Timelapse Experiments
When I work in schools, I drive there early, find a spot with a view, listen to music, doze, look out the window, relax. Sitting in my car at Harding Middle School in Philadelphia in the wintertime of 2020 a nap wasn’t coming, so I watched some Canada geese land in the field in front of my car, followed by other geese. I got the idea to be a Muybridge-like photographer of this event, recording whatever minute changes occurred from moment to moment in and around the field, with the geese being my central focus. I became acutely aware of the passage of time in a way that made it seem to stand still. The sensation was similar to when I am able to enter a state kin to Samadhi when I meditate.
Later I took my notes and worked them up into a poem, using what I already knew about the dynamics of list poetry. The feeling of transcending the march of seconds was easy to find as I worked on it, the focus now on the language as opposed to the perceptions. In reading it aloud later, there was a music to it that I found refreshing. It has been a life-long quest of mine to replicate in writing what happens in the music of Philip Glass, John Adams and other composers who use patterns of repetition to revisit the same idea from different angles again and again until you’re in a zone of transcendence. Other artists in other genres have had expansive effects on me — King Sunny Ade, Miles Davis, Meredith Monk, Ravi Shankar, dozens of others — but none were as powerful as those so-called mimimalists.
Philip’s music in particular has gotten under my skin and given me this ambition. I knew him and worked with him in different ways from my earliest days in New York, when I arrived here a suburban bumpkin with no deep training in music or theater but a monomaniacal determination to experience them to the hilt. Phil put me up in an empty loft he knew of where a phone line had been patched in by some clever friend. I toured the country with him in a van taking a Mabou Mines piece around to art galleries. He had written the amplified percussive music for the piece. On that road trip I naively told him about the revelatory effect art had and how I wanted to produce art like that. He pointed out that revelation was one thing, transformation another. Still thinking about that. I visited his place on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia one summer and listened to some of his compositions when he wanted an audience. I talked him into writing the incidental music for a play I wrote for Mabou Mines, and used some of his other recorded music in another play. He came to my wedding in style with friends in a sporty white convertible, to see our mutual friend, the actor David Warrilow officiate the ceremony. (David was a minister in an exotic church and had gotten a license to marry us from the city.)
Throughout those experiences with him and with his music over the decades, I have marveled at his personal discipline and his commitment to the work of his music. The repetitive pulses, the way he unfurls chords in the form of arpeggios, the way he uses even the subtlest changes to keep you on your toes and open up new vistas, the way he brings in concepts and styles from cultures around the world. I always wanted my writing to do that. I tried dozens of experiments, but none of them worked quite the way I wanted them to.
The poem I produced after that morning in Philadelphia seemed like it held a clue to coming closer to my goal. I tried a couple of other pieces, expanding my moves as I went. I tried to figure out what the factors were that seemed to be making them work, after the fact, and came up with a few: repetitive structures, compression of syntax (out with all unnecessary prepositions, articles, conjunctions), elimination of punctuation to allow new meanings to emerge from the collision of sentences, spontaneous relevant associations that demonstrate a kind of infinitude in the workings of the mind. This was not a formula to be followed, but a set of possible moves to be sensed.
I applied my growing approach to a myth, a dream, the news, portraits, themes like friendship, images of art, a simple walk in the park. Some of the pieces became more extensive and narrative as I went. It’s too early to tell how well my experiments are working, but I am hearing from colleagues and friends, who have helped me refine the work, that there is a validating quality to the ones they have read. I will keep the experimentation going and see what happens, see if I’ve finally, here in my 70s, been able to emulate my models with any success. Here are the pieces so far, in chronological order of their production.
GEESE IN A FIELD
To the left in the distance the refineries with their silver pipes and flashing lights silently decorate the horizon with evanescing clouds of steam.
Beyond the acre in front of the windshield low rowhouses endure life sentences shoulder to shoulder wearing such chips of fading paint as may continue to cling to the siding.
Closer to the right wires sag between utility poles bar lines separating measures on a staff without notes.
Behind and out of view squats a massive stone pile that waits to take in streams of schoolchildren.
Beneath the thin layer of loam that lies like icing on the crust the packed atoms of the planet dictate the gravitational terms of this early morning’s composition.
