from The Hunters Enter the Wood
The Hunters Enter the Wood
A long beginning underway. Each
strand and devise has anterior
knots. We enter the picture
as if there were a
way through as if there
were a picture. A certain
false insistence pleases us. We
cite a quality of rhyme
in sheen and run our
hands along the passageways. Shadow
shuttles color pieces. The seen
shifts in its sleep. A
bird may flit between stories.
Some mornings it is enough
to say may. By night
we grow morose. One calls
in fretted threads over a
cupped gap. Single single. The
hollow hull of may slapping
wind-raised waves. If
a hunter stands and hears
only shuttle sounds from the
high branches and wind in
swayed cords this too is
the work of the wood.
The Hunters Enter the Wood (Detail)
The space that opens
behind the flowers is
the field. The hunters
wade into the text
and vanish. A night-journey.
In the invisible that
shows like stars, wool
and crewel as make
its lack of appearance
its resource. A tremble
in the darker ground.
A well, a ditch,
the margins a blind
conduit I fell into
following with spears and
thread lives in hiding.
In rupture, detour. Back
of the text a
silver aquifer silent in
moon light every delved
flower is a syllable.
The plumed cap, the
chased velvet frond. The
dew quivers the dog
lays back its ears.
The Hunters
Count the seed heads threaded
on pith of song. Woodpecker’s
hollow joint one one. I
wake at dawn have lost
the nubbed loop the count.
What one is is too
much to know. A head
turned in sleep. I measure
allowance again, rich hem. There’s
a ditch beside song where
quiet gathers. The under story.
Brush descant traveling the distances.
When shall I cease to
rove. Roam. Rive. Each edged
leap sets a light in
selvage. The grasses are embellished.
Scalloped heads of ferns. Fog
accomplishes the margins. One. One.
None. In silence some salvage,
a fixed and savage song.
from Tanzsprachen
navigation by lineaments
cast on
least traced air a sign
shaped
of sound by whose
means
a bee’s black shadow
inks the page
* *
*
a coat against cold winds. speech is
a sign that everywhere is and is
not sufficient.
the bell’s note makes
an inside an outside.
it speaks through partials
a singing whole and insufficient.
a net.
all this thinking through want.
I was afraid you would look
and find me gone.
I do a willing that
like despair is lost track of.
a bell may be struck from the outside by a hammer
or chimed from the inside by a tongue.
it vibrates across its whole length.
*
on the combed page honey advances
lines that tell the
sun of the eye
cast of sky at which she looks
turning around
after they have returned home they also dance
* *