Friday, August 18, 2017

JEFFREY YANG ~








Circle of fierce

embers floating to stars

divine spark inside

breathing     breathing

I am coming, Mesingw

is coming

I am here




~




Beaver appeared, then otter, muskrat,

toad on a lily-lotus, turtle's

slow search earth rocked

tectonic web,  spider's net

Mesingw astride deer

face red black mask

eponym of peace, of

silence, steps, breath

making the forest

opening the path

Thoughts born of words:

You are not myself

nor any other

we are: thoughts




~




Surrounded by water and darkness

immersed in the sound of her heart

If this is blindness what is sight?

Before memory




~




They walked toward me from a great distance

and clothed me in garments of sun

faces so familiar, from a city of bridges

city of stone, city of ring roads

waterway fields

now dust motes in a sunbeam

They rubbed my back

and my feet

whispered sweet words to me

brought me food and drink

So thirsty I stood

alone

as they danced around me

knowledge and acknowledged

Salt flowing down

my body, a

vessel, my

blood my water

misting with earth

Hours not of silence or sun

but of the child

The cries in my arms




~




Stepped into water to wash

by dawn's first light

I carried her

she

carried

my heart un-

sequestered forest

Musing's breath

everything living emotion

motion in stillness

water clear as the air

was clear, the earth, my

thoughts, hers




~




And after many days

of water-silence, naps

and dreams,

her milk feeding my heart, her voice

gentle wind, her face blossoming sky

I returned to the village of nine houses

without a name, uprooted

not-yet-born calling me calling me

Tears of the Father




~




Walked the shore of shells

Walked the dock, the glass

Peninsula, the broken pier

Walked the macadam to

Grassy field, walked the path

Thru the trees towering to sand

Walked the mourning dove's nest

In shade and leaves

Walked the temple

Of elfin gold, of orpiment crystals

Tempered with wine

Walked the birches and outhouse

Walked the water back to where

I began

(tho I could see no semblance of a beginning)

And what the walk revealed

Along the sea's margin

Along the rimrock

Of the island

After so many centuries

Of marsh-tides and moonstones

Of or and ore (before oar)

Was an experience of walking

Irony replaced and transience

The unsaid

Thoughts flowing round my heart

And the rays like a shepherd's fire

Shadowing the vanishing-line



——————————————

Jeffrey Yang
Vanishing-Line
Graywolf 2011