AMERICA
(My First NOVEL, Novella)
My La Vita Nuova
My Portrait of an Artist
1975-1976-1977
30 YEARS AGO!
T ADAM HILL
Introduction
Invocation
Often, being lost in wonder,
or confused and deeply depressed,
a pure and simple vitality flows
through me like a wind.
This pureness of life awakens all my thoughts
and actions and produces a longing,
a longing both painful and tender,
a longing which reaches toward all
that is vague, unknown and incomprehensible,
and a longing I follow like a blind man
tapping the red tip of his white cane,
until I begin to contemplate the woman
whose physical beauty and whose philosophy of life
constitute the most perfect harmony I have ever known.
She is the summation of my knowledge
and the consummation of my desires,
and I cannot think beyond her,
for beyond her lies what never can be known to man,
though I imagine it too, has been infiltrated
by her pervasive beauty.
She is the cause of my sadness,
she is the cause of my joy.
My daily life, my view of people
and the world, and I believe,
even the blood which circulates through my heart,
have been influenced by her.
Even though I have not seen her in seven years,
still she changes my life each day.
I now know the mind can never comprehend
the completeness of the universe.
However, many things were revealed to me
when I was in her presence, listening
to her sweet profound words, and it is my hope
that you who place love before all things,
may find in this small book,
some of the love she has given
and the insight she provides.
or...
I now know the mind can never comprehend
the completeness of the universe.
However, many things would still be unknown to me
had I never been in her presence
and listened to her sweet profound words.
It is my hope to convey to you,
to you who place love before all things,
some of the love she has given
and the insight she provides.
All I have to say here concerns her.
or opening...
Often being lifted in extreme wonder,
or lost in deep despair, I sit in my room
with head bowed toward the floor,
or watch white clouds drifting outside my window
until a pure and simple feeling flows through me like a wind.
It is the pureness of life which awakens
all my thoughts and actions and produces a longing in me,
a longing for all that is vague, unknown and incomprehensible,
and I follow this longing like a blind man tapping the red tip of his white cane,
until I begin to contemplate the woman whose physical beauty
and whose philosophy of life form the most perfect harmony I have ever known.
... and then continue with "she is the summation" etc
or
Often, being lifted in extreme wonder,
or lost in deep despair, I sit head bowed in my room,
or watch white clouds passing outside my window,
until a simple but mysterious feeling flows through me like a wind,
awakening all of my thoughts and actions and producing in me
a single longing which seems to reach toward all
that is vague, unknown and incomprehensible,
until I begin to contemplate the woman whose
physical appearance and whose philosophy of life
form the most perfect harmony I have ever known.
I cannot think beyond her, for beyond her lies
all that can never be known to man.
She alone is constant in my life, all else changes.
She is the cause of my sadness.
She is the cause of my joy.
She changes my life each day.
As my thoughts of her have grown and these meditative states
have continued, I have come to realize that the mind can never
comprehend the completeness of the universe. However,
many things would still be unknown to me had I never
been in her presence and not heard the sweet profound words
issuing from her compassionate lips. It is my hope that you
who place Love before all things, many find in this small book,
written in simple English, a reflection of the Love she gives
and the insight she provides. All I have to say here concerns her.
1
CAPITOL MEETING
I was walking in the southeast section
of the city and had either made a wrong
turn or had been misdirected, for I did
not recognize any of my surroundings.
Warehouses, whose bright paint had long
since begun to fade, line the winding streets.
In the shadow of one of the buildings,
black men and white men were sitting
and leaning with sweat streaming
down their chiseled faces and
around their yellow-stained eyes.
Loose wet shirts stuck to their backs.
Their muscular arms glistened.
One was an old man with white hair,
a white beard and eyes twinkling with insight.
He sat with his forearms resting
on his knees. As he looked at me
he wore an amused smile, as if to say
"Young man, you've got a lot to learn."
Possessing the wisdom of the ages,
he seemed content to sit on the ground.
The second was a middle aged man
who had wide innocent eyes.
In a gesture of good natured inferiority,
he waved feverishly at me
with a broad sweep of his hand.
A third man, a younger man,
leaning arrogantly against the wall,
glared at me with anger, hatred and contempt.
As they waited for temporary labor jobs
outside the dark unpromising Manpower office,
a pack of Kool cigarettes circulated among them,
but none of them, including myself,
could escape the summer's
oppressive heat and breed of flies
that sucked their salty flesh.
After passing them, I crossed the street
and walked into the blazing sunlight.
I felt lost, unable to remember how or even why
I had come to this section of the city.
My journey began to seem like a dream.
(My trip had taken on the qualities of a dream.)
2
I continued along Trinity Street
which ran high above the expressway.
I leaned over the thick aluminum railing.
Cars were speeding between wide white lines
slashed on the road surface, speeding
as though the drivers were in a race
in which each contestant had his or her
own reasons for and conception of victory.
They roared off into the carbon monoxide haze
which sprawled southward as far as I could see.
The bridge and I shook from their thunderous passing.
