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CONFORMED TO STONE
by David Jaffin
This newest addition to “The Abelard Poets” introduces a young poet who sees more with the mind than with the eye. His poems are delicate and wistful, and concise in form and meaning, as he believes that “poetry is after all the art of absolute compression.” Mr. Jaffin uses a sparse abstract diction somewhat similar, because of their confessional tone, to certain Elizabethan sonneteers. This diction has, however, passed through the emotional mill of surrealism and found its form in the short line.
The poet creates an inner world of symbol and sense based upon recurring imagery, patterns of idea, and reinforced by the intensity of rhythm; a world reflective and lyrical, mystical and sensual, aesthetic and intellectual, social and satirical; a world of person and place, of touch and response, of God and the possibility of belief, of idea and the limitations to idea, of man and dehumanized man, of “passion conformed to stone.”
“I should hope that once one has truly entered ‘my world,’ the gate is forever closed behind him.”
CONFORMED TO STONE
DAVID JAFFIN
ij'arruet’
&

ABELARD-SCHUMAN
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
© Copyright 1968 by David Jaffin
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 68-18971
Standard Book No. 200.71548.8
Printed in the United States of America
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CONTENTS
The Winding Down	7
Raining	7
The Last Snow	8
Indecision	9
The Deer	10
For Grief	10
Woman in Mourning	11
Merry-Go-Round	12
To the Taste of Wine	13
In Defense of Free Will	14
From Summer’s End	14
Conformed to Stone	15
The Inexplicit	16
Study (woman around 50)	16
Sufficiently Human	17
The Idiot	17
Woodcarver	18
“Et in Arcadia Ego” II	18
Creatures of Stone	19
Self Portrait (at age 30)	20
The Quiet Within	21
The Fear of Winter	21
World that Wasn’t There	22
Anna’s Dream	23
Bruckner	24
Am I?	26
Abbreviations	26
Poem of Redemption	27
A Poem of Definition	28
Autumn Afternoon	28
The Last One	29
Professor K	30
Rachel	31
For mij wife, Rosemarie
The silence Of others had Blinded my
view (and the lamp), For I stood
At the top Of the stairs Awaiting the
Winding down (the steps): Material si-
lence (and the manner of the fact).
RAINING
It was raining (i wanted to tell you i am not enough); Do you hear The rain, do You know what I want to tell you?
7
The snow had Come, there Was a sadness
In the night (though i could not
explain it to myself) Wanted to take
Your hand a-gain (and a-gain), hear the
Colors of Your dress— This loneliness
Of thought (as stars arranged in
the winter night), when I came to
You as a child (and wanted to be touched
and talked to) And told something that
Would waken your eyes-.
INDECISION
The afternoon Stood still,
A bird poised
Its song in The clear Light—what
Was it I Wanted to Say (relative
to song, or attributes of light)?
The afternoon Conscious of Neglect (and
I paused to reflect), a Bird balanced
with string.
We saw it First after The rains, it
Stood beside The advancing Columns of
Night, unafraid; What it knew Was only real
In the moment That it knew, The flight to
The world within.
FOR GRIEF
Wanted for Grief, the leaf Falls, as if
Hands pursued it there (through the
silent air)— That’s death: Alarms of light,
The final Calm of flight, Take me in
Your hands, Thus.
WOMAN IN MOURNING
You should Forget (as i have done),
Let light and Pleasure be, Become, appear, appropriate . . .
Winds could
Chill, your Hands would Take the blame—
Be not again A face and mar-belled hands.
MERRY-GO-ROUND
for S.E.
(and round a-bout the world would be, pleasurably turned); A mind of my Own (but cared
for less), as Candles blown But bright (and
round about the world would be); conversed
With stars
(though paper be their intent)—we Slowed, the Going smoothed
(as silk to be touched),
My mind was
A mind of silence (and round about
the world would be, pleasurably turned).
Thus as I Break this Bread (with coarse hands) And touch my Lips to the
Taste of wine (that sunlight shimmers in my veins),
The silence Between us is Broken too— My hands (as birds released in flight),
My lips form Your presence;
But lightly You come (rehearsed in whisper), your Dress woven of The wind, Jewelled with Seven stars, Your feet as
The falling of Leaves; but So lightly you Come that my Lips close your presence.
IN DEFENSE OF FREE WILL
Spring had Chosen its own Fancy (a floral
setting), whims Of light (and pipes of Pan),
Selected at Intervals (3rds and 4ths), and
She matched To her dress A fineness of
Scent and The fashions Of wind.
FROM SUMMER^ END for my father (the farm in Vermont)
The oars would Sing this sun Away into the
Wood at summer’s end,
The quiet regained, we Would glide As wind through