Overhead the three-quarters moon partners in its waltz with the earth regardless of the gauzy clouds that hide reveal hide again its gravid charms.
On the surface blades of grass among footworn patches of bare soil struggle to synthesize any photons that fall their way through the winter atmosphere.
To the meager banquet offered here three Canada geese descend centered in the whorls of air stirred by the backstrokes of their wings.
Two more geese who were mere specks above the refineries’ steam enlarge themselves as they cover the distance to join the three who currently graze.
Three others emerge from invisibility beyond the steam through the currents of air to congregate with the five to make it eight geese a small flock.
A new arrival quarrels with a landed goose before the octet settles into harmony able to focus on the green shoots that sprout from the nearly depleted soil.
The necks of the geese form a pattern of crooked shapes that flex and unflex in rhythm as they amble on their black webbed feet stabbing at the spears of grass.
A half-dozen starlings traverse the airspace darting and swooping on their pointed wings to take up the place of notes on the staff of electric lines close to the right.
The patchy blanket of stratus clouds coursing slowly overhead hides for a moment the moon that has now dropped closer to the rooves of the rowhouses.
The loss of the lamp in the sky causes a notion to cross the mind of the observer death is but an orb obscured for a measure of time.
Two more geese with their black necks and white cheeks flap in from nowhere increasing the number of birds to ten.
In the distance to the left a sliver of the sun crests the horizon to backlight the steam from the refineries as the moon returns to view overhead.
It’s white shape mirrors the pale breasts of the geese who continue for the time to pluck an existence from the fare beneath their feet.
DESIRE
This is a sensible gathering a congress of decent people with something to say on all they conceive they agree peacefully to seek sensations of truth.
It’s a healthy gathering in a tonic spot with cabins conference rooms pathways that wind through conifers with their terpenes and up into the grassy hills.
A muse moves me to speak about the nature of desire it has the potential to propel us through time bring us to rest in gentle unexpected places.
To the godly among those who’ve gathered here this is welcome news surprising something they ponder at vespers.
A translucent woman asks me more about it I wonder if she belongs to the wild boy we will find up in the hills as the evening approaches.
She asks me about it gently I think about the way she asked as I leave to stroll with others through the hills above the cabins and the conference rooms.
We talk in whispers maybe we’ll spot the wild boy if we keep our eyes open for signs in the swaying rye grasses that blanket the slopes above the gathering whose murmuring goes quiet the background.
We forget the gathering altogether when we spot the back of a foraging bear moving apace through the dancing grasses that thickly cover the slopes.
We spot the bear but nothing yet of the boy who has never attended anything like the conference that focused on the topic of desire once I brought it up.
We stumble into a clearing on the slopes with a picnic table set to lure the wild boy from hiding but a morsel has fallen from a plate.
A member restores the bait to its place we worry if he saw it fall the wild boy will lose the courage he worked up isolated as he is alone in the hills.
At last in the setting sunlight the translucent boy with tow hair appears naked as fearful as he is driven by desire to join events below in the valley at the base of the hills.
We guide him by the hand wide-eyed down the slopes along the bear’s path wondering if the congregants below have stayed decent there, stayed engaged, stayed.
We wonder if they’ve stayed uncomplicated by greed or graft, if they feel the desire they discussed how deeply is it real in this gathering.
We wonder if they look forward like the wild boy to the moment when he and the translucent woman will melt united into the fading evening light.
ECHO AND NARCISSUS
He wanders newly a man yet a boy in the winter woods through stands of gray oaks and hickories alone no sense of who he is where he came from.
In the cities people picture him pose him in their galleries naked David sling over shoulder reach out across the landscape fingertips caress his marble skin draw him in.
Standing in the woods to rest jacket over shoulder he shrugs off a breeze sees the vultures’ shadows passing through the shadows of the hardwoods on the forest floor.
The stillness of the cold forest the patient hungry birds cause a shudder in the distant crowds they picture him aimless on a ridge above the checkerboard of the valley between.
A pulse moves the tongue of a young woman yet a girl to throw the song of a wren across the distance the boy in the woods hears something no it’s nothing.
Her voice goes silent there are noises around her they surround her penetrate her open windows the murmuring of demons she falls asleep in the darkness of a city room she dreams.
