soils

Alluvial - A combination of clay, silt, sand and gravel that forms over time from mineral deposits left by running water.

Calcareous - A soil primarily composed of calcium carbonate and high in chalk or limestone as well as fossilized shells.

Granite - A hard and granular rock with a high content of crystals, particularly quartz.

Jory - A volcanic soil composed mostly of basalt, which is in turn a hard and dense soil that often has a glassy appearance.

Limestone or Chalk - A soft soil made primarily from fossilized seashells.

Loam - A crumbly mixture of clay, sand and silt.

Marl - A crumbly mixture of different clays as well as calcium and magnesium carbonates with fossilized shells mixed in as well.

Sandstone - A combination of silica and sand compacted together by pressure and time.

Schist - A metamorphic rock derived mostly from clay, but it can be made from several other rocks. Schist is a soft rock that flakes and breaks easily.

Shale - Layers of clay-like, fine-grained sedimentary rock. On the surface where the shale breaks it often forms beds of sharp fragments.

Tufa - A mix of silica, calcium carbonate and sometimes volcanic ash that has been deposited over time by streams, lakes and other water sources.

Psalm by Aleksander Wat

I ponder you in clamor and in silence
Tracking you through the course of time, like game,
To see: are you my much sought-after falcon?
Should I kill you? Or kneel down and pray.

For faith's sake or the sake of denial,
Stubborn I search for you, and uselessly.
Of all my dreams you are the lovliest
And I daren't shake the sky to let you fall.

As if reflected in the flow of water
Sometimes you seem to be and sometimes not;
I've glimpsed you in the stars, among the fish
Like the wild bull when he is taking water.

And now, us two alone, in your great story
I stay to match myself again with you,
Without my wanting to emerge the victor.
I want to touch you and to shout: 'He is!'

(translated by Bantas and Perry)

a time of friendship

The train was late because the hot-box under one of the coaches had caught fire in the middle of the great flat field covered with snow. (paul bowles, 194)

clarity, color, and bliss

From the tantric point of view, whenever we open our mind and senses to the objective world, our perception is always related to a particular color. And each color that we perceive-- blue, red, green and so on-- is directly related to what is happening in our internal world. That is why the practice of tantra, with its visualization of deities and so forth, color and light play such an important part.

To give an idea of what I mean, let us consider the color blue again. As I said, the particular inner quality of radiant blue light is freedom from fantasy projections. If these projections are very strong-- when, for example, we are so caught up in ourselves that we cannot break out of depression-- then even on a perfectly clear day we are unable to see the blueness of the sky. All we see is greyness. This definitely happens and, along with the experience of seeing red when angry or being green with jealousy, shows the close relationship between color and states of mind. ('clear spaciousness of mind', introduction to tantra) 78

after-break (next)

1. The Emperor
2. Wealth
3. Dominion
4. Princess of Wands
5. The Devil
6. The Hierophant
7. Ace of Wands
8. Art
9. Victory
10. Truce
11. (The Aeon)

new thing

Crafted:
we are still malleable,
we forget that even our thoughts are woven out of oldness,
old spun webs and brittle threads.

New springs and coils impinge like ferns in the undergrowth, twined,
But how much can we leave fallen behind us,
slow-decay, soft carpet, detritus.

Anne Sexton, from 'Rowing'

I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyeball,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that the island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
bu there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat inside of me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.

As the African says:
This is my tale which I have told,
if it be sweet, if it not be sweet,
take somewhere else and let some return to me.
This story ends with me still rowing.

sahara

"I shall always remember how, as we left the station, I lifted my left hand to see the time by my wrist-watch, and rode into the desert. Time was of enormous importance on the railway; and so was one's luggage, and there was speed and noise there, among other worries; but in the desert there was only sunrise and sunset to notice, and noon, when all the animals slept and the gazelles were not to be found." (Lord Dunsany, Patches of Sunlight)

pitch

Pitch, blackest-black,
You do not know it yet,
but someday you will watch me jumping off of rock cliffs
swallow-like, gold in the water.

