I. Summit
We stop to watch the view.
Small movement
grasshopper on the rock
animates the void
—
Drawing the white foam of the waves
I, the scribe
scribbling
—
Wake of the boat
Road, black
Trees shaking their branches
over the rocks
Occurring too fast
—
Totem: white wall of the museum; center, or home of the dispossessed; place of lineage; place of ultimate stillness
II. Descent
Earthworm on the forest floor
quivering between
over and under
out and in
I, too,
scratching
—
Squeezed in the comfort of corners in the forest and out again, over the rocks
I, over
under the cover of over
—
We stopped to talk of the tree branches twisting and shouldering around each other for light, their forms shaped by this migration from the forest floor
Not one but a series, generations moving upward
—
Back then the world was not a world of material.
Anything could happen there. And when the earthquakes came, those people
sank into the deepest terror imaginable; it was more than just shaking in their bodies
—
Rain falls: shiver
—
f: floor; firm footing; the sound of contact
I: the mark in the sheets of paper; place of self; place of ultimate stillness; totem
o: home; notebook; reverberating sound of the interior
sc: squirming; scratching; sound of the scribe
—
From below, he waved us down to join
III. House
like a cornered animal
he fought
but each of us backed to our last wall
facing out
✤