbed the gray-red short wall cliff to hunt for Indian arrowheads I never found. If you had tracked me close, you could have heard the chatter of my boy soprano midst the crack of squirrels and garter snakes within oak, birch elm boughs.

Edward:

19 October 1960.

It was midnight
and the cliffs were statues.
I follow the bridge
to rocks and broken fall,
my feet miss the turning air.

In one razor motion
bird witness, random flutter
each oak limb fierce
water dripping down my chin--
I am swept down at Hudson,
spilled to its crease:
while mean earth drew close
(how the shot strikes)
I am not certain if the trees pushed:

Wonderful gravity let me hang forever
against thy rule
with the blur of atom-scattered cliff

Wonderful
gravity
I struck
the rock
without
excuse.

The Next Day:

I woke at the water's crisp reminder,
Nearby, half hidden by the bush,
a naked man, his eyes blasted closed,
rocked belly up, in and outside the Hudson,
his fingers swollen shut by the frost
had ridden out of the mud,
I lift his head, brush his tongue
within his lips, and in that next instant,
as if all light had been withdrawn
I am sleeping in my
grandfather's arms
on his comfortable porch
dressed with forsythia,
tired brown in October.

November, 1973

Edward:

—In 1983, I first heard John Colman's
voice within mine, over and over,
barely a whisper; he
spoke without language
by the cusp of logic.

John grew in my act
legs brushed to turnstile
we slipped to pavement
his chest flat pressed
hard over Times; thighs up
we rushed inside, and the million
dollar bell on pinball machine
broke our heart;
I strained as the southbound
pressed its finger
leapt the track;
subway reversed,
graffiti plagued,
the red hot rails are hot
it said over and over.

EDWARD:

For years after, grandmother told how
the police had found me asleep,
almost dead, my wrist, leg broken,
I had been missing for three days
in a culvert off the hidden River Road.

16 October 1960

—First Meeting of Edward & John.”

In the calm, half-green fringe, a slight breeze,
the land too frail, I follow all the birds tonight,
but the earth was not whole,
and I was past, above breath
my eyes brilliant, rebirth sudden.

TUESDAY, 2 January 1990

New Netherland rose over Brooklyn Bridge
Here, soft oceanic silt, thousands of windows

Here, in the eye of glass,
the air had fallow skin
and the evening ran gray,
then reappeared invisible,
soon chalk, in rust,
our shark white teeth
never final, abstracted
by Matisse, worshipped
for that desirable woman
dearest Ska Nee in Christ

The Genealogy:

I was born 14 May 1578,
my Welsh father,
shipwright out of Bristol.
Flemish mother died at birth.

Monday, 1 January 2001, Millennium.

Ancestor winds cleanse North River,
the gravel still in the frantic lake
the prophet sets wheel on wheel.

I grow fat on sky to disappear:
first, my face, then one eye covered all;
I spread thin over hundreds of leagues
to Cathay and five grandfather lakes

Here, the flowered cathedral shuts
stiff petals etch imagined heavens:

blue is silk and scarf,
red, fresh ax-cut tree;
river, brown gray eel,
gold, slippery shad roe.

John,
Thursday, 23 July 1835:

Shadow Named Umber:

From start to time on this blistered run
blazed like an acrobat my eyes mislead
I have no breath, the salt dreams clean
while I watch the river cast its colors gray.

JOHN:
Friday, 9 June 1876

Arguments age upon the skin,
last impression has turned

It rains cold across the flood
the wind changed at the water's height
and the heat that stung at yesterday's noon
swallowed by cliff and overhanging oak

In after time
four skies without base,
eons of clouds,

mine, mine, and some day.

At death the clouds are mud.
My feet dam the space
Last sky, white foil in dark night.

Monday, 16 August 1948:

Here were the lines of never sleep, —
one edge, betrayed, the wings shut.

I had only face, no voice,
there was false sex,
allusive gender,
and I was stark, clean
jumbled before the waves
flailed out of impotent curls.

Thursday, 12 May, 1949

Wings John had clutched in our descent circled above circle
about the grooves of my debris, these years after his rebirth.

Sunday, 21 April 1996

They cannot recall John's face, as Edward did.
He did not force himself upon the child.
There had been no witchcraft

Edward to John:

—There, I open my hand, I am seven–
I will clean the gravel river from your eyes.

Last Conversations, or the first—

Tuesday, 24 February 1643, New Netherland.

John Colman:

I speak to myself
my mind is dry
old waters raise my fall;
final plunge in empty lake

Edward:

Within the race of our Great river
black eyes in gray faces
creep upon the water.

John:

My land was full
violence, dark and random;

Death was serious
not romantic chance.

Edward:

I love Ska Nee as you knew her
Our birth, a simple calculus;
the digestion of our hands complete
with sly acrobatic of legs by legs

John:

There were harmonies
in Ska Nee, in the roseate dress of river;
fluted wings beside throat of waves
What kiss have we discovered
with our marriage at her spine
She was mother to mother
when our feet fell in air
and let to swing bashful
and blissfully solemn.

Edward:

Simple to walk out the river past the bridge.
We rise without flight to peel gilt from pearl,
each layer lost to reveal that precipitous grit.

I am the viper of charm
in the clean of Ska Nee's vulva.
We settle down upon loam
with the buttery ferns for copulation.

John:

When gravity
is revoked,
time falls down.

Have you noticed?

Edward:

Let us inside, among the shad
the roe, our cannibal, future meat,
Our gracious age abandoned.

John:

The tides tumble over fingertips
At midnight we shall be bare
in Ska Nee's undulation.
Our figures gasp out of bounds,
runners standing still,
the flat earth has won,
clocks not set,
I stand at the water,
drinking last trees—
We wait at the planet's door
our body wild divides,
these cliffs will stand straight
up and down with antimony's grain,
there was a terrible hum at death
I will translate the harmony.

There was a terrible pain at birth
I will translate the pleasure not sorrow.

Ska Nee:

After your murder
if I passed the Great river
I would divine it,
and when death closed,
I would prick my eyes
then my nipples
to savor red milk.

—Do not cut the mother!
No hunting in her mouth.

Edward:

Swanneken cut me down
to commit the murder to the murder.

I sleep in a double cradle,
all companions lost,
no John, Ska Nee.

I will dissolve the air
as Ska Nee taught
There is no frame,
I will heal inside
the pulp of the stem;
my sight opens
color--pulls out its nerve

This was John's mask;
I put it on for survival.
Here are Ska Nee's female parts;
I will wear them
for her dreams
were given
with mercy.

John:

What are my names after dying?
I am truly, spirit?

Ska Nee:

First time you died
breathing smoke
from your mother's lips
shot as you stood at the cliff
in a second of laughter

Second time you died
breathing life into your mother.
You fell from the cliff and
were taken by the man
you call Edward.

Edward:

I knew the end of the rivers
where the ocean stirs the clay
into slurry then indivisible

There was great honor
in stone and sand
in the fragments of history
baked to white bone.

Ska Nee:

The sun has one more shadow
to make before it paints the river
and the heavens descend
into the mask of its mask.

Edward:

Adored Ska Nee
at ledge where we fell
John and I
blessed thy arms
and kiss our mouth

Like the contemplation of the plum--
we are that plum;
thee, sky to unpredictable forest,
patient background to what we met
when Yacht, Little Fox, grew out
of the Blue Water View of Old New York.

He who comes over the Salt Water.