Signs and Portents by Stanley Kunitz

Signs and Portents

1

Jonathan, the last of the giant tortoises 

on wind-beaten Saint Helena, 

misses his island mate, 

who died in a fall from a cliff 

a century ago.

He is ancient and crusty, 

more lonely than Bonaparte 

strutting on the volcanic beach, 

reviewing his triumphs.

Lately he has made himself 

a deliberate nuisance 

to the sporting set 

of the British Crown Colony 

by butting and upending benches 

near the tennis courts 

and disrupting croquet games 

by sitting on the croquet balls.

2

At the Porch of the Caryatids 

on the Acropolis 

the noble supportive maidens 

are stepping down 

from their weathered pedestals, 

one by one, 

to seek asylum in a museum.

Their places will be taken 

by identical synthetic sisters 

conditioned to withstand 

the high, classic, polluted air.

3

Three thousand years ago 

they soaked him in pickling brine, 

stuffed his body with resins, 

baked him in desert heat. 

He was Ramses the Second, 

feared by Hittites and Israelites, 

the hard Pharaoh of Exodus, 

colossal as the temples 

his minions sweated out of rock.

Paris has him now on temporary loan.

In the aseptic laboratory 

of the Musée de L'Homme, 

where he lies in state 

for special treatment, 

who will cure the old mummy 

of the loathsome fire 

raging under his bandages?

4

Children at play in a field, 

tumbling down a hole 

into the pristine Palaeolithic, 

showed us the way, 

ripped the lid from the grotto. 

We sped to the spot on wheels 

with our cameras and basket lunches. 

Now the bison of Lascaux, 

prodded from the centuries 

of limestone sleep, are sick.

Clots of virulent mold 

suppurate on their flanks, 

emitting a green stain. 

We name it la maladie verte, 

an infection from people.

At the back of our minds 

squat figures, whose hairy hands 

carried torches and the dream of art 

through cheerless labyrinths, 

gabble in the shadows. 

5

On Twelfth Street in Manhattan, 

opposite St. Vincent's Mental Pavilion, 

while I was sweeping the sidewalk 

of its increment of filth, 

deposited by dogs and unleashed humans, 

a blue van rolled by 

with its sidepanel reading: 

WORLD FINISHING AND DYEING COMPANY. 

I did not catch the face of the driver.