8.18
Last night I was certain
pppyou were there with a gift
light balanced against shadow
fugitives move along fence lines
cities burningppp
we’re asked to send money
cities burn
where are the plans
there were no bells, no sirens, no warningpppthe cities burned
the last thing I saw were dogs on fire running with me on fire
no one asks you to step over to the other side
is it dark inside your body
stepping from the lake Tiqsi Huiracocha gathers up hearts, wraps them in corn husks
the beginning & end of all things
Vallejo didn’t talk to you
The dead don’t talk
Ghosts don’t smoke
The night was a mountain, the air rock,
words were smoke—no, that’s not right,
words were asters, tinged with pink around their yellow centers
words were mountains, the night wasppp
a word, that could be dark, or coal, or star, or moon,
the word was
everything that was ever & ever—
that was not Vallejo you saw
just a shadow
it was windy
the moon was bright
last night I was certain
you were speaking out of a shadow’s slant
to the worldppp
there were others too
others speaking out of the mountain’s word
for emptiness
the sand that the sower lets run
through their fingers, clay that holds
the mountains are sand & sand mountains
the clay fired walks, takes from its body
its heart, a husk of cornppp
bright existence, the sun, furrows on the husk of ground
filling into green
I could have said
they all climbed down on golden cords
or stepped from soft petals
or from a cloud sprang, but they were
simply there with you Vallejo talking about
quatrains or the recent dead still making their way
across marshes & fence lines
evading patrols, & dark sedans that would usher
them to deeper silences
even their dogs would not find them
paradise is filled, someone saysmmwith the howling of lonely dogs
the Lord of the Underworld, Supay, has wrapped
our mmmintestines onto a spool, ties one end to our navel
& sets off into the mountains
uncoiling a red cord
we follow for the rest of our lives
if you encounter a beggar
give them alms, words, a cup of light from August
if it is snowy
a cup of black stars if it is bright & hot
when cities burnppp
grass sere & singed
I was certain you were there last night
standing as you often did, smoking, looking at the array
of balls on the green felt, which to set
to ricochet, leaving your smoke ashing
on the edge of the table
you’re thinking of some ’50s movie
in black-and-white,
that wasn’t Vallejo
the dead are not out at night
I was certain you were there balancing light & dark
When you die we never see you again unless you visit
I was certain you were there balancing coming & going
When you die the Thief of Time is locked in our hearts
I was certain you were there, holding a red blanket, the sun woven in the center
When you die you will be wrapped in a red blanket, the sun’s rays stitching it tight
I was certain you were there balancing word & thing
When you die you leave your body for us to learn to care again
I was certain you were there balancing morning & night
When you die the souls you lost return, our one reprieve ppp
I was certain you were there balancing on one foot
When you die death sends mockingbirds out with your voice calling to us
I was certain you were there, the soul is the old science you say
When you die the unknown disappears, it is the earth & air wrapping around you
9.2
Who summoned us, or just you, one apparitional
to the other, &
we, reading you, votives
we are always talking to the dead,
or the glass smoked, listening to the translator
unpack the suitcase you left
behind, carrying the other one, you said
toward the torments
of the next circle, your lamp in pieces,
your soul watching all this
in the raw immensity—but what
do I know, Vallejo,
presuming it’s you I am talking to, the TV
in the next room
sending out its adjournments of stars, whole galaxies lost—
O, Vallejo, the season is about us,
so mutable, & you
standing in the shadows with your remaining
suitcase gripped, a brown leather
fine grained, seen better days, listening for what—
one last word, thinking it is on my lips,
sonriendo de mis labios, that I might say it
ésta es mi inmensidad en bruto
each word a scripture
I jot as they slip into the dark
raw autumn worms & hares churn
in their last hours
alarmed at the weather, how time
confuses life.
9.12
There is little in chance that meets the eye
the street is dim, the moon
behind clouds & Affirmation remains
on the road, passing the dark trees, firs & spruces,
the deer whistle in, stepping on the mayflowers & lichens,
trillium & ferns, the solid world always decays,
molecular structures collapse, a house of cards
scattered on the ground, as Pilgrims run their beads
through their hands, passing in the street
upturned faces yellow in the moonlight,
the way known only as what has passed,
that one picks at the scabs on her neck,
that one’s knees are wrapped in gauze so thickly they could be burls
that one carries a lantern full of fireflies
that one pulls at his hair that snaps at him in return
that one pulls frogs from a basket & devours them
they are on their way to the capital
they are on their way to truth, they say
they are on their pilgrimage, whipping each other
with strings of words knotted with iron thorns
they are on their way to the river to drink
long & slowly like cattle
they are on their way knowing nothing of what they will be charged
to do when asked to take up the rod, the calipers, the steel
the deer whistle in the deep foliage that has not started to drop
the shadows are empires deepening their hold on the land
the deer step through pools of darkness
listen, you say, follow them as far into the hills as they go
past the vernal pools of antiphonal frogs, the Lost One hides in the ruined house,
the Fingerless Man holds the begging bowl for his Wife who wails the loss of her children
One, Two, & Three by the charred walls of their farmstead
past the Scholastic Owl clutching a vole, her brittle pellets of shit scattered around her
gleaming pinkish white in the moonlight.
Follow those Innocents into the hills.
Every city wraps itself in algorithms of the Negative, calculations
that remove one digit after another,
that takes the door & the window & the stool,
that fills the bowl with pellets of shit
& send those left out on pilgrimages
in their crisp uniforms, gold epaulettes, & spurs
into the provinces, the frontiers of snow-capped mountains
& trackless marshes of loosestrife & cattails
distraught at the sight of Solitude, a single boulder
or crooked pine at the crest of a hill
listen, you tell me again, the wind drapes itself
in the pine branches, deer step into your body, your heart shudders
the list of cities that have been bombed
eclipses the stars yet to be
named. Spell each one out
saying the letters as though they are the last crumbs of bread
to be had, the last sip of water, the lift
of your love’s hand from your chest, feeling for your heart
the last time, do you remember that vanishing
touch, the air between your skin & her fingertip
slipping in like a sheet of white paper
I have lost all your letters
did you send me letters, I wonder
to confess anything
is to practice abjection
my heart is stampeded
deer have creased a trail through its chambers
in the farmstead, one safelight ambers the lot
a dog barks intermittently listening to itself
Affirmation at the end of the day
picks up grains of rice scattered at the afternoon’s wedding
& Hope has appeared, hands charred, looks after
Affirmation, her cup half full of rice, who offers her none
did you send me letters, perhaps they are stuck on a thorn-tree
in a desert, where patrols drain water cannisters from trails migrants travel
Solitude finds them, as it does all of us, tongues swollen
& places stones where their eyes were, looking into the empty sky
nightjars & martins dart in the evening’s light
a bell at a farmstead rings, someone shoos chickens to their roost
listen, you tell me, there is not much time
remaining, the smoke is thick
from the great fires in the northern peat bogs, boral forests, deserts
deer walk through the slit of evening
into another green world
the angels let them pass, feeling their bodies for anyone
clasping to them to escape
& when you arrive, if you do make it there, that high pass
above the rhododendron forests, the mountains that fuse into mist
the angels will cross their pikes & bar your way
unless you hurry,
look, they are examining Hope’s hands that crumble into ash
as they hold them
Look, how it is getting dark. The smoke
from the great northern fires
blushes the sky rose & deepening
as evening arrives. Everything is
beside the point. The mystery is
both you & the world. The gift we are here.