1. |
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A Flood at the Head of Little Rock Creek
The dark veins of the mountain
Force clouds from the rocks
As the voices of cicadas beneath the earth,
Too thousand to count, exhale with
The flood. The late greens stand before
Winter, even glowing, ever
While long waters flow.
Dark spaces shine in mist of rain,
The whole air is dense with living breath
Scoured deep in the earth
Carried down with a part of the sky.
I feel the electric pull of power
As I step down the bank
Near unreasoning force
Which neither cares nor sees,
Only moves with the world.
Beneath the waters small stones roll
Over others, breaking apart
Exhaling vapor as matter,
Resounding in the chambered streaming earth
Where deep veins are becoming
As long water flows from the peak of Roan.
Down the stream there is destruction,
Loss and sadness. Men watch as their yards become
Strangling lakes, crushing unnatural weights
As water moves with the world, perhaps
To annihilate and return all to flow
Once again through its veins.
I watch as the stream becomes a clouded
River, forever, through the laurels,
Mossy stones, deer tracks, old bones grown young
And thinner. I pull the clean, wet life into my lungs
And imagine that all worlds are at some point the
Same, and I am at some time without reference,
Soon to be returned to this sacred vapor.
Wherever life flows from such pure places,
It is held for a time in a strange dimension.
As I dip my hand in the stream, my burdens are
Swept to another. I see my life as it is. I am small
In the wake, frail in the current, immeasurable in the way
That all moving things waver.
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2. |
The Moon at Dawn
00:45
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The Moon at Dawn
The dark morning roads are
Renewed each morning with frost.
Slick, done with the night;
Each reminds me to look up
At the last glimpse of the moon
Draped across the dawn,
Held in some way stranger than night moons,
Waking the tidal morn
At the crest of mountains.
Seen from all angles of the earth -
It is only at dawn,
When its power bleeds,
And our minds sleep to waken.
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3. |
Towers
00:47
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Towers
The watching fields are held on earth -
Wavering in silence, filled with eyes and nerves
Elongated by towers, stretching at angles;
Each clearing becomes a turreted fortress
Watching over the dreams of bodies.
The living world unchanged, yet seen.
As its dreams bleed through all borders,
All felt in unseen ripples, churning
Through all veins, all corridors,
All places where surfaces meet the sky.
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4. |
Radius
03:24
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Radius
I have rolled into a ball on the
Surface of stone. Snow has fallen
Everywhere but the place I have taken for
Myself, and as I reach to feel the perfect
Radius I cut my hand on a sharp stone angle
That has risen from the blankness.
My blood evaporates before my eyes.
I can feel the redness, the wound closes
Around a moon shaped stone
Fitted to my hand. All of this has
Happened to someone else,
At another time, on other stones.
When I have healed, I move myself
Along the descending pathway, evergreens
Curling laurels. Through the trees something
Glimmers, distant, wavering in my
Sleep blurred sight. I stand against the
Rough bark of a windfall, breathing
The cold thin air. It is a light, somewhere,
And it offers me no way to find
My place.
Because you can never tell how far away
A light is.
All time has left me. The snow still falls,
But does not touch me, as if I am a burning
Stone. I am moved now, not moving
Myself, and I come near the base of
The stone mountain, covered in a field
Of deep white. Enormous hairy things
Root and grunt through the surface of the
Field, blowing huge plumes of smoke from
Their noses, echoing from deep in their
Bellies a trilling sub-sound, astounded by
Their own enormity, unaware of me entirely.
I start to understand that I am not here, that
I am part of the world, only. Another wind
Comes and I go away, blinded by the circles
Swirling around me, and as I fall again I see the
Same flicker of light, this time within the range
Of my senses, this time walked about by men
Who wear streaks of green paint on their bare
Skin, enduring the cold by some miracle, howling
In words I do not understand. They carry feathers
Of vultures, circular stones, a kind of gourd with
A string that they saw with peculiar dexterity. I carry
The sound in my mind, and again I am blown, carried
Moved in some way to another bare stone. I can see the
Same light, quavering, silent, distant. I have no hands, and as
I look to myself I cannot find anything. I feel even more now.
I can see to the light by feeling. Can see the men as they continue
Their dance, and women have come out from the darkness. Their hair
Falls all around them, carrying the light inside them outward. They are beautiful
In the darkness. They carry a long staff with more feathers, ringing bells of glass,
Lights that circle the bundle by some variable orbit. Their song is one I have
Sung in life, one that was carried to me through water. I watch them for
A time, as the snow falls in wonderful silent waves, and finally the wind
Dies.
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5. |
Red Night
03:12
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Red Night
Shades of legs walking down corridors
In thunder, under the red sky after
A storm has passed on to the east.
I can see them moving to the country,
Which is now full of ground mist
And damp fingers of summer life.
These delicate limbs, engineered to
Hold such a great weight, bounce
Rhythms deep within the earth, hollow
Beats on the chambered ground. They
Call many things to life, as they have
Done with changes in themselves.
The first were light, smaller and clawed,
With spotted backs like fawns, with
Bright eyes that ringed themselves
And searched the fireless nights.
In the madness of fear, these small things
Grew stronger, faster, grew rounded hooves
To pound through the open nights,
Baring teeth and throwing power through
Muscled limbs. Wolves would fall
With legs severed at the shoulder, jaws
Shattered. Men would hang from painted
Shoulders, cooking slices of flesh beneath
Saddles as they rode, merging flesh
To hide. In certain parts of the sea,
Some fell to the gaping mouths
Of sharks, slicking the surface
Of a new blood plain, streaked toward
Dawn in its madness. Now, as I watch
Them streak toward the night woods,
I look over their backs to see the
Vapor stained shapes of old lives,
Tragically articulated in the lines
Of still-living forms.
One screams out, holding
Its long jaws oddly apart, looking
Anywhere but where I stand.
Its leg is tangled in a bundle of wire,
Rusted and matted with leaves,
Impossibly complicated, digging
Blood from the bony shin, pale
With the dust of the passing herd.
In this dream I pull madly at
The bundle, with my own
Arms now impossibly tangled in the
Rusted mass, trampled and dragged
Without pain, somehow rising and
Falling with the staggering gait
Of the condemned.
Now it screams and twists
In the air, head down, biting
The metal like a dog, tearing itself
Apart, its whale eye glowing
With the reflected sunset.
The metal bundle is now a flame,
Darkness surrounds the circle
Of redness, blood on the ground,
The animal now dropped to its knees,
Still screaming, wheezing, weakening,
And I have disappeared into the flame.
In this dream I feel the ground shake
Once more. I feel the coming of another
Passing herd, and watch as they trample
The place of struggle. Each is all, and
They move as birds wheeling in the sky.
When they have passed, there are only
Embers left on the ground.
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