Extra Hidden Life, among the Days. Brenda Hillman
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of the self
is the f, its awning of breath—)
The old woman greets death
in her bed — — the peril cloud
ascends — “well done!”
She dozes off & feels for those
she cannot help but feel fear for —;
Over the ledge
of sound — Vast sage!
It visits her,
she must sleep widely then. — And
when the mild dead hover … she clings
clings clings to the rim
of the prayer wheel — Now
motion goes on to release her —;
she helped you unknow
the half-true —.
After, she greets the greeters …
radiant roots, reluctantly brought:
beside the creamy chaos of the stars —
Composition: Fringe Lichen: Tilde & Mãe
As i have since i was a child in summer, found a rock with a fine example of life;
this time Flavopunctelia soredica, fringe lichen, with tilde-like edges;
to extend a sound where other life could hear,
in hopes of accomplishing nothing, offered punctuation to the lichen, to my
mother who was very quiet at the time
so it would be heard & not heard in the heavenly sphere, at least, as the
brain imagined it there, making absolute motion, in a harmless frame, as
the granite has spoken since i was a child, in other words,
i said mãe
with 10 rows of 12 tildes & 2 rows of mãe, in Portuguese,
i recited the tildes by lifting a finger, recited the “mãe” lines,
tapping toward where she lives very quietly in days she creates …
Composition: Under Cypresses, Near Big Sur
Before bronze winter, unable to get good sorrow through,
choosing a rock where a Xanthoparmelia shield had spread,
facing the full-of-plastic Pacific, eager to include crows,
waiting for one crow to disrupt the cantata of not-crow,
counting by thinking, as for decades, i’ve thought punctuation has features of skylight, tsk-ing,
(my brothers used to say tsk tsk, when we were naughty),
hoping this might lift the dread of being human, & early, relieved by dots in the air,
i repeated a composition 6 times with the crow & tried to breathe humanly, thus:
(for M.W.)
Of Monarchs Again, Especially the Stripes
—or, perhaps we could
care less carefully now …
that they fluttered
in the forest, with mid-
gold clinging to their going … Their cadence
became our anxiety:
night vision, to rest as a speckled gleam,
an ochre glance. The days can sometimes
give them
what they need—that’s
pretty obvious (triangles of
orange— a weight had been dispatched—)
we’re visitors, & only briefly, at that,
—one more flutter
from the spirit world, glittering
time looks on, souls
as seeds, ready to rise, & stay …
as if color has chosen to live,
no matter what
(it both is &
isn’t a metaphor—)
for KH
So, Bacteria Also Have Their Thunder
& cloud caps
in the drought— microbes in my gut &
on the leg of the bobcat, microbes even
on its photo—, buckles near
grasses of perhaps not growing …
no rain this week, no relief sounds … in our grief
here, to hear coastal cypress— beware—
so grown things rain:
between life & nonlife &
death: the whir
under the dove’s wing, to — rows of marigolds,
an end of earth where creatures go
without supervision … such
sorrow i heard—
such sorrow they heard … bacteria
also have their thunder in the nightlight
of the biome, coasting,
outside an arrogant noise
they never made — breaks
energy in sun’s
setting behind a band
of thunder clouds: cracks & volunteers—
Angrily Standing Outside in the Wind
—kept losing self control
but how could one lose the self
after reading so much literary theory?
The shorter “i” stood under the cork trees,
the taller “I” remained rather passive;
the brendas were angry at the greed, angry
that the trees would die, had lost interest
in the posturing of the privileged,
the gaps between can’t & won’t …
Stood outside the gate of permissible
sound & the wind came soughing
through the doubt debris
(soughing comes from swa¯gh—to resound …
echo actually comes from this also—)
we thought of old Hegel across
the sea— the Weltgeist—& clouds
went by like the bones of a Kleenex …
it’s too late for countries
but it’s not too late for trees …
&