Salt-spray will wash against our house,
foundation of bones webbed-in-earth,
together we make limestone, chalk;
we are the old bodies of sea-creatures and sponge-fossils,
transformed into light-shades.

My house has always been that one,
in the distance, white chalk-walls,
pebble strewn, blue-shadow-on-white cliffs.

I am woman in the black shawl, village creeper,
I am ribbon wound, kohl-eyed,
spirit-companion.

You are beloved one, laughing-eyes, smoke from lips.

elg 2010

Hardy (feels like love and winter at the same time)

Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.

Thomas Hardy

The thrushes sing as the sun is going,
And the finches whistle in ones and pairs,
And as it gets dark loud nightingales
In bushes
Pipe, as they can when April wears,
As if all Time were theirs.

These are brand-new birds of twelve-months' growing,
Which a year ago, or less than twain,
No finches were, nor nightingales.
Nor thrushes,
But only particles of grain,
And earth, and air, and rain.

scents.

ambergris
castoreum, civet, honey bee and hyraceum

brihadaranyaka upanishad

The human being has two states of consciousness: one in this world, the other in the next. But there is s a third state between them, not unlike the world of dreams, in which we are aware of both worlds, with their sorrows and joys. When a person dies, it is only the physical body that dies; that person lives on in a nonphysical body, which carries the impressions of of his past life. It is these impressions that determine his next life. In this intermediate state he makes and dissolves impressions by the light of the Self.

The birds are whispering together.

Cold husks of leaves and seeds litter the ground,
scuttle through pathways to the street.

You were the one that found the rocks.
The layered soapstones, the agates, the moss-in-quartz.

When we kicked along the edge of town,
It felt like daylight,
it felt like just before-sundown,
it felt like winter hinge,
day-hinge…. in breath between day and night.

What was this we used to call it years ago?
Evensong?
What Rilke called it?

Spectre stone,
Rock formation
Shadow form.

The lit fuse of memory is running its trace through my storehouse tonight
shining indiscriminant on that summer season,
afternoons stacked brightly like old slides,
packed tightly like clothes in a trunk,
dust and yellow grass, heat and edge of nothing town.


I don’t know what I am trying to remember.
But I miss that person, most dearly.

You are ravens-head,
lampblack.
I am powdered ash, white stone,
goldenrod.

Together we make a circuit,
halo-haze, coiled spring, resin-ground.

You are obsidian,
lava-ground, jet-stone.
I am cindered-flowers, dry marigold,
sandalwood, sweet smoke.

You are inscriber, chalk-marker,
Graphite-sewn.
I am worked-on, cinder-prone,
Soapstone.

(older poem, elg 2010)

Helen in Egypt, by H.D. (Book 5:8)

...we are children of Zeus;
I must wait, I must wonder again
at the fate that has brought me here;

surely, she must forget,
she must forget the past,
and I must forget Achilles....

------

... but never the ember
born of his strange attack,
never his anger,

never the fire,
never the brazier,
never the Star in the night.

So many things, however, are a genuine heartbalm like the prickles of the Pleides rising on the night. Piers tells me that the local patois image for stars in their first state (like an etching) is "flour sprinklings". (211, Monsieur, L. Durrell)

You are what your deep, driving desire is.
As your desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As your deed is, so is your destiny.

(Brihadaranyaka iv.4.5)

Sagesse, by H.D. (10)

Or is it the great tide that covers the rock-pool
so that it and the rock-pool are indistinguishable

from the sea-shelf and are part of the sea-floor,
though the sea-anemone may quiver apprehensively

and the dried weed uncurl painfully
and the salt-sediment rebel, "I was salt,

a substance, concentrated, self-contained,
am I to be dissolved and lost?"

