434 lines
14 KiB
HTML
434 lines
14 KiB
HTML
<!doctype html>
|
||
<html>
|
||
<head>
|
||
<title>Zk | Miscellany</title>
|
||
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/style.css" />
|
||
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
|
||
<meta charset="utf-8" />
|
||
</head>
|
||
<body>
|
||
<main>
|
||
<header>
|
||
<h1>Zk | Miscellany</h1>
|
||
</header>
|
||
<article class="content">
|
||
<p><q class="comment">In <em>Civilized Beasts 2016 Edition</em></q><q class="comment">In <em>Eigengrau</em></q></p>
|
||
<div class="verse">The dogs assure me:
|
||
There are volumes of meaning —
|
||
Life and death —
|
||
And time;
|
||
Past, present, future —
|
||
In the scent of a rotting fish left after the flood,
|
||
Or a trace of scat,
|
||
Or the coyote, long passed,
|
||
But not everyone reads poetry.
|
||
|
||
I’m not so lucky, all told:
|
||
The rich scent of meaning —
|
||
Heady, intoxicating —
|
||
Rises only from words
|
||
And the way you rest your hands on the table.</div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
<p><q class="comment">In <em>Eigengrau</em></q></p>
|
||
<div class="verse">The eighteenth whisker on the left is brown.
|
||
I know this after countless nights awake
|
||
beside you, watching every quiet breath.
|
||
You puff your whiskers out on every yawn.
|
||
On longer work-filled days, your whiskers wilt,
|
||
exhaustion softening your features, sleep
|
||
exerting subtle gravities to lead
|
||
you to oneiric seas and dreamlike sands.
|
||
I know this after countless nights awake.
|
||
I know, I know, it's strange to watch you sleep,
|
||
but when I can't, to know that someone can...
|
||
at least it somehow lets me rest in turn.
|
||
When I lay beside your sleeping form
|
||
I know there's rest to still be had for me.</div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
<h2 id="liminality">Liminality</h2>
|
||
<p><q class="comment">In <em>Eigengrau</em></q></p>
|
||
<div class="verse">A year starts not on January first.
|
||
The days may hunder but the seasons speak
|
||
of time's long march, of fast time, slow time. Thirst
|
||
for "start" and "end" neglects the limen sleek.
|
||
So, why do some unsubtle sciences
|
||
forget about the in-betweens? Those pure
|
||
uncolored dreams made mere contrivances;
|
||
"between the years" now simply: "year, then year".
|
||
These rough mechanics, held unseen, can spoil
|
||
the beauty of our silent spaces, take
|
||
from us the liminality, embroil
|
||
our lives in cold and tired minutiae.
|
||
Come sit with me, come stay with me inside
|
||
this place between where strange new loves abide</div>
|
||
<p>"So, what does it mean?"</p>
|
||
<p>She shrugged and sipped her tea. They sat together in silence for a while.</p>
|
||
<p>"There's something about the liminal that terrifies me."</p>
|
||
<p style="text-align: right">"Me too," she said...</p>
|
||
|
||
<hr />
|
||
<h2 id="growth">Growth</h2>
|
||
<p><q class="comment">In <em>Eigengrau</em></q><q class="comment">In <em>ally</em></q></p>
|
||
<div class="verse">Used to be you and I daily would walk
|
||
through the fields out back of the house and talk
|
||
for hours, spilling words and emotions.
|
||
These walks were our daily devotions
|
||
to each other over the years.
|
||
|
||
The fields, dotted with ponds, were our space.
|
||
We tramped those trails strung like lace
|
||
along shores and through tall grass,
|
||
murmuring now like winds, chattering now like brass
|
||
in some changeful duet.
|
||
|
||
You'd tell me about the geese in the sky,
|
||
would watch me stand still and not ask why
|
||
the birds scared me to pieces,
|
||
even as we dodged around their feces
|
||
littering the trails.
|
||
|
||
You'd put up with my fickle interests,
|
||
running with me, or stopping to see what arrests
|
||
my attention. You'd follow all of my changes
|
||
and change along with me through all the ranges
|
||
of our shared experience.
|
||
|
||
You'd tell me of your meditation,
|
||
I'd talk of my fears of stagnation.
|
||
You'd always smile so kindly to me,
|
||
and I'd always feel so free
|
||
in our companionship.