In the east to my left, rose the capitol
with its proud resplendent golden dome.
or... painted with pure gold.
Representatives where entering its chambers
for another day of legislation.
A white cloudy vapor trail
curved around the shape of the dome
and led high in the omnipresence of sky
to a jet which seemed like a needle piercing the air.
To the right of the jet, the atmosphere
was cloudless, robin eggshell blue,
and limitless deep space. ...or...
A jet, leaving a white cloudy vapor trail
which simulated the curve of the dome,
seemed like a tiny shiny needle piercing the sky.
The air was fresh and robin eggshell blue,
and limitless deep space.
or ... To the right of the jet,
the nimbus rondure of the azure was cloudless
and fresh and blue and limitless deep space.
To my right, with its bridges and carbon monoxide haze,
the labyrinthine network of the Interstate Highway
sprawled like veins of the human city as far as I could see.
rewrite
In the east, to my left, rose the capitol with its proud
resplendent dome of gold gleaming from the huge
yellow sphere of the sun. A jet, leaving a white cloudy
vapor trail of smoke which , at its greatest arc, simulated
the curve of the dome, the jet seemed like a tiny shiny needle
piercing the blue ceiling of sky. To the right of the jet trail
the air was deep fresh infinite light blue space.
As I lowered my eyes once more to the earth's surface,
I noticed a woman crossing one of the seven bridges in the distance.
(continued... see typed draft.)
3
In the distance, I saw a woman crossing
one of the seven bridges.
The bright sun dazzled my vision,
and only slowly could I determine her appearance.
or... as she came closer, I could see that...
She was a warm and contemplative young woman
whose full and shapely body was clothed
in a light blue blouse and a pale yellow skirt.
Behind her was the cool gray granite
of the windowless rectangular Archives building.
As she approached, her flowing hair
seemed to collect and radiate the glowing
brightness of the sun. Her presence permeated
and was indistinguishable from the atmosphere
around her so that I could not tell exactly where
her being ended and the luminous air began.
I shielded the bright light from my eyes with my hand.
I gazed into her large hazel eyes.
or... Dazzling warmth and kindness exuded
from her soothing hazel eyes.
Suddenly a sensation blossomed as
a realization in my conscious mind.
or... Suddenly a sensation burst from my instincts
and blossomed in my conscious mind.
Like one who wakes up, and sits up,
and still heavy with dreams, gazes outside
at the huge yellow sphere of the sun
burning away the morning haze,
I realized she was America,
the young woman who had often been
the subject of my thoughts even though
I had not seen her in seven years.
Dazzling warmth and kindness
exuded from her soothing hazel eyes.
She had a long straight nose,
soft lilac lips and a bold chin.
I could not tell where the ebullient
fluid motion of her body ended
and where the luminous atmosphere began.
When she walked, her body emitted exhibited
discharged spilled poured shed secreted ramified
deployed exuded circular movement in all directions,
a gelatin like lactating field of energy, a celestial body
at once ethereal but earthy too.
Coming toward me, her body emitted and discharged
round circular gelatin like and lactescent movements
in all directions.
or... Her body radiated round circular
movements in all directions.
She had a smooth fair coloring.
4
"I had a feeling we would meet again," she said calmly.
Thoughts and feelings flooded to my lips with such force
that I could not speak, but she seemed to be amused
by our chance meeting. She smiled an all knowing smile.
"Where are you going?" she asked, her eyebrows
pulling together sincerely and her eyes squinting
curiously as though to draw the answer out of me.
"To tell you the truth, I'm lost," confusedly I replied
and mentioned what I was looking for.
"Come with me. I'll show you the way,"
America immediately responded.
The traffic light changed from red to green,
the walk light flashed white, and we crossed
the street and walked up Capitol Avenue.
There were no other pedestrians around,
and we were quite alone, enveloped in
the bright metallic flash and atonal noise
of the traffic swirling all around us.
Mindless of our direction,
my entire concentration was focused on her.
I was completely absorbed.
She explained briefly what had happened
to her in the last seven years,
adding that she now lived close by
and was on her way to the capitol where she worked.
Abruptly she changed the conversation.
"Well I have to go now,
but it was nice talking to you.
Let's see, I believe what you are looking for
is over there," she said as she stopped
and pointed with her finger to the west.
"I'm sure we'll meet again," she added,
and with those final words she turned
and ascended the wide steps of the capitol.
I watched until she disappeared in the entrance.
I was so engrossed in listening to her,
I had no idea we were in front of the capitol.
I truly believed I was dreaming. In a state of astonishment,
I turned as she indicated, in the opposite direction.
5
Later that same day, a strange incident
occurred which has intrigued me to this day.
On my way home, I walked down a light concrete road.