"it is fearful, I was a mirror, an individual,"
cries the shallow rock-pool, "now infinity

claims me; I am everything? But nothing";
peace, salt, you were never useful as all that,

peace, flower, you are one of a thousand-thousand others,
peace, shallow pool, be lost.

projections

In my room, the world is beyond my understanding;
But when I walk I see that it consists of three or
four hills and a cloud.

(wallace stevens, CP, 57)

chang chung-yuan:

It is traditionally said by Ch'annists that before one is enlightened one sees a mountain as a mountain and a river as a river; in the process of attaining enlightenment, mountains are no longer mountains, rivers no longer rivers; but when one has finally achieved enlightenment, mountains are once more mountains, rivers once more rivers.

This creates a third world without knowledge,/In which no one peers, in which the will makes no/ Demands. It accepts whatever is as true,/ Including pain, which, otherwise, is false./ In the third world, then, there is no pain. Yes, but/ What lover has one in such rocks, what woman,/ However known, at the centre of the heart? ("Esthetique du Mal")

This, then, is not all. It's not enough, I know.
At least I'm still alive, as you may see.
I'm like the man who took a brick to show
How beautiful his house used once to be.
Bertolt Brecht

notes I took while working.... (wine bible)

champagne soils, white chalk soils; "chalk crescent, the area that spans from the British cliffs to Champagne was the basin of a vast prehistoric sea some 65 million years ago. When the water receded, it left behind minerals like quartz and zircon, fossils and sea urchins, sea sponges and other sea animals,"---producing vast quantities of(CHALK).

planctus naturae: The Complaint of Nature against the Erronious Alchymist

various alchemical vessels: alembics (stills), sublimating vessels (for converting a substance to a vapor then, upon cooling, to a solid); gourd-shaped retorts; more stills, alembics with two curved tubes proceeding from the head back into the body of the vessel (pelican shaped, used in distilling liquors by fermentation). pseudo-jean de meun (notes on text, 39-41)

To make asem
Carefully purify lead with pitch and bitumen, or tin as well; mix cadmia and litharge in equal parts with the lead. Stir till the mixture becomes solid. It can be used like natural asem.
[Reduction in the furnace must here also be assumed. The soft white alloy so obtained must have been a cheap and poor substitute for electrum or silver.]

the theatre of terrestrial astronomy

I will speak first of the inventors and restorers of the Art;
secondly, of the mutual conversion of elements, and how through the predominance of one element the substance of metals is generated;
thirdly, I will shew the affinity and homogeneity of metals, procreated in the bowels of the earth, their sympathies and antipathies, according to the purity and impurity of their Sulphur and Mercury; and that as metals consist of Sulphur and Mercury, they can furnish us with the first matter of the Elixir;
4thly, the preparation of Mercurial water;
5thly, the conversion of prepared Mercury into Mercurial earth;
6thly, the exaltation of Mercurial water;
7thly, the solution of gold by Mercurial water;
8thly, the preparation of the water or Moon of the Sages;
9thly, the conjunction of sun and moon;
10thly, the blackness, or Raven's Head, by means of which the solution and copulation of Sun and Moon do both take place;
11thly, the peacock's tail;
12thly, the white Tincture;
13thly, the perfect red Elixir.

colours to be observed in the operation of the great work

This is contained in Aurifontina Chymica: or, a collection of fourteen small treatises concerning the first matter of philosophers, for the discovery of their (hitherto so much concealed) Mercury. Which many have studiously endeavoured to hide, but these to make manifest, for the benefit of Mankind in general. London, 1680.


