Light Which Is Not an Axe in the Forest of the Unconscious

“Light” “which is not an Axe.”  – Eleni Sikelianos

“Sometimes likeness from anywhere, sometimes this      likeness here.” – Jacques Roubaud, trans. RosemarieWaldrop

       for Rachel Lehrman

     There is darkness inside of us,

                               and there is also light—

Light  like an axe             

                in a forest shifting   cutting angles

    against wood

                             from the same source—

       this is not the same     and still

I lived it  so it was inside      (the self)

     the opaque body which catches against

                 a source of energy

     passing in angles   transforming      a forest

in the night

              dark / light      

                                she described the loss like this—

   body : nothing

Lotus

In thisdream, the lotus is faced down

tucked beneath the fading sun

ormaybe floating in mid-air, engraved

                                    on a yellow and turquoise silk.

When Isat today, a great eye kept appearing

                                    in the field of my mantra

long black eyelashes & no iris, just a pupil

asin E.’s class I sit below a great

lotus-flower, primary-colored

                                                            which floats above my head

& when we turned to face the white wall,

In mydreams, I fly by extending my legs back,

                                                                        and balancing my weight

through my waist.

                                    Inever flew as a child.  I don’t

think I ever floated.

                                                Peoplehad tied themselves

toa wrist, a child on a leash,

except I was leading.

I wasthe child.

Wouldyou lie to me about exiting the birth canal,

                                                                 coccyx-first?No,

I don’tremember the obstetrician reaching

                        into her gut and pulling me away

from the pressure, gravity, through

thelaceration.  Yes,

                                    she was a woman-doctor.  She left

alate-summer barbecue to deliver

aslick baby through the salted fluid.

Sheonly anesthetized the spine,

                                                                        so we were both awake,

wakened from a dream, the lotus

                                            tilted up, 30 degrees, stirrups wide &

howshe wouldn’t dilate; yes, we were breathing

Isneezed and our hearts stopped in unison,

                                                only a second, then

mycrown peeking through the sticky pink eye,

wecried.

In 1971, you were the almostskeleton figure

with a thin sheath of clothes,

hungry

moving between streets and cities

the angel inside yourself lookeddown

on asphalt streets covered

with bits of gravel, the remains ofrain

remnants of exodus between western

and mid-western towns, father,mother

girlfriend.

Far inside or out

of the people of the world,

we each move through

mind inside mind

with no words alive

for anyone who would speak to us.

You exited from streets, theirblack sleek

to the heart of an empty field

dry, golden bristles

the snowbank inert in your father’s chest,

in Wyoming,

beside the edge of the cold-tippedmountains,

in the far distance.

You entered empty,

your heart’s blood filling.