Part 4: AIKS

Pahn (invocation)
Acts and Events of Consequence
The Memory of a Prophetic Dream
Aiks (invocation)
The Red-haired Family
Expecting
Delivery
.

Pahn

.

Wooded     fur
                                         glades
he wanders
with the Oreyads   the shooing
          dusted
sand
                                spritzing dry on stone      ledges
                                                       spinning in the wind
                                                              calling
                                                                             to him

      “sweet   lover
                      long haired
       unkempt…brush with your wool…”

At evening
on reeds he plays
                                                                  sunset
                                                                             and low

Breezy flutes of presence
                                                        filling
stepping                  lightly
join him
                                           by springs of dark water

          looking into their green         
 blue
                                                       and muddy          eyes
 
                                                                               crying
                                                              against the cliffs

passing from spring
                                                           to cloud
to tree                                                                                     
                                                              now mingling

                                                             now leaving
covered with the skin of a lynx

with his voices                                                           
he meanders                                                                       
turning and returning                                                      
among

the random                                         
flowers                                                                             
grasping    at the passing               

                           drops    through his fingers

 

 

Acts and Events of Consequence

.Pahn is at a farm                with his cousin Deermid

they are                                              
running and
playing   Deermid shows him   pastures and doors
taking him inside to a room
to see something
                                 what?

They go out   again   to explore several barns
and find them full
                                                               of dung-covered
corn cobs

Stopping inside one of the barns
Deermid picks up a cob                                           
and throws it to the far side of the barn   saying
“run”

Pahn imagines bees or wasps                                

They run back to the house                                            
                                  and shut the door

Inside                                                
sitting at a table                  
Deermid's father                                                      
                           is sad and suspicious

…

Pahn is a land agent                                                               
previewing                                                  
some property                                      
                in the San Joaquin valley...for a client
Ahnjehlia is living                                                               
in the town nearby                               
                                                    Pahn drives
through beautiful rolling           
foothills      with big trees—
                                                                   pines
                                                               cedars of Lebanon—
a river filled                                              
with huge       granite
boulders           He is   surprised        to find
tall trees down in the valley
and surprised     how much it looks

like the Range-of-light

…

Pahn awakens

in Ahnjehlia’s house
with rooms upstairs   and   a public space
downstairs

He wonders where Ahnjehlia is

and looks around the house   Seeing her sitting in a

                          sewing
           room

He approaches her                           
but she looks up at him                                                
                           only briefly
                                                                      and turns away
Pahn says
“Ahnjehlia          wait                             
                       what’s going on?”

She gets up                                                    
comes over to him   and smiles
                                                                        saying
“Dad didn’t send you here to sleep all day            
                         you have to work for a living”

                                                                           Pahn says
“I’m just visiting for a couple of days”                         

                                                                          but Ahnjehlia says
“I’ve got some work for you to do”                             

Ahnjehlia brings up                                                   
a friend who becomes two
identical people          and shows him
different clothes
                                                                  saying

something about a rape

and how we go about influencing      the powers
                                            that be
                                  regarding

                               “our cause”

then they all go to work… 
                                                     
…They look                                                                          
at the sky to the west...and see
                                                                              great roiling
                                                             black clouds

Pahn can’t decide                                  
                                if they are rain-                         clouds
                                                                          or clouds
                            of smoke
but funnels form
                                       on the dark undersides
and descend to                                   
the ground                                                                               
twisting dust                                          
and                                                                                     
debris                                                   
appearing                                                                  
to come                                                                                     
toward them                                          
They hear                        

thunder

and smell smoke        Soon

the brushy hill ahead   is burning
They think the rain
will put out the fire                                                
                                        but though they see curtains
of rain in the distance
                                              it never reaches them…