YOU must expect to have it exceeding Black, within 40 days after you have put your Composition into the Glass over the Fire; if it be not black, proceed no further, for it is unrecoverable: it must be as black as the Ravens Head, and must continue a long time, and not utterly to lose it during five months.
If it be Orange colour, or half Red, within some small time after you have begun your Work, without doubt your Fire is too hot; for these are tokens that you have burnt the Radical humour and vivacity of the Stone.
Know ye not, that you may have Black or anything mixed or compounded together with moisture: But you must have Black which must come and proceed of Perfect Metalline Bodies, by a real Putrefaction, and to continue a long time.
As for the colours of Blew and Yellow, they signifie that the Solution and Putrefaction is not yet perfectly finished, and that the colours of our Mercury are not yet well mingled with the rest.
The Black aforesaid is an evident sign, that in the beginning the Matter and Composition doth begin to purge it self, and to dissolve into small Powder, less than the Motes in the Sun; or a glutinous Water, which feeling the heat, will ascend and descend in the Glass: at length it will thicken and congeal, and become like Pitch, exceeding Black; in the end it will become a Body, and Earth, which some call Terra foetida; for then by reason of the perfect Putrefaction, it will have a scent or stink like unto Graves newly opened, wherein the Bodies are not thorowly consumed. Hermes doth call it Terra foliis, but the proper name is Leton, which must be blanched and made white.
This blackness doth manifest a Conjunction of the Male and Female, or rather of the four Elements.
Orange colour then doth shew that the Body hath not yet had sufficient digestion, and that the humidity (whereof the colours of Black, Blew, and Azure do come) is but half overcome by the dryness.
When dryness doth predominate, then all will be white Powder: It first beginneth to whiten round about the outward sides of the Glass; the Ludus Philosophorum doth say, that the first sign of perfect whiteness, is the appearing of a little hoary circle passing upon the Head, shewing it self round about the Matter on the outward sides of the Glass, in a kind of Citrine colour.

(from alchemywebsite.com)

alchemical processes

Calcination
Dissolution
Separation
Conjunction
Fermentation
Distillation
Coagulation

I asked Philosophy how I should,
Have of her the thing I would,
She answered me, when I was able,
To make the Water malleable,
Or else the way, if I could find,
To measure out a yard of wind:
Then shall you have your own desire,
When you can weigh an ounce of Fire,
Unless you can do these three,
Content yourself, you will not get me.

rock salt

Rock salt,
polished-bronze.
Your colors are black and silver, gold and mica-schist.

You are very old,
and description of you must be succinct.

You have become too sharp
in my heart (black-lit).

When I breathe in
you entangle my thoughts.
When I exhale, you lodge yourself
like sharp pebbles in the soft parts of my heart.

I am sad like a storm
brooding over trees,
fuming soft like clouds,
(releasing rain over fields).

You have covered your mouth onto mine,
like a death-lid,
faint taste of blood-metal in the rain.

I asked to be struck,
Thorough-core,
Lit-match
(now I am filled with sparks).

I remember only through shininess and dark—
through opals, and grey glittering gems,
Glance-lit.

You are Shapeshifter:
Dark smoke--
Written-on--
Polished stone.

I am embers ground,
Shavings curled in the fire:
Black sand then glass--
rock-peeled--
stone-schist--
(black alchemist).

(elg 2010)

prostrate by steps

prostrate by steps
(mount meru measured by your body)

we are on the same journey
(etching over of an older one)
that is slowly coming into focus, like ink spreading,
like black blood smoke feathered into water
pooled.

I hear your quietness,
my love,
but instead of
such folded reticence as you seem to give,
(dark reverance)
lies the very shape of surrender.

the loudest sounds
are your heartbeats,
(each-time, quietest-close, in-breath)
like scudded black fruits
on wet ground, apples fallen under their tree,
contraction and retraction of breath,
crabapples rotting in the rain,
(coldest air of before-morning),
under-breathing.

there is a spider-system of deep wells
and hidden passageways just under your house, (set so lightly on the earth):
black channels spread like webs,
wet reservoir unseen,
waiting for you to fall through.

