flood paths, faultiness
to weep over this huddled form
may in the end be an antidote
to the current of grief, that
––force
[o time]
where to meet head on
and survive
[o mother]
demands surrender to its coming
[o you ]
left behind too for the onward march
[you, too]
and nearly disappeared
[and yet. and yet]
save now
us our mothers
this time
our sense of any
o god but
these blind barons’
blaring horns
notes nearing an edge
the pressure to bear the witness asleep
at the wheel all of us far
from the valley
who becomes the river
start somewhere I meant to
listen I meant to
hear you as you left
the land I meant to record
at least your sands running out
take this—we say of the body—
the opening notes of each of us in turn
going fast act fast you have to give it
all away
by river bed
Here it is again: you, falling
from another heaven at daybreak;
sob of thunder, waking, to play agin
against the dealer’s fixed chips.
You know you won’t get out of here
alive, but can’t keep yourself
from trying.
Meanwhile, outside leaves
pearl hot beads
of late-morning mist
alert and insistent––
long past the hour
when the last god slipped
from leaking basket
of a drowning heir to call
after one of the prophets
groaning another toothache
from too much gnashing of teeth
to make another now from the next
application of warm rum
to gums stayed through mornings
by sleep.
There is so much
more to do, and we with teeth
still in us, some keep on
keeping,
biding time.
Moonlit expertise
There was a group we would see at night by the river. We wanted to know what they did there. If it was nothing good, as everyone said, we still wanted to know, but how? One night we went to see for ourselves. With blue-shadowed feet they danced the shores to pieces, and we woke in our beds and went back the next night to see why? and they explained that they were seeking out the marrow of the river stone and to our question on for what? they said to talk. There was a precision to their foolishness. This, we recognized. These were definitely not the ones you called if you had a question about calculations having to do with variable rates but could tell you in the space of a single breath the minutes until daybreak or the number of feathers needed to make a heart on the ground the size of your head, and whether when you are done it will even fit, and how to go about attaching it.
And other ancient mysteries.
Just the other day, we were discussing how it might be a good idea for us to pay close attention to the most enduring species, given our current trajectory. And then you showed up, looking like an underwater plant. Spineless, with branching appendages, radial arms, each like a feather. Where did you keep your fists, and how did you get this far without the opposable thumbs we so prized? What about your capacity for reason? Did you even have reasons? Name one, we challenged, but you were silent.
What you did was something else, and we couldn’t look away. You went on and on, catching what drifted before you. What you lost––namely, arms––you regrew. There is something here, we think. About the way you present as a walking plant, hiding in plain sight. We were trying to name it when you moved away. We were surprised by your speed. We wondered about your purpose but had to surface for air.
Then we went inland and sat by the banks of a river, the site of another flood. Being creatures prone to contemplation, we often sat at the edges of water bodies, looking for some way to understand the movement between life and loss. When the waters receded, we would see the crowns of drowned monuments, and these would knock against ancestral bones. And we would think of things to notice. Like how the river must know every stone it touches, and these. They went on, knocking, and we left.
***
Inspired by feather stars.
Lights over water.
Of all your characters, you were most interested in Time, the fifth elemental substance latent in all things. You aimed to chronicle its flow by detailing refractions of brilliance on the river and its bridge, one forever changing and the other reaching toward permanence. You noted symbols in the shadows where one overlapped the other: the river, the bridge, their people; the hope of construction and the tragedy of collapse; the continuance of water and this incomplete permanence in concert with all forms, its eye a chorus.
***
Inspired by the work of Ivo Andrić (1892-1975), whose birthday is today.
Journey on the river.
Imagine a world of your dreams, people will say, as if to conjure some vision of attainment, as if this is not the world that stops you in the night to hold you in its grasp, its hot breath in your ear, a ceaseless whisper.
There goes Death again, walking into the sea. Meanwhile the clock tower burns, the sleeper exits through the window, the hermit takes a first step. At an altar, lovers wait. Now comes a covered chair above the river, bodies pulling it in opposite directions. The cloaked rider holds a small flame straight ahead.
It’s a wonder the rider continues. Wouldn’t it be easier to walk than to reconcile these opposites, using nothing but posture, mind, and force of will? But this is how it happens in the world of dreams.
***
Inspired by an encounter with the surrealist photography of Nicolas Bruno, particularly his Somnia Tarot.
