Running by Winterlight
Midnight called me up from my rifled bed
where I’d searched in vain for sleep’s last hiding place.
I went out to look at the fraying brindled clouds
taped to the far ice moon, and the Hunter's sword
once Freya’s distaff weaving the raveled world.
And I knew beyond my doubts your soul ran free
parkoured from star to star canopied above me.
I saw the aching dumbshow of what’s past,
a flickering stereopticon of days
each one still a sharpness of blinding glass
a flickering stereopticon of days
each one still a sharpness of blinding glass
stuck in time’s deep gut, the bleeding pass of
a dance above oblivion’s shifting cracks.
Light of my heart, you make a fine traceur;
a dance above oblivion’s shifting cracks.
Light of my heart, you make a fine traceur;
one slip's enough to kill, yet you endure.
Clouds cry ice, sweep in the shaking void
Clouds cry ice, sweep in the shaking void
with its black mouth wide, its bone-white lich’s grin.
I’ve made myself so small, so fine a dust
plaited baleen could never seine me out,
just lose me where the cell-shed seeds sprout green.
What's lost flies out and floats on seven winds.
What’s left puts down its root to live again.
posted for Open Link #9
Process notes: Parkour...is
a training method which focuses on rational movement [where] the focus
is to move around obstacles with speed and efficiency...to move through
the..environment by vaulting, rolling, running, climbing and jumping.
Parkour practitioners are known as traceurs.~wikipedia
The
last lines of the first stanza refer to the constellation of Orion, a
Hunter in Greek mythology whose belt of three stars holds the Orion
nebula, representing the point of Orion's sword, and in Norse mythology,
the distaff (a spinning tool) of Freya, goddess of love, beauty,
fertility, war and death.
Images: Man From Planet X, ©Edgar Ulmar Fair Use
Orion Mosaic, ©Derrick Lim Photography courtesy NASA Fair Use
This is beautiful and sad. "I knew beyond my doubts your soul ran free" is so lovely. Your closing couplet is superb.
ReplyDeleteI love the closing lines, they carry loss but growth as well.
ReplyDeletedumbshow - what a great portmanteau. and yes, a bit of hope in that final couplet. we can all use some...
ReplyDeleteI find my language most dense and intense when I'm enquiring within -- conversation with the internal paramour thrives on dense verbal velours. Same seems true here, in this mid-of-night reverie which games the environment to reach a goal - the heart, I gather, where love hides and is found / bound. "Light of my heart, you make a fine traceur; / one slip's enough to kill, yet you endure." Perilous indeed, and shod with burning tropes rather than dutiful sneakers. It's how an atheist can yet believe, a myth still sustain, the music of what is be woven in florid reverie. The mystery of history, far better than Tylenol PM or reruns of "The Love Boat" at 3 AM. Great to read your 2012 self, so archly, spellingly put, and a worthy exhumation for the sake of the Desperate.
ReplyDeleteThere is much to love here, as always.
ReplyDelete"parkoured from star to star ", "blinding glass
stuck in time’s deep gut" stand out for me as well as " so fine a dust
plaited baleen could never seine me out"
My man, Grover Lewis, uses the word "dumbshow" fairly often and so that caught my eye as well. It's a good word and I don't recall anyone else but you and he using it.