(elg 2010)

the simurgh by Farid ud-Din Attar

Ah, the Simurgh, who is this wondrous being
Who, one fated night, when time stood still,
Flew over China, not a single soul seeing?
A feather fell from this King, his beauty and his will,
And all hearts touched by it were in tumult thrown.
Everyone who could, traced from it a liminal form;
All who saw the still glowing lines were blown
By longing like trees on a shore bent by storm.
The feather is lodged in China's sacred places,
Hence the Prophet's exhortation for knowledge to seek
Even unto China where the feather's shadow graces
All who shelter under it -- to know of this is not to speak.
But unless the feather's image is felt and seen
None knows the heart's obscure, shifting states
That replace the fat of inaction with decision's lean.
His grace enters the world and molds our fates
Though without the limit of form or definite shape,
For all definitions are frozen contradictions not fit
For knowing; therefore, if you wish to travel on the Way,
Set out on it now to find the Simurgh, don't prattle and sit
On your haunches till into stiffening death you stray.
All the birds who were by this agitation shook,
Aspired to a meeting place to prepare for the Shah,
To release in themselves the revelations of the Book;
They yearned so deeply for Him who is both near and far,
They were drawn to this sun and burned to an ember;
But the road was long and perilous that was open to offer.
Hooked by terror, though each was asked to remember
The truth, each an excuse to stay behind was keen to proffer.

the morning watch by henry vaughan

O joys! Infinite sweetness! with what flowers
And shoots of glory, my soul breaks and buds!
All the long hours
Of night and rest,
Through the still shrouds
Of sleep, and clouds,
This dew fell on my breast ;
O how it bloods,
And spirits all my earth! hark! in what rings,
And hymning circulations the quick world
Awakes, and sings!
The rising winds,
And falling springs,
Birds, beasts, all things
Adore Him in their kinds.
Thus all is hurl'd
In sacred hymns and order ; the great chime
And symphony of Nature. Prayer is
The world in tune,
A spirit-voice,
And vocal joys,
Whose echo is heaven's bliss.
O let me climb
When I lie down! The pious soul by night
Is like a clouded star, whose beams, though said
To shed their light
Under some cloud,
Yet are above,
And shine and move
Beyond that misty shroud.
So in my bed,
That curtain'd grave, though sleep, like ashes, hide
My lamp and life, both shall in Thee abide.

from Grove of Academe (6)

.......

"no, these are camomile-daisies

that I crush as I reach out;
Arabian-gum fragrance?
no, that was the amber-beads

on the cherry-bark,
and the sticky pine-bark,
and sassafras-bark that we bit on,

and some dusty butter-and-eggs
(wild snap-dragon)
in a hot lane;"..............

(from 'Hermetic Definition' by H.D.)

beann

in Gaelic means (SPEAR): horn, spine
It can also mean: antler, wing, mountain peak, crest, branch,
peak-pate, stag-head

alchemical terms

bittern: solution of magnesium salts
black ash: impure sodium carbonate
black lead: graphite, an allotrope of carbon
brimstone: sulfur (S)
chalk: calcium carbonate (CaCO3, carbonate of lime, mild calcareous earth). Acid of chalk is carbon dioxide (CO2, carbonic acid, fixed air)
charcoal: either a charred carbonaceous material or its primary constituent, namely carbon. Lavoisier coined the term carbone (carbon) to distinguish the element from impure charred material; however, the distinction was not universally adopted right away.
cobalt. Named by the copper miners of the Hartz Mountains after the evil spirits the 'kobolds' which gave a false copper ore; despised because of its uselessness and unhealthiness (it was often found mixed with arsenic), and because it resembled silver but wasn't.
copper-nickel, named for another devil, because it looked like copper but wasn't-- our nickel.
cuprite. Red cuprous oxide ore.
fulminating gold. Made by adding ammonia to the auric hydroxide formed by precipitation by potash from metallic gold dissolved in aqua regis. Highly explosive when dry.
King's Yellow. A mixture of orpiment with white arsenic.

you are graphite dust

You are graphite dust,
blown.

You are gold without knowing it,
Smoke from a slow fire,
wet.

You are leaves in a pile at dusk,
You are webbed like a spider’s nest underground, you are seen,
sheen,
opalescent.

You can smolder
like coal fires underground,
But leave only soft chalk on my arms as you hold them under you.