On the hill above the road stood wooden houses
built very close to one another. The had gone
unpainted through generations of people who
had inhabited them, and would remain in austere grayness,
the inhabitants apparently having been engaged in heartier,
more gratifying past times such as talking and weddings
and births, funerals, drinking, laughing, fornicating and gambling,
apparently preferring these abominations and perversities
to the task of painting a house. Thus the wise grayness
of these houses remained and the living in them would continue
until a member of a law firm, a business contractor or person
speculating in real estate would, for a fixed insubstantial sum,
buy the land as though it was a whore, and one day would arrive,
crawling up in his shiny silver Cadillac Seville, merciless and resolute
and without even looking at the small gardens that grandmothers
and mothers and children and their children had tried to grow
in the relentless, cold, red, implacable clay earth, not even glancing
at the knarled trees and t he mistletoe and the wisteria and muscadine vines,
vines of the promised land, which clung desperately and opulently
to the oaks, not even looking over two steps in front of him as he would
climb to the houses and send a gun shot knock through the soiled
and tired and ageless rooms of darkness and coolness and people
who would soon read the eviction notice nailed to their doors,
a notice not even expressed with a clause containing the conviction
of improving conditions, not even embellished with a muted ineffectual honk
of the car horn or much less served with the slightest remorse or hesitancy.
The hammering of the nails would sound with irrevocable finality
and hold the white paper to blow out in the wind, a final paper tombstone
on a neighborhood and its people. But that inevitable action would
take place much later.
As I walked down this hill, I heard the deep notes of a guitar
pouring from the dark secluded spaces of one of these houses.
It was accompanied by the pure sonorous voice of a man who sang the blues.
I often walked this road, and stopped here to visit Lucy,
the old gray haired black woman who had raised me,
who was as much my mother as my own biological mother.
I would climb the old rickety steps up the hill,
bare red clay earth on either side, until I'd reach the bare porch
of the unpainted house, where a bomb complete with fins
hung as a planter and normally it had flowers growing in it.
But Lucy was always distant, and my Mother was distant,
and I grew up with a sense of great spacial loneliness,
a loneliness that is generally warm and friendly.
One old house at the bottom of the hill
had been converted into a store, and I decided
to buy something without actually wanting anything.
I hung around for one sole reason.
I was completely preoccupied with this song.
The singer voiced so clearly the feelings
which had begun to rise in my heart mind soul that morning.
It is the nature of love to make one feel weary
and burdened with sadness when actually
one has perhaps the greatest reason to rejoice.
She had scarcely glanced in my direction
during our conversation and yet I had seen and felt,
as though there had been waves of electrical energy transmitted,
the ardor and trembling passion in her eyes and in her mouth.
But what plagued and grieved me most of all
was the certainty that what I saw shining in her eyes
was not a special interest in me, but rather her natural state
and lively desire to discover the mysteries
and infinite possibilities of life.
I felt it was only an accident, a random incident
which had brought me before her.
I felt like an armadillo crossing the road
and suddenly hypnotized, dazed by the bright lights of her car.
Her whole body was glowing with the pureness of love,
completely independent of my presence, but in foolhardy moods,
I secretly believed her eyes flashed and she smiled out of love for me.
I do not know how she felt, I only know of the love
which she instilled in my heart, my soul, and in my mind.
It is a love so deep that often I have disregarded those things
which are necessary to continue a normal healthy life.
I stood in the doorway of the store
like a traveller stands and studies road maps,
listening to that voice so deep yet mellifluous.
I assumed it was the voice of a husky black man.
TWELVE GATES TO THE CITY
OH OH OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CITY
OH OH OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CITY
OH OH OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CITY
TWELVE GATES TO THE CITY HALLELUJAH
THERE'S THREE GATES IN THE EAST
THERE'S THREE GATES IN THE WEST
THERE'S THREE GATES IN THE NORTH
THERE'S THREE GATES IN THE SOUTH
OH OH OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CITY...
IF YOU SEE MY GAL IN THE MORNING
IF YOU SEE MY MA AT NIGHT
IF YOU SEE MY SISTER IN THE EVENING
TELL MY BROTHER WE'RE ALL ALRIGHT
OH OH OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CITY
OH OH OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CITY
OH OH OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CITY
TWELVE GATES TO THE CITY HALLELUJAH
My reverie over the beauty of this song
interwoven with the love I carried for her
went unbroken until the owner of the store
asked me if I wanted anything.
Only then did I notice the men who had gathered
in the shady coolness of the store.
They were sitting around an old table,
worn and defaced and scarred
from countless years of use and abuse,
chipped from being overturned in the arguments
which followed their drunken games of cards
or as they were playing now, checkers.
My emotions where like the checker pieces
on the red and black squares of the board,
and she, like the two players, moved them around at will.
I considered the anxiety, the despair, the relief,
the happiness, the vast spectrum of emotions
displayed during the chance and randomness
of cards being dealt in a card game.
Similarly, I discovered my sadness and my hopes
were placed entirely on the vicissitudes of love.
And the probability of the occurrence of Love
is far more discouraging that the perfect hand of cards.
If I appeared at all like a vagrant to those men,
they would certainly have regarded me as a heroin addict
a few weeks later, for in appearance, I was to become
much more haggard, thin, pale and wane, passing long hours