Moses
1. Ultima Thule: a place beyond the known borders of the [world]. There are those who don’t believe in the outer rim of the known world, those who have not thought of it, and those, like me, who in longing for the beyond, come to believe. It is the practice of longing that makes us believe.
2. I walk along the shore in late October. My eyes follow the hedge of horizon across the lake, along the ridge of the mountains. Beneath the blue-gray sky the last colors of fall emerge…a wash of orange-brown-yellow fading into the clay-mud color of earth. Clouds no longer reflect in the choppy waters, black as stone, the night falls.
3. Limit and limitlessness occurs in all things, thoughts and ideas.
4. I move through the forest, my breath heavy with child. My heart pumps twice as much blood to keep my son safe in his cozy home. Soon he will fatten and his feet, elbows, bottom will protrude from my belly. Soon he will begin to descend into the passage to the world beyond—then gravity will take him, unravel his floating universe of complete warmth. He will feel the weight of his body, of his living. The trees with leaves burn orange to red, the floor of the forest softens underfoot from those already fallen. We pass an old farmstead, and follow a stone wall made of the rocks settlers two centuries earlier cleared from the field. I am hot and then cold; my body is not my own.
5. Everything about the modern world has to do with control; the desire to control the chaos of variables leads to all sorts of undoing—such as the cutting of babies from the womb. But what proof do I have?
6. In the dream you are many people at once asking me for my love. I follow you, crying out, stop. I wrote a poem about the dream on the back of a bill, waiting for you to return from the market. I wake from the dream and look at you—you are the same you, safe, tidy—I close my eyes and return to the dream where you won’t love me…you have so many lovers in the dream I tell you to stop recounting them all. I always thought I wasn’t a jealous person. I know, when awake, you will not leave me. Our lives are twined like rooted trees—there is a freedom that grows of such commitment.
7. The cold settles us. November will arrive, a fresh, dark magic. First though, all the tiny goblins come out. Candy galore. Will I dress you, son, as a creature and take you door to door? You, my first born son who I will name Moses: the one who brings law to the land, the one who wanders—his holiness an offering.
2. I walk along the shore in late October. My eyes follow the hedge of horizon across the lake, along the ridge of the mountains. Beneath the blue-gray sky the last colors of fall emerge…a wash of orange-brown-yellow fading into the clay-mud color of earth. Clouds no longer reflect in the choppy waters, black as stone, the night falls.
3. Limit and limitlessness occurs in all things, thoughts and ideas.
4. I move through the forest, my breath heavy with child. My heart pumps twice as much blood to keep my son safe in his cozy home. Soon he will fatten and his feet, elbows, bottom will protrude from my belly. Soon he will begin to descend into the passage to the world beyond—then gravity will take him, unravel his floating universe of complete warmth. He will feel the weight of his body, of his living. The trees with leaves burn orange to red, the floor of the forest softens underfoot from those already fallen. We pass an old farmstead, and follow a stone wall made of the rocks settlers two centuries earlier cleared from the field. I am hot and then cold; my body is not my own.
5. Everything about the modern world has to do with control; the desire to control the chaos of variables leads to all sorts of undoing—such as the cutting of babies from the womb. But what proof do I have?
6. In the dream you are many people at once asking me for my love. I follow you, crying out, stop. I wrote a poem about the dream on the back of a bill, waiting for you to return from the market. I wake from the dream and look at you—you are the same you, safe, tidy—I close my eyes and return to the dream where you won’t love me…you have so many lovers in the dream I tell you to stop recounting them all. I always thought I wasn’t a jealous person. I know, when awake, you will not leave me. Our lives are twined like rooted trees—there is a freedom that grows of such commitment.
7. The cold settles us. November will arrive, a fresh, dark magic. First though, all the tiny goblins come out. Candy galore. Will I dress you, son, as a creature and take you door to door? You, my first born son who I will name Moses: the one who brings law to the land, the one who wanders—his holiness an offering.
Comments