You are earthly,
and sharp,
and bright,
like hot cut black stones.

(I tried to show you myself in places,
tried to exchange a running picture-show for words,
tried to surround you with a moving screen of myself,
projected).

I should quiet down,
still myself
watch as bruises on white skin appearing,
charcoal on scrim,
silhouette on sugar backdrop.

You are a cameo, love,
black shape cut poised on pearl,
black smoke curling around me in the night.

collected terms and titles from the Natural History Museum

hornblende
alluvial soil
glacial till
stratified sands and clays
quartz
feldspar
calcite
gneiss
three-toothed cinqufoil
rock-tripe
limestone
shale
calcerous bog
glatiation
the water cycle
marl sedge (composed chiefly of shells)
the shale rocks of the Hudson River Series often develop a slaty cleavage… and fertility of the derived soils is variable, though decidedly on the poor side.
quartzite
wintergreen
checkerberry
teaberry
mountaintea
the mountain laurel is a frequent companion
Relation of Plants to Geology and Soil
barley oats timothy rye wheat alfalfa
Friends and Enemies of the Orchard
Fertilization of the Apple
Life in the Soil
Cycles of Nutrition and Decay
Structure of a Bean Plant
From Field to Lake
Life in Early June
Scavengers
Food Substances Removed from the Water
Microscopic Animals
Christmas Fern
Ground Pine
Black Birch
Redstart on Beech Tree
Wild Cherry
Striped Maple
Oven Bird
Heart-Leaved Aster

Flowers again appear in the woodland, mostly asters and goldenrods. These have formed their flower buds during the summer, and do not ordinarily carry them through the winter.

Winter buds of Dogwood
Plant Succession on Limestone
Progressive Changes after Fire, cattle grazing, and forest cutting
Indigo bird and nest
Fireweed
Fire Cherry
Aspen
Field Sparrow and Nest
Smooth Sumac
Blueberry
Plant Succession on Shale

dictionary of alchemy

Absorbent Earth: chlk, marble, and clays. no specific formulas. generally carbonates, silicates, and sulphates.

Acesunt: any substance which is slightly acid, or turning sour.

Acid of Ants: Formic acid

Acid of Amber: Succine acid

Acid of Apples: Malic acid

Alembic: a type of distillation apparatus

Bezoar: a counter-poison or antidote, especially a stony calculus from an animal’s stomach

Bismuth corne

Bittern: Liquor remaining after salt-boiling; a solution containing Magnesium salts and bromides from the preparation of salt from sea-water by evaporation

Bitter Earth: Magnesium oxide or carbonate

Bitter Salt: Magnesium sulphate (Epsom salts)

Bitter Spar: “Dolomite”—Calcium and Magnesium Carbonate

Bitumens: an amorphous grouping of resinous and petroleum products: crude oil, amber, asphaltum, coal

Cucubit: the lower part of an alembic. shorter, more squat and ovoid than a matrass.

Damps: any dangerous vapors in caves, mines, etc.

from 'The Poetry of Seamus Heaney: All the Realms of Whisper' by Elmer Andrews; Lecturer in Extra-Mural Department, University of Ulster

draws on the battering vitality of the Anglo-Saxon alliterative tradition to give utterance to an imagination informed by the austerity of cold, plastering rains and sharp-toothed winds. It is a landscape which the Anglo-Saxon Wanderer or Seafarer would recognize. 152

clamor and clogging 159

tribulation is purifying. In hard times it is necessary to become hard too-- even traitorous. 160

sacral, archetypal and mythic resonances of experience. Heaney submits all to the dark. 160

morning field smells
read poems as prayers
'a marvelous lightship that will surface from muddied waters'
elver-gleams in the dark
hide-bound boundary tree 173

"S's only consort now, are the birds of the air...."
The First Flight
gannet's strike
camaraderie of rookeries
discovering his new zone of being through the various birds he encounters.

