FOREWORD
The
Minoan civilization of Crete had the written languages Linear A and Linear B,
both of which are predecessors of the Greek language. Discovered 100 years ago in Phaistos, Crete
and dated at approximately 1700 B.C, in the Middle Minoan period, the Phaistos
disk is neither Linear A nor Linear B and continues to defy translation. It is a ¼ inch thick disk of fired clay, 16
inches in diameter. On each side of the
disk are spiraling lines of symbols seemingly pressed into the clay by gold
stamps because the lines are so sharp, the images so clear. There are 45 stamps that repeat and combine
in different ways to make 242 symbols in all.
It has been declared untranslatable by the community of scholars, even
though most of the symbols are recognizable to us in images of plants, animals,
humans, tools and weapons. However there
are many existing translations of the disk that fall into the realm of
pseudo-archaeology. I see this
proliferation of odd texts as a huge body of deterministic writings based on
the disk, which does have an unmistakable and tempting visual readability. I chose to add to this body of work myself,
and in so doing, I experienced how powerful a rubric for generating poetry the
disk can be.
I shall build a boat
I shall launch it
I shall go far from this strange
earth
-- Sohrab Sepehri
1.
We Need a Fresh Start
What I
thought was the end is in fact the beginning
and I
find myself here, as it were, at the beginning
to tell
a story I don’t know about an island
and its
people and the sea
We are
edged by sea, or do we journey down a wide river?
We begin
by stepping over
we take
the passage to I don’t know where
if you
want to tell this story,
tell it
this way. Oh, and
one more
thing: you can’t
know
this story
because
of the migration of tuna
because
of the lowered sea levels at that time
But go
this direction anyway
take
this path of water away from yourself
people
of water next to water
both at
peril and saved by water
find a
path in the water and take it until
you
can’t go any further
our
water our way of life
our life
itself and us inside that life
The
story begins in departures,
our
departure towards you and
your
departure towards us.
2.
The Promotion of Life
Now come
the boats. With water always
come
boats and a destination
although
sometimes the destination
remains
unknown at the beginning
These
boats will tell us
if they
sail down a river or
across
the open sea.
I must
read deeper, past the thing that
looks
like a scarab and past the thing that looks
like the
head of a lamb, past whether it’s the water
of the
sea or the water of a river
The
story continues in boats, on the sea, the sea of seas
And what
I don’t say you must feel and hear,
you must
already know.
This
boat holds just a few and can’t
go far
across the sea. Perhaps. And yet there
does
seem to be movement in this story, whether
it is
the movement of one or two, or the
movement
of an entire people. Is this ship that
kind of ship?
We
sailed our boats, and why not?
we are
seafaring people, we trade
we are
not entirely self-contained on this island
Our
scarab looks nothing like the scarab of the Egyptians
what do
we know of scarabs?
can we
stop this talk of scarabs
There is
one large river known to all
is that
what you sail?
3.
Some Kind of Anthropomorphic Presence
We made
this to fit in two hands
we made
this small enough to carry away
like a
book but we didn’t know you would
find it
and try to read it.
We
didn’t make this for the halls of your museums
we
didn’t make this to sit untouched for 4,000 years
We made
you smaller than small
your
wavy hair and bare breasts
are you
pleased? Do you want us to
go to
the Egyptians? Are we Egyptians
or are
we Greeks speaking of Egyptians?
Are we
under the guidance of an
Egyptian
goddess who allows us to prosper
or do we
have a king and warriors among us
who keep
the peace with the Egyptians?
We will
go in peace, I assured him. The
official
heard me and saw my company
if there
are any who admit that they
can’t be
ruled, find them for me and
I will
rule them with the breath and smell
of water
not conquest
we will
move towards symbiosis
a grove
of olive trees
in a
distant colony
4.
Invocation by Tortoiseshell Lyre
I have made
the acquaintance and started my journey
in many
ways I have started, and what can I tell you?
what do
we ever tell each other about what is
not
known.
So, we
were to find a people of self-rule
and
convince them that they needed a ruler
but not
as conquest
find the
children for our father king
find the
forgotten, find the struggling
for him
to save
He
approved of us and gave us weapons
for our
protection
On this
island we have men trained in the
art of
archery. We have herds of livestock
sheep,
goats, pigs, cattle
and we
have songs
We took
the ram and the harp so we could
both
feast and be entertained
Here’s
the program: we are
going
through a story that stays
unknown. Our plot changes
and
changes and changes until it has
no
direction but we still follow it
if you
don’t understand
it is
out of laziness. Our minds
are
confused by the spiral but the spiral
is to be
loved. The spiral says forget
linearity. The spiral says jump in
the
spiral says follow me from one hand
to the
other. Follow the spiral on its
path
around itself. All you have to do is
follow.
So I
follow your direction through the text
the eye
of the room, the sound of the harp
keep
playing the magic
and us,
crossing, us.
5.
Reverence With a Saluting Gesture
And with
our left foot we stepped on board
and with
our right foot we betrayed our
families,
following the order of the king who
cared
not.
He told
us to go but to return in time
because
where we rest we have already
been. In some sense we keep coming back
my words
can only begin to illustrate this
change
and this sameness of all people
and
things. How many ways are there to
tell
you. I will keep trying. Over time
you will
know.
We are
an island caught between many
worlds
of influence, and it has always
been a
precarious balance, so we were ready
to
untether our boats and leave our island
for an
unknown destination. And we held
out our
hand to the future and with that same
hand we
said our farewell.
The need
for sun, rain, food, offspring and
the
prevention of death made us go
like a
tethered lamb we felt
under
this divinity
either
protected or sacrificed
who
could say?
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