To begin ...

As the twentieth century fades out
the nineteenth begins
.......................................again
it is as if nothing happened
though those who lived it thought
that everything was happening
enough to name a world for & a time
to hold it in your hand
unlimited.......the last delusion
like the perfect mask of death

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Jerome Rothenberg & Arie Galles: GRAFFITE, Three Suites, after Images by Arie Galles, Part Three, "The Pepper Trees"

 [Continued from previous postings on Poems and Poetics, here and here.]

 Part Three

 THE PEPPER TREES

                          They are gone, the pepper trees

                                                F.G. Lorca


1

the more a man’s arms

stretch

to reach the woman’s

 

& the branches

can no longer bear

their weight

 

 

2

moss is foremost

if the mind will entertain

matters of fact

 

a tactile splendor

 

 

3

ferns & rind

the black a distance

deeper than a star

 

 

4

heavy as a heave

the layered cork & wood

cry out to you

 

or is it only

something furtive

hidden

 

in your heart?

 

 

 

5

at the side a shadow

like a child

beside the fallen bodies

 

the last chance

for sleep

 

 

6

serpentine

a limb athwart

coiled branches

 

forest dreams

& shiny shadows

 

 

7

is there a black hole

here on earth?

 

a place so deep

that even leaves

turn black

 

 

8

spiny dust

over the swollen

bark

 

the hairy wood

is like a man’s flesh

or a woman’s

 

 

9

a memory of where

we lived & swung –

our place in nature

 

 

10

to seat yourself

inside it

ache of trees

& ache of majesty

 

he who falls

recovers grace

only a little

 

 

11

the ferns take over

& the question

rattles our minds

 

where have the bodies

gone    where

in the world is love

 

 

12

plain in our sight

the black hole

carved into the center

limbs askew

 

more what the woman gives

a field of light

below her

 

down where the world

takes root

 

 

13

they dance together

taut arms rising

from dark trunk

 

in front of which

the dancer

leaves her shadow*                          * her meadow

 

eager to draw him back

 

 

14

that which is lost

leaves only a wound

behind

 

the mystery of light

more than the mystery

of something lost

 

the memory of where

we were

guarded by snow

 

a scar that will not heal

 

 

15

between an island

& the main

blind spring arrives

 

the strange allure

of black on white

 

drives color from the brain

refraction from the eye

 

 

16

is every image that we see

seen from a height

 

& every block of wood

as stiff as stone*                               *as bone

 

receivers & believers

we let the shadows go

 

 

17

counting by threes

is learnt by rote

nohow forgotten

 

more as a number known

by comrades

than by a bride & groom

 

the tallest tree of all

no taller than

those that surround him

 

the way that every count

leaves space & air

between

 

 

18

brought back to earth

the sadness

of mute nature

 

waiting for the dead

to rise & shine

 

 

19

like stony ridges

schist & caulk*                                  * chalk

no sign of verdure

 

but the layers

stacked   each one

atop the next

 

offers a broken wall

a perch for demons

 

 

20

eggs dropped

along the way

or hanging from

the rotted bark

 

a bed laid bare

the rank turd

lies within

firm in its nest

 

eggs & turds

the rest is barely

bark & sunlight

 

traces of a life

long gone

 

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