| From AT MANORATUNG'A
-place of the oldest bones-
Monologue
cross & tired. full of the wearing away of work.
perhaps, probably, I am too old to be teaching
what I know. these young turks, the five year old
boys full of hashish & red rain grass. they like
the tall blue corn, the blue grass & white moonflower vine
green & wound round young trees & rough ripe sunflowers.
they think they know how to drive, that the herd will
follow them. they crash & growl through the night rumbles.
they don't know the wallows for dry summers, the still-wet
places though the land be full of drouth. the ways that
lead up round the lip of the volcano, they still are mine.
& the way, all the way through the salt mines.
damn these ivories. the rough needs black volcanic rock
to sooth it. long & heavy, the cracks almost through.
worrisome. sobering. frightening. but this dong
still sings in every season. sometimes, mind you
I don't worry, but it is loose & long & gets in the
way long with me my egrets. my language grown slow,
subtle, overcrowded with silence. the moons, the dark
alleys of the forest, that cold waterfall some consider
ice. the boys, my nephews together with my sons, they
still come to me as migration begins. I don't know how to
mend the lion's ferocity. leopards, tigers, they tend
to choose other paths. I know where to land on the
greenheaded vipers & end their concerns. suppose
I go along just this once more.
soup weathers
I like the potato soup in art
-Elias Schultz-
give me dark. your whole rough darkness.
all those places where living dug into you &
taught you something. seeded deep enough
to rise up whenever you're tempted to
abandon yourself. don't misunderstand.
where you grow shallow & clear, the froth
that flies upward & over letting the light
shine through, what you consider worth
flinging away & onto us, I'll take that.
but I am always hungry for what's underneath
that place where your voice falters, &
momentarily, silence holds. right there.
I wait there until no more occurs of the light
& the synchronous, that bottom-of-the-barrel
soup made of marrow & whatever refuses
to rot. I will sup on that.
© Marion Kimes
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