The girl dreams she can follow the boy through the woods go somewhere with him their veins pulse together if only she could speak again he would turn around leaves would sprout on the trees.
No thought in his mind until now the boy startles himself pictures from a lost memory energy a companion he hears himself shout are you here a girl’s voice a melody answers here.
In their imaginations in the woods the boy pivots the girl’s with him right behind him face to face hopeful time pauses nothing but the present for a moment.
But so much to lose too much emptiness to lose the boy’s face flames with rage the arrow of time resumes its flight through the shadows toward a tender destination.
She finds her voice again You can have me I’m yours he vanishes with the shadows of the scavengers beyond the ridgeline the arrow finds her heart.
She dreamed she could fill the void in the boy lost imagines a cave as empty as he was hides there curls motionless in the dark wounded willing herself to die.
Deeper in the woods down from the ridge the boy far from any beginnings head full of nothing stirred by something stumbles over stones and roots to a still pond.
His sculpted face two dimensional in the surface the perfect image the raptor that stirred within seizes it with its talons locks him to it the boy whispers farewell.
Unable to stop living heart healed into the light outside the cave the young woman hears words in the forest finds the pond the image of the boy on the dark water.
Venture from the city walk through the woods when the leaves have sprouted flowers bloom wrens sing by the pond listen deeper hear winter in the spring breeze.
A WALK IN THE PARK
A father and daughter enter the park in the time of the virus with a view to opening their senses such as they are able at instinctive intervals of time until they exit the park and see as they state it in the moment at the first stop entwined snakes on sculptural vases with green patinas beautiful and dangerous friend? foe? on the outstretched wings of cast iron raptors atop the columns that rule over Grand Army Plaza rock doves coo.
A ways down the woodsy trail between Flatbush Avenue and East Drive a pile of trash collected in one place Gatorade bottle Red Bull can Strawburita packet 7-11 cup how did the trash get here why is it here someone plopped a perfect amount of trash right here arranged in a circle around the refuse egg-shaped rocks the effect of a nest.
Approaching the rose garden above the Vale of Cashmere the invisible deafening motorcycle apocalypse on Flatbush Avenue beyond a tree-topped berm fades to the thump thump of a soccer ball that looks like a basketball soothing thumps laughter boys kick a ball on the fresh spiky leaves of grass of a lawn in Spring.
Dropping down from the trail by the berm into the final of the three hedged enclosures of the rose garden the last of the sweet-odored dogwood blossoms loom into view hanging on ready to go the permanent installation of a homeless man’s shelter cardboard boxes on a bench beneath a blooming magnolia the father has seen him in past times in a black coat hunched over a computer in a packing crate with his back to passersby is he in?
We have a lost toy discarded desolate pastel blue and orange dump truck lies battered on its side on the path above Nellie’s Lawn just past the ecological playground the ringing voice of a nearby mother shouting to her child I see you.
We have people rolling down the hill a group doing cartwheels on the descent through the lawn clusters of people and singletons sprinkled a random geometric arrangement snap a mental photo for the historical record a couple then two alone figures wearing masks keeping their distance from each other passing in the dappled shadows of the trees on the path behind them.
A few steps north of the Dongan Oak Monument at Battle Pass a woman with green hair sits on a blanket on Nellie’s lawn I don’t even know who I am anymore I don’t know I’m okay a pine cone hung by a string from the low branch of a maple across the East Drive are they bird droppings or is it fungus staining the beveled scales of the cone who would take the trouble to pick it up and tie it there by the bike lane why would they do that?
Skirting Sullivan Hill to the south with the Long Meadow on their right to the north a bare patch of ground at the edge of the woods an abundance of short dry broken branches a dog’s paradise so many sticks and look a lean-to someone has created a tipi structure of the longer sticks in the shade a man asleep in a red hammock strung between two trees.
I remember looking for my friends on a map on a long walk from the entrance last year it’s funny how the walk gets shorter when you know where you are going says the daughter after they cross the paved path that parallels East Drive south of a fenced depression in the field that keeps humans and their dogs out without stopping the flocks of robins who spring from the surface of the earth glide over the fence the promise high of finding worms in the humus among the tussocks of bright grass.
Crossing the southern edge of the northern section of Long Meadow to the wooded area east of the Third Street Playground where the daughter played in sandboxes two decades ago a multitude of robins starlings brown-headed cowbirds get along well they hunt for tiny prey yes they don’t bother each other too much.
