Draft 96: Velocity
Pulses uneven, pushes against
surging air gusts, gusts plunge
horizontally, sweeping
against its wings, that
hinge open and shut
barely to balance
the swallowtail
gripping down,
gripping hard, down.
It snorkels
precariously
fast, and fast as it can.
But losing the book with a Keats poem
when we were in rough cut, and I had to teach
‘bright star’ when we hadn’t
processed the loss,
blew me away.
That this is a well-known dream-genre –
no consolation.
Yet oddly witty.
Recklessness of life inside its own
endangeredness,
cross-hatched blasts of wind on wing –
it all came so fast
one couldn’t register it,
except as ripped.
What is, is.
What’s torn is all.
No readiness for the call.
What then went
a-wander, shadowy
over persons, apples, wall?
The discovery will be palpable, balancing
unsteadily on something impalpable.
All things, their else and verge,
their costs and lines of provenance,
be stark in the world in which
all that heart-breaking brightness will
crack. Day by day, I resist mourning
and yet it catches, wrenches, twists and
trips me – trips me! – I fall into it
‘no place remaining’ Denn Bleiben ist
nirgends and stand nowhere, though
temporarily here, ride and riven through,
tight astride the no of Yes,
inside a stranger, starker yes of No.
2. Remarks
That gust of pulsing, wide and fast plunging crosswise push and change that made this mark, this / this \. like any brightness blown, any wing or leaf, I wanted to say it was Parnassius mnemosyne (clouded Apollo) for its fancier name –which wasn’t true. It was just a swallowtail in which the word ‘memory’ did not appear nor the touch of ‘poetry.’ It was just ordinary, not endangered, no more than any thing.
Blustered with cross-drafts it holds tight. Creamy yellow, black lines and marks like letters on a page, shimmered in the wind and light and ribbon-wings with bright thought-dots, blue jot, red spot, rainbow quipu-eyes. I kept losing my place in the book it hinged open and closed, as if the letters, touching, read the word, the word the text. Gripping down, it snorkels sweetness precariously, in transit.
But losing the book with a Keats sonnet a painful sign when we were in rough cut, and I had to teach such statements of looming as ‘bright star would I were’ when we hadn’t begun to process this loss – it blew me away. Writing is impossible, reading is sadness, a word or sentence into void. It all could be summarized as ‘aftermath.’ This well-known dream-genre is well-attested. Yet little consolation.
The recklessness of life inside itself, the doubled turn of throws, of throes of fate
the cross-hatches of bluster, the too-steep roads the energy in wind and wing – all were intercut so fast one hadn’t time to register this (any) time, except as ripped. What is, is. What’s torn is all. ‘We’re coming here with pieces of people we lost.’ They are shadows tangled in the long vigil of the page.
There was no readiness for the call. This ‘it’ emerged almost unseen, lurking films gray with scrims of untrackable -isms shadowed under persons, apples, wall. Under fold, under the scratched ink of palimpsest, and under those tricky transcode systems setting numbers to letters, then words to those sums – that pyramid of A becomes zero. Now read the newborn letter – is it from a stranger? A stranger universe.
It will be palpable, yet balancing who knew how on something impalpable. This really is a documentary. All things, their else and verge, their costs and lots and lines of provenance, the N’s and Y’s and Xing place and R’s stark in the world in which all that heart-breaking brightness will
break again. Day by day. I say I resist mourning this mass of mixed hungers and desperate outcomes and yet it catches, wrenches, twists and trips me – trips me! – I fall into ‘no place remaining’ Denn Bleiben ist nirgends – What? Simply to be is not in being rooted, but be blown away, be riding, riven further out than loss
tight astride the no of Yes,
the no of Yes that shadows thought
inside a stranger, starker yes of No.
The yes of No that calls outright to A
no matter whether A is there or not.
January-February 2009
Notes to Draft 96: Velocity. It was the Old World or Common Yellow Swallowtail – Papilio machaon. Parnassius mnemosyne, also a swallowtail, is both rarer and endangered. The citation in German is from Rilke, from the first Duino Elegy. ‘We’re coming here with pieces of people we lost,’ stated by Norma Gabriel Taylor and cited by Matt Saldaña in an article about the inauguration of Barack Obama, The Independent: The Triangle’s Weekly, Jan. 22, 2009, 5. The poem is the first work of beginning again on the ‘line of one.’
An earlier version of this poem appears on the boundary 2 website, up in late 2010
©Rachel Blau DuPlessis |
