I precede on time and space
with my body
to create
my being
I apprehend my being
to know its measure
The apsidal points of my mind
around my body in time and space
measure how
I know my being.
I smoke to the night stars
obscured by smoke-light
as my grandfather
did, with deliberation
an affinity I hadn't
known I'd gained
when I first tasted his
pipe-piece, its mellow
taste in childhood rooms
I knew him in his chair,
as he died the pants he wore
and thick round spectacles
--- the smoke the color of his hair
and how they said I'd be a priest
when I blessed them at his funeral
and now I see his gift given
years away, a changed way
to know the night.
My grandfather-- a star
that fell with night, in smoke.
...
Creation is a poem.
Poem, which is "creation" in Greek and thus
St. Paul calls God's Creation, POIEMA,
like a poem by Homer, Padre Angel used to say.
Each this is a "like."
Like a "like" in a Huidobro poem.
The entire cosmos copulation.
And each this is word,
word of love.
Only love reveals
but it veils what it reveals,
alone it reveals,
alone lover and beloved
in the illuminated solitude,
the nights of the lovers,
word that never passes
while the water flows beneath the bridge
and the slow moon above the houses passes.
The cosmos
secret word in the nuptial chamber.
Each thing that is is verbal.
Lie is what is not.
And each thing is secret.
Listen to the murmur of things...
They say it, but say it in secret.
Only alone is it revealed.
Only at night in a secret place does it lay itself bare.
The cosmic blushing.
Nature: timid, bashful.
All things lower their eyes in your presence.
---My secret is for my beloved alone.
And space is not speechless.
Who has ears to hear let him hear.
We are surrounded by sound.
Everything existing united with rhythm.
Cosmic jazz not chaotic or cacophonous.
In harmony. He made all things singing and the cosmos sings.
Cosmos like a dark record that spins and sings
in the dead of night
or romantic radio borne to us on the wind.
Each thing sings.
Things, not created by calculus
but by poetry.
By the Poet ("Creator"=POIETES)
Creator of the POIEMA.
With finite words and infinite meaning.
Things are words to whoever understands them.
As though everything were telephone or radio or t.v.
Words in an ear.
Do you hear those frogs?
and do you know what they wish to tell us?
Do you hear those stars? They have something to tell us.
The chorus of things.
Secret melody of the night.
Aeolian harp that sounds alone at the mere brush of the air.
The cosmos sings.
The two choruses.
"The yang calls;
the yin responds."
Dialectically.
Do you hear those stars? It is love that sings.
The silent music.
The sonorous solitude.
"The music in silence of the moon," mad Cortes.
Matter is waves.
And waves? Questions.
An I towards a you.
That is searching for a you.
And this because each being is a word.
Because the word made the world
we can communicate in the world.
---His word and a drum...
We are word
in a world born of the word.
and which exists only as something spoken.
A secret of two lovers in the night.
The firmament announces it as with neon letters.
Each night swapping secrets with another night.
People are words.
And thus one is not if one is not dialogue.
And so then each one is two
or is not.
Each person is for another person.
I am not I rather you are I!
One is the I of a you
or one is nothing.
I am nothing more than you otherwise if not I am not!
I am yes. I am Yes to a you, to a you for me,
to a you for me.
People are dialogue, I say,
if not their words would touch nothing
like waves in the cosmos picked up by no radio,
like messages to uninhabited planets,
or a bellowing in the lunar void
or a telephone call to an empty house.
(A person alone does not exist.)
I tell you again, my love:
I am you and you are me.
I am: love.
from CANTIGA 2: The Word
in Cosmic Canticle
by Ernesto Cardenal.
_____________
for Hesiod (lines 190-206, Theogony)
Formed from frothed
semen, foam of the sea,
how long did she travel
on the crests of waves
before, at land she took
her shining form and
with sea-feet weaned
on sprouting leaf
tread upon the hearts of mortals
and left as foot-print, love.
_________
The Lonely Star of Autumn rises
I sit with the quiet birds
as the Great Northern dark descends
its motion
Equal Night
The cat was speaking
with ghosts
The moon came out of the teapot
And the birds
that hunt in daylight
sang from the tree tops
at midnight
__________
you've gotten used to it.
suns implode, disperse.
there is no telling.
learn again to spin alone
or else form from the dust
photo: Pigeon Swamp Milky-way Aurora, Lawrence Martinez
