Advent Again – day 25

Hannah and the Josephs, generations of prophets and dreamers

_hide-and-seek_pavel_tchelitchew

“Hide-and-Seek” by Pavel Tchelitchew

Seeker 

           1    2  red-black  3  burnings  4  of a   5    6  sunset at  7  solstice  8    9   

10  they’ve changed  11  shadows  12  pour down  13    14  my brain  15  I’ll be 

16  surprising strangers  17    18  flailing blind  19    20    21  forever  22  they’ve

left  23  the planet  24  with me here  25  26  tentacled Martians  27  replaced

them  28    29  and they’re  30  creeping behind me  31    32  but I  33  won’t

open my eyes  34    35  say the  36  only thing real  37    38  is the cheek-

roughness  39  of this  40  tree I can’t name  41  but  42  I will someday  43   

44  and hold  45  tight  46  tightly till  47    48    49  then  50 

readier not here I

— Jenn Cavanaugh

originally published in Mars Hill Review (2003)

Advent Again – day 22

“Do not be afraid to…”

 

“Hymn” by A.R. Ammons

I know if I find you I will have to leave the earth

and go on out

     over the sea marshes and the brant in bays

and over the hills of tall hickory

and over the crater lakes and canyons

and on up through the spheres of diminishing air

past the blackset noctilucent clouds

           where one wants to stop and look

way past all the light diffusions and bombardments

up farther than the loss of sight

    into the unseasonal undifferentiated empty stark

 

And I know if I find you I will have to stay with the earth

inspecting with thin tools and ground eyes

trusting the microvilli sporangia and simplest

     coelenterates

and praying for a nerve cell

with all the soul of my chemical reactions

and going right on down where the eye sees only traces

 

You are everywhere partial and entire

You are on the inside of everything and on the outside

forest-1890-cezanne

Forest (1890) by Paul Cezanne

 

I walk down the path down the hill where the sweetgum

has begun to ooze spring sap at the cut

and I see how the bark cracks and winds like no other bark

chasmal to my ant-soul running up and down

and if I find you I must go out deep into your

    far resolutions

and if I find you I must stay here with the separate leaves