The grass;
Your hands Dipped again
At the current’s edge: This water
Was glass broken, the pond A child who
began to sing.
CONFORMED TO STONE
A poem is The clarity Of winter,
Light reflecting light,
Passion conformed to Stone; a poem Is the mirrored facade,
This gleam of Words reflected—
You wore a Velvet dress,
And, while I
Much admired It, preferred Your nakedness.
The permanent decline Of fact (and
i grasped at your hand) Through the
Fictions of Night (where stars subdued
and calmed)
To this bed Of stone and
Laughter,
Night ceased to define.
STUDY
(woman around 50)
Your face a
Web of sadness (the lines were broken through);
Deceptive words (the partial pain) patched
The image true.
SUFFICIENTLY HUMAN
A painted Smile (the rendered pose),
Sufficiently
Human to touch And expose
Where the lips Creased and Eyes opened
Full to the Artificial Light.
THE IDIOT
I looked for Light when The others were Away, found the Stone that was Almost me, pressed It hard, until I could smile.
WOODCARVER
(in memory of Barney Jafjin)
I carved with The tools of Winter, the Sharp branches,
The rook’s claw;
Remember when I Was old (burdened with shadowy shapes of the city), this Sharp sun go Down.
‘ ET IN ARCADIA EGO” II (Poussin/Panofsky)
Inscriptions Fade (distinguishing features):
Wounds of the Blade extracted From time (protracted), as the Chance of recognition.
CREATURES OF STONE
Creatures of Stone confirmed as flesh
Blood and bone, Insufficiencies Of time in the
Shadows of the Fact (diminishing probabilities of Thought); creatures of stone
(features of man), constructions of the
Idea (transitions fail).
SELF PORTRAIT
(at age 30)
I saw in my Eyes (reflections
still) where Birds crossed Their flight
(in and out into the night),
Cried out for Want of light (the adherence
of fact),
And my eyes Were a mind
Of silence,
My flesh the Dried fields.
The pain of The quiet within, the piercing
(dying) sun In the sickled Shadow of winter, birds
Thrown to the Sharp winds a-
gainst the Unbroken sea,
The snow high
In the dark,
The pain of The quiet within.
THE FEAR OF WINTER
I, thrilled With the sharp Veins of this River run, seeking my song In flight; winter is come,
The rock narrowed to the Scope of fear.
WORLD THAT WASNT THERE
I was writing For a world That wasn’t
There—stars In the uneven Night blown
As moments of Regret, throbbing with the
Autumn rains,
Dry and unspoken now;
Had I remained,
My voice in An unseen light
Would brighten Dimly clear,
Unheard (by
a world that wasn’t there),
It would tear
And splinter.
ANNA S DREAM
Snow was coming (a stranger with a sin-
gle eye):
His feet impressions of
The mind, his Heart sped with Pain, but that
Face (you know) Was mine. His
Hands were gnarled
(the pulse u-pon the cane)
That beat his
Heart too (dried and burned with
rain); but A single eye He turned to
Mine, turned Away the will Of time.
I know your World (the God whose pain
and light left the stars and the night
at the cross),
The valley of Birds, the
Rock that bent The crescent Moon into the
Wood, fields Of river,
Wings of desire . . .
Because the Snow was mounting In the autumn
Sky, birds Whirled from The wood in
Rows of seven, Their wings o-pened the light
Of memory,
The trees were Dead—is there
A flame that Keeps our Song among the
Ashes? In The glass of Winter, the blue
Of the afternoon was broken with the
Edge of twilight: I Heard a cry,
It came from The night,
Stars creating
Light, another Cry before The sun was
Struck from The blend of The mountain,
It was the Nails splitting The cross . . .
Spring begins, Cold and dark, But the rivers
Run, the fields Gather light.
AM I?
Am I, for Example, the Way you look In my eyes;
Am I the Wind (or the rain)
Spoken or Believed, or The possibility Of many i’s: These words, The protracted Silence?
ABBREVIATIONS
Actualities Of the present (abbreviations of intent),
The real as Imagined (i-magined as real), the Image of i (the i as i-mage)—
Time reflecting Time (appearance and light), the
Real exposed To thought.
Once the sun Became apparent, it
Ceased to mean (altogether)
What we’d thought;
Its light retained the Presence of
Fact, maintained the Fictive stance
(you might ask of the sword, the
blunted edge)— Time eclipsed The moment in
The shadow Of the fact,
And we asked
(i’m not certain of the question or
its relevance).
Though it was Only words That you spoke,
And I heard Them not (for the awareness
of you became the consciousness of myself);
Though it was Only words—
But you laughed,
Revealed their Meaning.
AUTUMN AFTERNOON
The light
Too soon wanted
(this autumn
afternoon),
Breakwood between I and
The understood;
To touch was To seem, to
Want to dream,
Light reflected Sight (not
the form or presence); as From a fixed.
Point partitioned,
A bird deciphered Flight, the Impermanency
of light.
THE LAST ONE
Once more for The circus—
A pfennig or
Two, I’m The Jew, could Grow a beard,
Keep my hat On, smile And dance; the
Indian has Feathers (a pleasant stance)
Proportioned To romance— Come one and
All (blond and blue-eyed):
A pfennig or
Two, I’m The Jew.
PROFESSOR K
It’s difficult To believe (forgive me, forgive me)
A German of Age, capable Of praise, but Your teeth seemed To dance (irregular, imperfect), as if Laughter were Possible now.
RACHEL
“als Israels Leib zog aufgeloest in Rauch” (Nelly Sachs)
This land is Dry (and i thirst), my
Mouth parched (the impression of words),
My heart the Image after The fact; this
Land’s dry,
Faces of stone (flesh and bone)
Reduced to the Common truth, My hands recount (after the fact) the Twilight instance—but I wanted to Touch the presence of your Eyes (that waken from
the dead, resemble the thoughts of
suffering);
This land is Dry (the will
of silence), Stars arrange Their form
To the present bourgeois Norm.
David Jaffin, born in America in 1937, earned his doctorate at New York University, where he won several awards for his scholarship. He settled in Munich, Germany, because he felt himself deeply drawn to the Central European artistic tradition.

ABELARD-SCHUMAN
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
Standard Book Number: 200.71548.8