WHO, IF I CRIED OUT WOULD HEAR ME AMONG THE ANGEL'S
HIERARCHIES? AND EVEN IF ONE OF THEM PRESSED ME SUDDENLY AGAINST
HIS HEART: I WOULD BE CONSUMED IN THAT OVERWHELMING EXISTENCE.
FOR BEAUTY IS NOTHING BUT THE BEGINNING OF TERROR, WHICH WE ARE
STILL JUST ABLE TO ENDURE, AND WE ARE SO AWED BECAUSE IT SERENELY
DISDAINS TO ANNIHILATE US.}
................................................
small pieces loosely joined:
the space between breath,
differing lengths -
rooms to retreat, hold,
to wait.
it's as if the words are already there;
my pen scrapes away the white
invisible absence - a substance
in itself,
a letter at
a time.
already there.
my hand moves: a needle on a seismograph or the one i watched respond to
my labor contractions. vital signs - my pen describes convexity, deep
shadow pooling like green waters against skin. places i once believed were
black, just too much blue spilled in one place - layers of it.
in the right light, time on space,
crows turn over backstroke bellyup the sky.
purple pulling out a length of flight
and songs of old men scraped from overgrown gardens
that fight back winter like frightened cats.
it's wings that i want to give you -
i measure with my own arms
a wingspan, then repeat,
mirror reversed, for the second,
comparing symmetry
like the barber that cut your hair when you were small in my lap.
measuring by eye for weight and texture - i think
how to hinge the wings together,
then reconsider - you are their hinge. i will climb a ladder,
hang them from the ceiling by the door
to wait for you to meet them
when you leave.
roots and wings - courage to honor one, drives the other deep.
and mine?
mine too - i feel them in place;
i've always felt them
cramped behind scapula, crowding my shoulder muscles.
deep red - sunset colored - death and birth
colored. Colorless secret. jagged - raked by the light
into weightless columns.
huge.
and impinged.
hidden darker than darkness, threatening,
but also redolent with longing rushing
through space and i wake wet with
sweat from dreams of hovering -
gravity rescinded, allowing removal from
earth, from thought, a safe distance.
wings silent.
still, they inform my every movement.
one can grow used to
annihilation
through beauty.
sometimes, i fear
... Nothing.
in its multitude
of meaning,
i scrape away the white and
feel my wings burn through the spider brambled lines
that open an unlikely horizon.
No comments:
Post a Comment