…torrents of water arrive in the streets         Pahn

                                                          feels
that he has dreamed this
disaster in the past       but differently

When the water subsides
                   Pahn goes
to find his car     but discovers   that it has been
parked                      
in a poorly marked     
2 hour zone
overnight
and assumes
that it has been towed                 He is angry

but Ahnjehlia says                                                                
that one of her friends   can solve the

                 problem                   so
they go to talk to him                                             

The man gives Pahn a present   addressed to

             the regional supervisor
in Yosemite                   

…

Pan is going through the house     which has
changed                                                                     
somewhat                                      
with another land agent        and some other

   people                  They peak

                                  through a door
 
                   and see a couple making love

Pahn remembers                                                        
he has seen them   earlier
at Ahnjehlia’s
                                           just beginning
their foreplay                                         

Pahn and
                           company leave

through the back door

 

 

The Memory of a Prophetic Dream

.Pahn was looking at divided lights across
a spool table
with stump chairs
in a kitchen with yellow walls

and halfway in his reflection
and halfway through
the window    to the rainy dark north
outside

he was reminded
of a dream he had many years before
in which he had a wife named Aiks
and standing there     looking across the kitchen

he wondered
if the dream was prophetic and he might
yet    find her someday

Wayland came into the room
and Pahn turned to him saying

“I believe I will marry a woman
named Aiks”

Aiks

.                                                 A pale    and acorn
       stippled skin                of scuffing                dry
  history              behind
eyes                          walking through woods
                 golden
duff           layers of thick
   and giving    brown leaves    with
                                                          a head of autumn
                                                   late season light
           snuffling
  rooting
  rolling in the dust                  thick trunks
                                                          twisted branches
  late
life           mating              buoyant fur
..tangled
 
             rusty                          urgent
                                                                   we are gliding

                                                                 together
 
                                                      gliding on
 
                                               to each
                                  other
                      mixed
 
              gathered
                                                      dampened

                                             thermal
 
                                       flight
                                of transient

                                     earth

 

 

The Red-haired Family

 …dark          and cloudy                                                 
surrounded
by rills                     

at his in-laws’
sleeping                                                        
in something—               
a cross                  
                                  between a car and a house
moving
 driving
                      thinking of      a teenage woman
                                         with straight red hair

                                                                         blue eyes
for whom
he is responsible...

...He takes her                                                           
to his old neighbor’s house
                      on the cul-de-sac where he was raised
where he leaves her 
                                               with a note

asking the red-haired family
to take care of her
and he thinks                                 
                              this is all very reasonable

Later
                                                 Hours? Years?
he comes back to find                                         
they have accepted her as their own

She has a sister now                                     
curly red hair
                                        and eyes the same color blue
fifteen

He feels the love and care of a parent
for one sister        He feels need
and desire

                         for the other

 

 

Especting

                                           …on a large and muddy lake
                           of which much
                              but not enough
                           is known

Pahn has discussed the possibility
                                                                              with someone
of canoeing                                           

to a part of the lake     separated
                               by two     peninsulas
and connected               by
a shallow passage                                                       
where he has never been
                               and despite the doubts
 
                                                     setting out
Pahn finds                                                                                   
the water just deep enough                        
to glide through
to the other
                                side…

…Pahn goes to the town on the other shore
to find a friend
                                     and seek the lakes inlet
                                                   with its neighborhood
                                  of fine hilly homes…

…There is a large house
 
                                                 containing many books
 
              with an odd and distracted
old man
                                         who indicates
that this is

Pahn’s destination

 

 

Delivery

.…with Aiks
             observing
across                     a distance

a vehicle           
       coming slowly

The vehicle stops                         
by a culvert       nearby
and men get out                 
retrieving two bodies                                                   
from the trunk and                      
dumping
                                                them over the side

They roll lightly down               
the bare slope                   
into a dry arroyo

changing as they turn
               into two young giraffes

a larger           
and a smaller                 

Standing up they look                    
                                  curiously
at Pahn and Aiks

healthy

a girl
and a boy—    

Eeunks                                                        

and Daphnis