oisin and st. patrick vs. holly tree (ink)
lobe and larynx of the mossy places
the old dry glut
living like a rook in the air 180
unroofed tower....
rest balm wingflap
unpainted spaces

An Artists' sensuous delight in his wife is complicated by his awareness that he has chosen to reject her. He imagines his wife's eyelids/glister and burgeon
the fleshed hyacinth

what it is like to gather holly in the rain
'gleamed like bottle glass'
'a black-letter bush, a glittering shield-wall, cutting as holly and ice'

finger-cymbal

finger-cymbal,
one-breath,
interwoven.

we are too finely spun
to be other than meshed brass threads,
entwined (rice and sesame).

pressed into a sieve,
honey has the color of brass;
dull sheen warmed

lit inner flame,
closed-hasp—
(this may not even be a love poem).

brine

1.
we are Myriad;
old lives as cobblestones;
(bared-teeth), sunk
in Earth.

Our memories;
(scaffold-shapes,
mica-schist):
loom over us,
from Four Sides of Consciousness:

as the embedded thing in mud (green circle),
as the adobe bricks steaming in the rain (brown dust),
as the smoke from the distant storm (red circle),
as the sour yellow smell of wet chamisa rising from the plain (spinning circle).

2.
when I lived in New Mexico, the
adobe houses would cluster together wetly in storms.

the lashes of rain would darken even the red dust,
under the trucks, and
rusted car shells.

3.
Here, powdered-iron and
Creosote
hang heavy in the air,

and like (metallic) wet
steel wool,
Coagulate,
(inside particles of storm wind,
nestled in their own-made nest).

4.
The wet brine of a west Texas afternoon,
Creeps
through my backyard window,

Reading furtively,
unbeknownst (to me),
the chicken stock and lentils
hum quietly on the darkening stove.

The locusts were already there.

the Locusts were
Already There--

Knawing
on the new
Leaves,
the Tenderest shoots.

the melon vine
I planted in the Spring,
was no match
for the
Hungry Field
behind our House.

Townsfolk brought you Birds and
and you Burned them.
People brought you Dead things that had fallen from Wires,
and

you Cut them,
quietly, with Powder and
Dull kitchen Knife,
in the white shed
Behind our House.

Friends left you offerings on your Doorstep,
and you
Left them to Rot in the Field,
insects
Knawing round their Sockets.

(i found by accident that clove oil banishes your presence),

The smoke from that Field
was Rank,
heavy with the guilt of pollen and corner-dust,
Cloying, Meddlesome, Sweet

I would have Folded myself
into the Flames
for you.

but Mortar has turned to Quicksand
the bricks are falling
as bodies
Heaped.

blue Alchemy bone Powder
Grated,
is
Sieved.
(conch-shells, peacock feathers).

your
Poison,
smoke in my Blood,

Dissapates

Now.

I sit in a
White Room,
With a brand-new Crystalline
Heart,

Rainbow shadow Walls,
Feather-beaded,
Abalone,
and Cone.

Safe
within
Walls,

your Hold has
become
a Skeleton’s
hand
of Ice.

Melted into
a Once-Lattice,
an old Pain Scaffold,

New Invisible
Trace—

Non-Presence.

The locusts were already there.

The locusts were already there.

Landscapes in Stone (Paisajes en Piedra).

Time in the Rocks (Tiempo en las piedras).

An Eocene Landscape.

Remember this.

Remember this
The clicking, intermittent,
of the electric heater,
the ringing of wind-chimes on the porch,
that have been ringing for days now,
like cowbells rung frantically over the dark plains.

Our house used to sit on the edge of town,
blank prairie, high-desert pressing in,

Here, I feel the wind outside,
through the steam of bath-water on the inside pane,
The window has frosted over, the streetlight shines like a star,
I am happy and round in candlelight,
unsure of the future,
set on a precipice, like an unknowing child.

(reading Colette, drinking rose cava, 3 candles lit (lux perpetua…)

I hear the wind chimes shrieking from my warm white single bed.