James Tate

Failed Tribute To The Stonemason Of Tor House, Robinson Jeffers

We traveled down to see your house, 
Tor House, Hawk Tower, in Carmel, 
California. It was not quite what 
I thought it would be: I wanted it 
to be on a hill, with a view of the ocean 
unobstructed by other dwellings. 
Fifty years ago I know you had 
a clean walk to the sea, hopping 
from boulder to boulder, the various 
seafowl rightly impressed with 
your lean, stern face. But today 

with our cameras cocked we had to 
sneak and crawl through trimmed lawns 
to even verify the identity of 
your strange carbuncular creation, 
now rented to trillionaire non- 
literary folk from Pasadena. 
Edged in on all sides by trilevel 
pasteboard phantasms, it took 
a pair of good glasses to barely see 
some newlyweds feed popcorn 
to an albatross. Man is 

a puny thing, divorced, 
whether he knows it or not, and 
pays his monthly alimony, 
his child-support. Year after year 
you strolled down to this exceptionally 
violent shore and chose your boulder; 
the arms grew as the house grew 
as the mind grew to exist outside 
of time, beyond the dalliance 
of your fellows. Today I hate 
Carmel: I seek libation in the Tiki 

Bar: naked native ladies are painted 
in iridescent orange on velvet cloth: 
the whole town loves art. 
And I donate this Singapore Sling 
to the memory of it, and join 
the stream of idlers simmering outside. 
Much as hawks circled your head 
when you cut stone all afternoon, 
kids with funny hats on motorscooters 
keep circling the block. 
Jeffers, ...