Sit on a green bench gaze back over the southern edge of the northern section of the Long Meadow people scattered across the expanse wearing not wearing masks keeping not keeping their distance lying still playing games a plaque on a bench honors Charles F. Terry says we are such stuff as dreams are made on how our little life is rounded with a sleep get up old man says a passing mother to her toddler he toppled into a puddle on his scooter.
Ambling on their path among the park visitors on their blankets pause take in pulses of sound that arrive through the air from varying distances the murmuring of adults shouts of children chatter of birds wails of sirens from the streets beyond the trees take in the sight of a crippled dog hopping on the open field overhead a cormorant winging toward the distant lake beyond the meadow a mile or so to the south.
Moving among park visitors interlopers father daughter transcendent absorb the flood of sensations narrow their focus conjure a comment look at this little watering hole I like the birds taking a bath in there uh-oh here comes a boy with a ball sort from the myriad inputs two teenage girls trotting behind them a curly-haired tan dog trailing.
A quarantine routine take in aromas of spring blossoms a last look north over the landscape The Long Meadow pause at the entrance of Meadowport Arch at the far end a stark silhouette an old man in a tattered jacket bent over examines a plaque at his feet pass the plaque the man vanished the trees in 9/11 Grove look weepy with their flowery tendrils.
Near the concrete plaza beneath the raptor-topped columns prime roosts for the pigeons birders call them rock doves the daughter she says money ching ching knowing the father shopped for bread and apples at the farmer’s market here yesterday today he sets a marker of time the dimming of memory positions himself in the same chalk separation circle where he stood in line to buy potatoes beside the commemorating grove of trees with the weepy tendrils.
For an epilogue traverse the broad road that passes between the north end of the park and the Soldiers and Sailors Arch pivot east the statue of General Henry Warren Slocum on his horse the hero emerges from the bushes saber brandished defiance the mockingbird who claimed this territory isn’t here singing melodies in the forsythias it ceded ground to the house sparrows who chirp away into the evening.
THUNDERSTORM RISK: A DAY IN THE NEWS
Panning for language in a search through the crackling sections of the 6.2.20 Times I find the truth is we really just don’t know coughing talking heavy breathing unless there’s a breeze or a blast can’t penetrate surgical masks wear masks we have to wear masks people can wear masks.
It’s Saturday looking back on Science Tuesday a thousand contortions of emotion between then and now I find this is a marathon how youth fits into this puzzle may always be a mystery still uncertain something’s not right what we’ve learned likely from a pangolin enormous questions loom blood oxygen kidneys liver heart.
I taste the cadence of the word coronavirus our enemy monster or machine fluid samples primordial protein soup microscopic photocopiers in our cells unlocking the door to the cells shutting down the host cells moving into the lungs with the Golgi complex that resembles a stack of pancakes.
Astronauts are launched into space moon colonies a business model our cosmic destiny as a species jump-starting evolution intelligence gone amok microbes derailing our plans a rehearsal for the end the spread of dangerous knowledge we have grown too big and too smart for our pants research expanding at the speed of light Mars or bust.
My brother wondering two days ago on Thursday if this might be an inflection point Black Americans unemployment rates for black workers fraught categories untruths conspiracy theories evolving events sustained attention executive decisions the front door smashed unrest change is needed syntax can hardly contain this.
So many words in columns in small rectangular spaces meaning something on a Tuesday maybe not so much on a Saturday maybe more in times to come with unfettered speech endearingly awkward content a flow of invective Ms. Kimura the reality star with bubbly warmth found dead in the Tokyo apartment where she lived by herself.
Arrested at protests press press we are press backing away at request break up the crowd pepper balls being fired tense encounters rough treatment rubber bullets hit her head on a hydrant then there were the arrests hit with a baton hit with a projectile up next to flight attendants wearing hazmat suits if the pages are folded together.
Turning the page we find we’re just like everybody else on a quiet quest for the phenom within a promising young homegrown African American talent living alone in a townhouse training at my high school we’re just like everybody else the nuances of how a curveball comes off the hand versus the way a changeup comes off the hand.
