field note over sacred break
here is a book before ink
one wind-creased page in rust of buckwheat
its grammar not plosive but drift
dropped by the trickster bird at night
an arrival in absence
heralded by rasp of the gnatcatcher
foretold in the bladderpod burst
all are gathered. some will listen
to the tremble of lyric for a fault line
over sacred break, a next wave of warnings
ignored
in letters
my experience is an ongoing
experiment, unwilling to stay
anywhere as stodgy as the inn
of expertise, even overnight
and every time i start in earnest
to say anything true enough
to ring, i give my meager savings
up again
putting all i know at risk to all
i have yet to understand
*
Inspired by Ann Lauterbach
mid-quake
when sharp reach pangs
so long for holding & what
in need of her lost, where
soft grief trills
over low branch, see her
count our cost, leaf
by fallen why
and now
pause––
in possibility
what might a whole
faith
sound?
with her heartmind
with her souled body
in denial of dictates
by keepers of orders
to wrench by flawed reason
mind from herself
being from womb
also her
how would her chorus
shiver grace back
to her flesh
light back to word
mystery returned
to these folds
within her
from one into another
at a crossing it is possible
to notice
how one emerging
from the echoic shadows
beyond the edges of this rush
is a creature
who understands
time through a listening
body & one
pauses now
sinew of back, legs, neck
all stretched to hear––
that graceful leap before
that pause, the pointed look
––one eye
& i witness
through shatterproof glass
blink
& then she moves
again the leaping
wave of herself
across road & into
an opposite dark.
Time in Space
We need to talk
about time
& to talk with Time
eventually
instead of scheming
how to use it
to make the most
to have a good one
to have the best
to name its price
as with any commodity
any resource
as opposed to Source
to spend instead
recklessly &
listening for language
& other creatures
is to be folded inside
embraced by layered
fabrics of Time & their
attendant creatures
in
immersive intimacies
of waters, skies
where each breath
comes to carry the
next, yet uncaught.
but again
to be a husk
returned to soil
by way of river
over falls
& under bed.
what good
is this? someone
asks & one
answer is another
voice, yes
what good
is this.
& resonance
why not make a map of us, then––?
all reflection & non-linear equations,
light upon light to play on a practice
of not sleeping but holding
as marrowed minerals in bones
whisper another kind of living
light only the trembling know.
& sun flares in atmosphere
I am supposed to get to the point
––apparently, by the logic
of the algorithm
but I am
only ever able to teach
at an angle, on a curve, following
an penumbra’s long arc across unwritten skies.
whale music
to know
to be able to
to taste
to feel
only this how
i am because we are
& need know only this
& how machine will disagree
does not make it less true
but only more like the living
and less like the thing
whose badge of being
is of efficiency
& departure from
the dirt & blood
& flow of living
earth as she
remains
still
here
an offering
beyond product
or production
in echo
beyond
any other sound
however loud however
bleeding it leaves us in our ears
where we swim deep underwater & still here & here & here to hear us––
tho bleeding it leaves us in our ears however loud
however any other sound beyond in echo
still our offering here remaining
in dirt & bloodied waters
beneath you