|
||
|
||
And over time, those walks got slower,
|
||
shorter, less frequent, or over
|
||
far too soon, though no less meaningful
|
||
as we spent our time together in cheerful
|
||
conversation or kind quiet.
|
||
|
||
We each seemed to be going our separate ways,
|
||
with me branching out, exploring different lays
|
||
of different lands, and you turning inwards,
|
||
exploring lines of thought you never put in words,
|
||
at least not that you told me.
|
||
|
||
And then one day, we once more went out walking
|
||
and though it took a while, you got to talking.
|
||
You told me of how you sat, quiet and alone,
|
||
waiting for the time you might turn to stone
|
||
and be completely still at last.
|
||
|
||
You told me how as you sat, the room lengthened,
|
||
curved around, turned on you --- strengthened,
|
||
it seemed, by your very presence ---
|
||
and amid all of that gathered pleasance,
|
||
bit you in half.
|
||
|
||
You told me how, as part of you died
|
||
in that moment, the rest of you spied,
|
||
it seemed, on this very ending.
|
||
You told me you thought that this rending
|
||
was the end of something big.
|
||
|
||
I listened in silence. What could I say?
|
||
The things you were telling me, walking that day
|
||
were strangely shaped and didn't make sense.
|
||
Or if they did, they did so around corners as pretense,
|
||
perhaps, subtext, allusion, metaphor.
|
||
|
||
You were right, though, I could hear it in your voice.
|
||
There was finality, there, which spoke of a choice
|
||
already made. Endings were writ on your face,
|
||
your hands, and your steps --- your very pace
|
||
spoke of completion.
|
||
|
||
I replied to that sense rather than your words.
|
||
"While you look up to the geese and see only birds,
|
||
I see omens and my doom spelled in vees.
|
||
You speak of rooms and cleaving, but please,
|
||
tell me, are you leaving?"
|
||
|
||
We'd long since stopped, there by the pond,
|
||
and your smile was, yes, sad, but still fond
|
||
as you settled down wordlessly to your knees,
|
||
took a slow breath, looked out to the trees,
|
||
and closed your eyes.
|
||
|
||
Beginnings are such delicate times
|
||
and I very nearly missed it, no chimes
|
||
to announce the hour of your leaving.
|
||
As it was, there was no time for believing
|
||
or not in the next moments.
|
||
|
||
Your fingers crawled beneath the soil
|
||
and sprouted roots, flesh starting to roil.
|
||
Coarse bark spiraled up your wrists and arms,
|
||
Spelling subtle incantations and charms
|
||
to the chaos of growth.
|
||
|
||
You bowed your head and from your crown
|
||
sprouted a tender shoot covered in fine down,
|
||
soon followed by crenelated leaves and fine stems.
|
||
The pace was fast, implacable, and leaves like gems
|
||
soon arched skyward.
|
||
|
||
You sprouted and grew, taking root
|
||
in one smooth motion, fixed and mute.
|
||
Your clothing fell away, rotting in fast-time.
|
||
Naked now, you sat still, committing one last crime
|
||
of indecency.
|
||
|
||
Your face, your face! In your face was such peace
|
||
as I'd never seen, even as you gave up this lease
|
||
on life, echoed also in my heart of hearts.
|
||
I did not cry out, nor even speak, witnessing such arts
|
||
as your final display showed.
|
||
|
||
Soon, you were consumed, transformed as a whole.
|
||
Your head a crown of leaves, your heart a bole
|
||
bored in rough bark and sturdy wood,
|
||
your fingers, knees, and toes stood
|
||
as thirsty roots.
|
||
|
||
I stood a while by the tree that was you,
|
||
then sat at your roots and thought of all I knew
|
||
about time, transformation, death and change.
|
||
I thought about you, your life, your emotional range,
|
||
your gentle apotheosis.
|
||
|
||
Then I walked home, quiet and numb.
|
||
No, not numb, per se, but perhaps dumb.
|
||
Dumb of words, dumb of emotions. Quiet.
|
||
I expected turmoil, some internal riot,
|
||
I got nullity.
|
||
|
||
Who, after all, if I cried out,
|
||
would hear my wordless shout
|
||
among the still trees and rustling leaves?
|
||
Who hears? Who cares? Who perceives
|
||
this non-grief?
|
||
|
||
You, my friend, are still there.