Seven races at Ace Speedway attended by thousands held in defiance made out to be the devil just wants to run Ace Speedway raced anyway Ty Gibbs raced at Ace a densely packed near-capacity crowd at the races at Ace a four-tenths mile paved oval county management taking it upon themselves to allow Ace to race.
The obits slow you down where Loengard shot scenes in black and white of the Beatles in a pool of Armstrong touching his lips of the funeral of Evers of O’Keefe with the rattlesnakes she killed on her ranch we sounded like two insects getting interested in each other he said not to mention a chance encounter with baritone Bacquier
and the wartime laborer who led him to music giant in the field of ocean life discovery Randall who named 834 new fish species more than any other scientist he struggled into the water transformed into a fish then from a fish into the story of himself fixed forever in a column within the rectangular page D11 on a Tuesday in the Times.
As for the arts I would be dead in 20 seconds if it weren’t for the arts the truth is a world premier by a major choreographer each word a dance phrase ripped t-shirts and underpants the cats are in the house what a wonderful world the money matters we’re armed be who we are a big new vision make this music and leave.
Chaos spreads in the front section I took my journey back to front night falls thousands of arrests earnest voices it was a crazy drive plunging into the crisis to help trace evolution farming wildlife all across China causes of death band together to support one another rising deaths injuries arrests and wreckage I took my journey back to front end it now.
Okay not yet there’s the weather events go away the weather keeps on increased cloudiness national forecast a dome of heat transitions to warmer weather the West will be dry a storm that is forecast to brew may garner the name Cristobal tonight showers tomorrow thunderstorms Thursday partly sunny Friday Saturday thunderstorm risk.
UP AND DOWN THE MOUNTAIN
The Red Door
Popeye
Rusty Bolts
Preacher Bird
Someday
Wives
Metaphor
Transcendence
Growing Rice
Evolution
Skyward
Lonely Heights
Listening
A Tussle on the Rocks
Wood Thrushes
Fallen Oak
Decomposition
What is his name?
Woodpeckers
The Top Rock
Warbler
The River Slips By
Parabola of Space and Time
Apex
Rowboats
Sound Waves
A Couple More Miles
Mushroom
The Color of Gold
Heartwood
Arboreal Orifices
Sermons
A Place to Rest
Tulip Tree Blossom
What is her name?
Gray Matter
Dreaded Spheres
Artifact
Just Dirt
Trajectory of an Object
People Have Ideas
The Red Door Redux
Birthmark
Intelligence
GINGER ELECTRIC
I see you Ginger maybe 38 years ago in your birthday suit atop a green generator at the farm in Terra Alta halo of blond hair determined set of chin a look in your eye this will not change energy emanating from the start never letting up not a surprise think of where you came from those electric high school friends turned partner parents Larry and Lisa for that matter where did they come from what currents carried all this energy through the generations?
I see you Ginger in the living room dining room kitchen in Washington a presence in the house learning the Wolken Marshall ways in and out the door with your friends Amber Hannah Phil I may not recall names just right but it’s easy to recall you the set of chin look of eye navigating freaky classrooms your unconventional lopsided genius of mind spirit energy alive love struggle laughter you prevail from your center no one else’s.
What I see now Ginger a blur a montage visits meals walks how many couches easy chairs sitting around digging deep into the way we are our families our habits our worries will these kids get a handle on life will these so called adults keep a handle on their shit there’s something bigger than all of us here some generator keeping the lights on keeping the motion going your wisecracks like sparks the twinkle in your eye what’s coming next out of that wry mouth get ready it will be witty and wise.
Big hole Ginger gone where is she one college another college the West Coast what’s she doing out there anyway wait she’s back some strapping dude with her a little house down by the road not too far from the creek a coop appears chickens strutting up and down the ramps hilarious but there are weasels or hawks predators of some kind coop moves to the cabin chickens after the insects in the yard there tasty eggs blue skies wildflowers all kinds of clucking energy.
Fast forward fast reverse somewhere in here cosmic dust coalescing comets planets asteroids particles from the Oort Cloud entities from across the universe circle in Ginger Greg energy fusing attracting family energy friend energy Ginger energy at the center of this it’s an epic gathering a wedding in a green field gentle kind delicious musical spirited exponential boost of the charge forecasting Mack.
