Next sunset
Remember after this song to seed the next shadowland of loss, following the fever of fences we built to keep us in, and terrors out, when in the shade of their heights they only heightened fears, when in the privacy of night, we meant to leap between those stars, counting.
Now weather
how long have these tongues been training, gathering miles in this march?
all sinew and song now, seeding a note long overdue, stitched in the scars
of familial bones, now wind at broken backs where you fire at newborn ghosts
haunted by the children of the children you meant to unwrite but their names
were in the same hand as the first word and rhyme in this abundant night
now shining and porous with our open mouths the gates of a dream released
from these feet to our leaning crowns in the sight of what above your drones
past snipers’ tired talk of empty rights by which you vented brutal might this now when our huddled mass finds home in no-man’s-land of common exile
what horse for what discordant era now rides your conquest in reverse
what young hearts, annexed to your butchered beliefs beat back the boots
in which you shake behind armor to magnify your haunt without relief
lost pilgrim, it is time to take off your boots, unmask your eyes and stop,
unstop your ears for there is enough salt in our tears, enough light, to return
you to the land you lost yourself from when you rode off to claim the lot
no pilgrim, there will be no rest for these ghosts that haunt you for the land
so long watered by the slaughter of your making now becomes a rising spring
of remembrance in these open hands inviting your first word back to singing
by first light
Once under a time
One day, when a child I will say when I was old I used to–– and then remember to climb to the perch from where I lock the loops of my knees around a playground pole and hold upside-down to call back the chorus that swelled as I was leaving and the light spotting from somewhere behind the eye where I––
In song.
There will be no total here, no summing up. Instead, a polyvocal cacophony of riddles exerts a centrifugal force away from the presumed center––out. Only the permeable find it. After recognition of the way that meaning in abundance winds toward silence interrupted only by the exultant shriek. Only the indirect, circling utterance will do.
Against light pollution.
These eyes trained on sky still guide wild flights by stars, set courses for migration at midnight––
But what can they find in the glow bleeding from the empire’s cities?
Still singing hallelujahs of nobody knows, forever-present notes that know what no hand grants, no thief can steal.
Reaching back to the original promise in the first split of atom from an original rib to give birth to the genesis of song––
In the space of a womb, a surrogate tomb for the still unburied,
long dead still––
singing unnamed solids behind these gates
the liquid river sings us––
still
singing
our home.
On the corner of Broadway and Elm.
[A bus stop. She stands with her arms out.
Her mouth moves. People see it moving
from their cars. Another sight but not a
spectacle.]
I did not come here today
to point at you / I came here to
offer resistance to every impulse to
wield speech like sharpened knife ready
for blood I want to swell not drain it
to resist these Peters enough with
your swords already the speech of this
hour is not your righteous proclamation
your self-righteous dedication to your
selves, your group, your flag, this
one is music it is receiving it is
the tongue that moves to open the
body, uncurling fingers first from
fists relaxing at the wrists, out
and out resist the urge to shield
again this heart I have only this
these arms, this wavering voice––
you!
I see you
looking
take a good look but then listen––
do you hear?
What may loom, unweaving.
We wanted a story its magic in the key of longing notes we arced like stones from cliffs where we stood the key was carrying the eyes to where the magic was not. Years on a planet would spin us, looking for more of them to name. Here is one, an ordinary song, here is how you survive until the moment when you say back to us here is home and it cuts to remember between places so far full of dead heroes whose spirits won’t quit. We waited, unweaving the ritual to save ourselves. For tomorrow against this siege, and dawn keeps coming so soon.
Between shores.
In here, the past is paper fragments. We gather them up and try to remember. One sings. The song happens in the middle of a room. The occupants of the room are engaged in various tasks. The tune is off, the phrasing disjointed. No one minds.
In here, only new arrivals worry about death. We all did, says a veteran resident. But you get over it. How? We want to know. The resident explains how something breaks. It’s like a levee and you let it because it won’t be stopped. The flow is too fast and the volume too high.
Besides, the resident adds, you can float. Besides, the resident adds. You’ll land somewhere. Eventually. Now, we let it take us when it comes. We float in this narrow strait, washing between shores according to the tides. Paper is gone now, but songs pass through, sometimes.
And a turning point.
In the waiting room, I wanted
to say–––something, because
such places, with their anxious hum
always seem to want relief. From
the pretense of containment,
or into song. But when it was time
I left and the hot wind hit
my eyes which slid across
folded falcon wings as if
to learn how my own hands
clutching plastic bags
might know that poise.
A nest nearby, its swallow
gone, a lilting plainsong
behind me. I turned, eyes
wide, to trace the mouth
of the storm’s long suggestion
in the ears as though to
blow me empty. Howl,
I wanted then, as now, to
share some sighting
with another face.
Over what perches.
The feathered chest-dweller
coughs. We cannot hear
her song. We gather
at the ribbed rafters,
a motley congregation
of morose faces, to wait,
sensing her watch.
Perhaps she wants
something now,
but there isn’t a crumb
among us.
Then comes a low hum,
spreading through the nave
of our assembly until
our mouths drop the lines
that seal them.
Opened, we pour out
syllables of grief
too sharp to speak,
that she may absorb
enough to form
an echo.
***
Responding to Dickinson.