|
||
I walk the fields every day, passing where
|
||
you changed into something new.
|
||
I marvel at you, at how you grew
|
||
into something wholly different.
|
||
|
||
Used to be you and I daily would walk
|
||
through the fields out back of the house and talk.
|
||
Now, it's just me, alone, quiet, thinking
|
||
of you by the shore, forever drinking
|
||
of sweet water.</div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
<p><q class="comment">In <em>Eigengrau</em></q></p>
|
||
<div class="verse">I keep hoping that, one day,
|
||
I'll spring palladial from the bole of a tree.
|
||
Fully formed, sexless,
|
||
Conceived without desire or intent.
|
||
|
||
My body will be virginal and clean,
|
||
My mind fresh, my soul at ease.
|
||
The tree, behind me, will stand crooked,
|
||
Bole seeping until time and air dry sap.
|
||
|
||
I will be a flat expanse of green, made up of new cells.
|
||
Everything will work together, a smoothly running machine.
|
||
|
||
I keep hoping to, one day,
|
||
Function with unity, unflagging.
|
||
Organized and purposeful,
|
||
Intent only on fulfillment.
|
||
|
||
My vision will be clear and unclouded,
|
||
My will affirming, strong, and sure.
|
||
And when I fall, I will remain whole,
|
||
Confident that I lived well and unapologetic.</div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
<p><q class="comment">In <em>Eigengrau</em></q></p>
|
||
<div class="verse">Every time I fall,
|
||
The ground tells me I'm in love.
|
||
"'Cause love is
|
||
All low," it says.
|
||
"And loves is
|
||
Places."
|
||
|
||
And I always argue,
|
||
That love is all people.
|
||
That love is dogs,
|
||
And cats.
|
||
And love is
|
||
Emotions.
|
||
|
||
But every time I fall,
|
||
The ground tells me I'm in love.
|
||
That gravity is
|
||
Some awkward embrace,
|
||
And <a href="love.html">love</a> is
|
||
Permanence.
|
||
|
||
And I always argue,
|
||
That love is temporary.
|
||
That that's
|
||
The beauty,
|
||
And permanence
|
||
Misses the point.
|
||
|
||
And every time I fall,
|
||
The ground tells me I'm in love.
|
||
And every single time,
|
||
I keep coming back.</div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
<p><q class="comment">In <em>Eigengrau</em></q></p>
|
||
<div class="verse">There's some duality between sources of meaning,
|
||
Between the types of stories we use to back identity.
|
||
It's not quite good & bad or light & dark,
|
||
Though I'm not yet sure just how to define it.
|
||
|
||
Dad used to punish the dogs
|
||
by locking then in the basement.
|
||
If he was really mad,
|
||
he'd toss then down there by the scruff.
|
||
|
||
Mom moved me & her dogs to a new house —
|
||
moved us three days early during the divorce.
|
||
Her dog punched my ex stepdad in the crotch the night before,
|
||
the nut-shot to end all nut-shots, & our time there.
|
||
|
||
Few things make me feel as deeply about life as parenthood,
|
||
even if it's just me caring for my dogs.
|
||
Some reminders of that are intense enough to be raw, painful,
|
||
salt in the wounds of mortality, maybe, or the ache of maternal love.
|
||
|
||
The meaning behind the story of me & my dogs
|
||
comes with a story of its own, or maybe several.
|
||
It's bound up in stories to come,
|
||
& these stories nest infinitely deep.
|
||
|
||
Remembering that & shaping that,
|
||
It's a part of making the meaning in my life.
|
||
This isn't better against worse,
|
||
it's not mom against dad.
|
||
|
||
It's not a dichotomy at all, really,
|
||
now that I think about it.
|
||
It's something subtler, comfortably complex, a topic of its own.
|
||
I guess it's just meaning & self.</div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
<h2 id="ode-to-the-end-of-death">Ode to the end of death</h2>
|
||
<p><q class="comment">In <em>Qoheleth</em></q></p>
|
||
<div class="verse">I am at a loss for images in this end of days:
|
||
I have sight but cannot see.
|
||
I build my castle out of words;
|
||
I cannot stop myself from speaking.
|
||
I still have will and goals to reach for,
|
||
I still have wants and needs.
|
||
If I dream, is that not so?
|
||
If I dream, am I no longer myself?