But lie down rest take a deep breath don’t go supernova tuck in close to the hands the flow coming down from the heart brain muscles time for a massage shoot get the whole family in there one after the other this is the thing about your energy Ginger there’s some kind of battery in there a super cell at your center you can count on that everybody in their way counts on that thank you for that and for those transmitters your fingers aaahhh.
Time for Mack now speaking of a halo of hair can someone please explain the physics of this Larry can I hope what force expands the power multiplies the ergs maybe its love I’ll ask Lisa she would know about that angle on it what creates a magnetic field like Mack’s how that creature of nature draws power from the generator Ginger’s arms your body a reactor with lines directly lighting up the wild city in a body that is your son.
I see you with Mack I see you with Greg I see you with Melissa snuggling I see you trucking around with a weird dog speaking of a setup that circulates electrons think of the Thanksgiving dinners I hold your hand in the circuit there you take walks through the woods you stir pots with your mother you stick your head under the hood with your father tinker with something in that engine are your fingers cables are you charging the car battery with your energy too?
There’s seeing and there’s knowing I know your wires short circuit the systems shut down red alert pain pressure drops on you the center only holds by will the family a buttress days nights weeks a struggle undeserved suffering it deepens love it expands understanding because of your nature this can happen any time it’s scary you have to endure I don’t see you then but I know I imagine I feel there’s no pretending they’re up when the wires are down
but still over time Ginger, you get up and do you are one of those who steps up the voltage in the grid of our tribe you are a transformer they should make a yin version of Thomas the Tank Engine call it Ginger the Generator you mentioned words of wisdom I am not wise but I know how to flip the lights on see what’s in front of me see you enduring prevailing chin set growing the love through the generations there’s power in your kind of hope you keep it in circulation thank you.
THE PROCESS OF LOOKING AT KIRIFURI FALLS ON MOUNT KUROKAMI BY HOKUSAI
The white blue striped pattern idea of water falling among jagged rocks if you said the branching streams were roots passing barriers I would believe you the spread of a thought among neurons I would believe you the curious pathways of energy in a tribe flock herd school I would believe you a cladogram upturned life evolving simplicity to complexity captured still outside time I could be persuaded.
Blue white specks the foam in the pool at the base larger at the bottom throw the eye through the smaller drops above back into the cascade reverse toward a source outside the frame think a tree the veins in a leaf track to the trunk think of the numbers of springs brooks that feed a river’s flow time’s arrow may go one way but the mind free defies time turns the fingers into a hand.
Around the edges pale abstract patches signaling grass cling to the slopes mats of green splashed into the work from the front apart from the flow they could be Rorschach tests I join the history of imaginers see continents dragons intestines a horse speared by a branch butterflies a woman’s yoni ants on apples Alps Andes Sierra Nevada I could go on but the leaves draw my eye now.
Also apart from the liquid action dark leaves on thin branches overlaid intermingled another dimension the kinds of shrubs that love mountain streams cool mists maybe rhododendron no the shapes more like oaks trunks and branches thin tentative rise and stoop toward the movement of the water look more and more of them as your eye climbs up along the patches of grass.
Mixed in with the water grass shrubs reflecting them reflecting on them three figures in descending height one kneeling at the base of the flow blending in with the froth still worshipful bald maybe monks hats off one resting among the boulders this side of the pool even the boulders move a rightward tending frozen forward action of their own they anchor time the humans not moving only seeing.
Hunched over hats two more bald men crouch in the grass up on the right they might have been leaves if you didn’t zoom in they are looking down away from the flow what are they seeing it’s steep are they climbing down did they make a mistake are they in danger do they belong to the other three men tension here no way to resolve it they could tumble into the rocks.
Another angle bald men stare with awe at a stream flowing in a cleft between bushes others ascend its charms danger of falling is the stream the yin to their yang maybe you saw the scene through a purple filter you made prints of a nude in ecstasy octopi at her lips at her nipples at the door to her womb lots of talk about sucking do you have arousing designs on our minds here too Katsushika?
Jump cut sixty-two years Hokusai’s hands striping roots white blue like his water his cascading molecules in Van Gogh’s last painting Tree Roots dots dashes flowing action even of the soil you can imagine men falling clinging there tension expressing life’s struggle frantically fervently rooting itself in the earth being torn up by the storm as the Dutchman said Hokusai’s hands his hands at work on water on roots.