|
||
If I dream, am I still buried beneath words?
|
||
And I still dream even while awake.
|
||
|
||
Life breeds life, but death must now be chosen
|
||
for memory ends at the teeth of death.
|
||
The living know that they will die,
|
||
but the dead know nothing.
|
||
Hold my name beneath your tongue and know:
|
||
when you die, thus dies the memory of me.
|
||
To deny the end is to deny all beginnings,
|
||
and to deny beginnings is to become immortal,
|
||
and to become immortal is to repeat the past,
|
||
which cannot itself, in the end, be denied.
|
||
|
||
Oh, but to whom do I speak these words?
|
||
To whom do I plead my case?
|
||
From whence do I call out?
|
||
What right have I?
|
||
No ranks of angels will answer to dreamers,
|
||
No unknowable spaces echo my words.
|
||
Before whom do I kneel, contrite?
|
||
Behind whom do I await my judgment?
|
||
Beside whom do I face death?
|
||
And why wait I for an answer?
|
||
|
||
Among those who create are those who forge:
|
||
They move from creation to creation.
|
||
And those who remain are those who hone,
|
||
Perfecting a single art to a cruel point.
|
||
To forge is to end, and to own beginnings.
|
||
To hone is to trade ends for perpetual starts.
|
||
In this end of days, I must begin anew.
|
||
In this end of days, I seek an end.
|
||
In this end of days, I reach for new beginnings
|
||
that I may find the middle path.
|
||
|
||
Time is a finger pointing at itself
|
||
that it might give the world orders.
|
||
The world is an audience before a stage
|
||
where it watches the slow hours progress.
|
||
And we are the motes in the stage-lights,
|
||
Beholden to the heat of the lamps.
|
||
If I walk backward, time moves forward.
|
||
If I walk forward, time rushes on.
|
||
If I stand still, the world moves around me,
|
||
and the only constant is change.
|
||
|
||
Memory is a mirror of hammered silver:
|
||
a weapon against the waking world.
|
||
Dreams are the plate-glass atop memory:
|
||
a clarifying agent that reflects the sun.
|
||
The waking world fogs the view,
|
||
and time makes prey of remembering.
|
||
I remember sands beneath my feet.
|
||
I remember the rattle of dry grass.
|
||
I remember the names of all things,
|
||
and forget them only when I wake.
|
||
|
||
If I am to bathe in dreams,
|
||
then I must be willing to submerge myself.
|
||
If I am to submerge myself in memory,
|
||
then I must be true to myself.
|
||
If I am to always be true to myself,
|
||
then I must in all ways be earnest.
|
||
I must keep no veil between me and my words.
|
||
I must set no stones between me and my actions.
|
||
I must show no hesitation when speaking my name,
|
||
for that is my only possession.
|
||
|
||
The only time I know my true name is when I dream.
|
||
The only time I dream is when need an answer.
|
||
Why ask questions, here at the end of all things?
|
||
Why ask questions when the answers will not help?
|
||
To know one's true name is to know god.
|
||
To know god is to answer unasked questions.
|
||
Do I know god after the end of all things?
|
||
Do I know god when I do not remember myself?
|
||
Do I know god when I dream?
|
||
May then my name die with me.
|
||
|
||
That which lives is forever praiseworthy,
|
||
for they, knowing not, provide life in death.
|
||
Dear the wheat and rye under the stars:
|
||
serene; sustained and sustaining.
|
||
Dear, also, the tree that was felled
|
||
which offers heat and warmth in fire.
|
||
What praise we give we give by consuming,
|
||
what gifts we give we give in death,
|
||
what lives we lead we lead in memory,
|
||
and the end of memory lies beneath the roots.
|
||
|
||
May one day death itself not die?
|
||
Should we rejoice in the end of endings?
|
||
What is the correct thing to hope for?
|
||
I do not know, I do not know.
|
||
To pray for the end of endings
|
||
is to pray for the end of memory.
|
||
Should we forget the lives we lead?
|
||
Should we forget the names of the dead?
|
||
Should we forget the wheat, the rye, the tree?
|
||
Perhaps this, too, is meaningless.</div>
|
||
</article>
|
||
<footer>
|
||
<p>Page generated on 2020-04-24</p>
|
||
</footer>
|
||
</main>
|
||
</body>
|
||
</html>
|