Kirifuri Falls on Kurokami Mountain in any case a section of a circle a vivisection of a cycle the water cycle those same drops in the foam flowing to the sea evaporating clouds raining on the mountain streams forming carving the rocks that operate in their slower wheel in the clock the rock cycle trees bearing fruit evolving men climbing falling climbing again Sisyphean.
I’ve known streams in the forest myself that cascade through rocks among bushes flow like one brook in my mind I have bathed in their pools consoled myself in their music taken the air there consorted with the creatures there salamanders birds fish dragonflies deer I was supposed to be working on something else somewhere else I surrendered let the water shape the future.
that has become the present now two hundred years since you pictured it if those observers in a trance turned around from their romance with the channels that separate marry separate one would have my face a mirror through time space compressed particles from your breath my breath atoms from your body the water behind you in you in me I suspect you felt this coming.
SYMPHONY
In the Honda at sunset corner of Underhill and Eastern Parkway facing the plaza chords crash airy trills Beethoven on the radio coming up Underhill a wall of slate colored plaster cracked by lightning.
The wall of slaty clouds a backdrop women pass by children pass by gay men buff in step pear shaped bodies figures from the fashion magazines onstage a gust through the windows all’s in motion everything ready to pivot.
Every sense in motion illumination turning a corner spotlight sensation surging from within call it love toward all in sight where did it come from this feeling like arms reaching out to a lost child.
Imagine a white metal curtain drawn from the side slate wall lost white field of view stage right now red blue stripes Gasoline Only above the gas cap postal service panel truck pulls up Underhill hidden storm hidden.
Underhill hidden slate wall hidden wind stirs tall oaks maples across the parkway leaves dance dust up from the asphalt decrescendo on the radio bodies on the median stage left step faster bikes roll past my heart pumping.
Bodies dancers on the left stepping faster choreographed to the new cadence from Beethoven wind whips through the windows confluence here now wall of white still to the right what will happen when the truck pulls away?
What will happen the white postal service panel truck will pull away the slate wall will be on me dancers streets will be battered by the rain a man will struggle with his balloons getting whipped by the wind.
A tall man bent forward will struggle a bouquet of balloons whipped in hard wind hurrying performers will be soaked sheets of water leaves will fly about pelting rain will wash away every note leaf passerby minute.
UNRAVELING THE MOONLIGHT
White plastic bag on lap Managed by Q spread of lace on the table of the bag snow on a boulder mandala patterns repeated connected wheels tubes within wheels trellises between wheels a woman of teak tats stops puzzles.
She tats stops puzzles counts a consequential meditation pulls a strand unravels the filigreed moonlight how many hours in focus on this flat monument oh god years in the making coming unmade a sand painting swept away on the lap of an artist.
The long loose thread stretches off the surface pause pursed lips some kind of inspiration fingers fly dance hand game new links yes the eyes and hands of god across the aisle here in the fluorescence of the two train rumbling downtown.
OUTSIDE ALBERT’S BOX OF LIGHT
Underground through Brooklyn through Manhattan a rattling bubble of space Bohr and Einstein argue in the book on my lap what happens to the particles or are they waves in a box of light lined with mirrors picture them one photon at a time spurting through a pinhole train cars on a track of gravity leaving nothing behind.
Elevated in the Bronx the number two local bursts out of the tunnel dawn light at Jackson Avenue earbud cantata projected onto the dark backs of my eyelids the sun fresh up over the horizon at intervals unblocked by projects enflames the hot capillaries the curtain of skin blood glows red fades to black up to red back to black…
Around the corner from the 180th Street stop a fault in the granite thrusts rock up a cubist black cliff face upon the ledges in the fissures mullein chicory ragweed goldenrod a month from blooming illuminated too the coffee cups the flyaway napkins white blossoms a buttercup as well waxy fractal of the solar disc the laws it obeys the luster it conveys.
Along East 180th Street at noon with a friend we pass the Fire Alarm Telegraph Station pass the leafy border of the zoo then turn along Devoe hot rays ricochet off junkyards off the jagged edges of a shattered sidewalk photons from Albert’s box reconvened here now museum art obsolete on the Avenue today.