Gendenwitha

.

Bluebird’s song in spring .....................
blackbird’s song in summer

whisked.............................................
from the forest ...
......................................on hawk’s wings
in autumn

Dim skin ........pale.....................
blue-gray of distance
..............................................only a point
......................................only a desire

beloved

sunrise brushes....................................................
lavender-gray..........................
rose and salmon..............


adored.......
morning ............of Sessondowah
above the gate
.............of coming light
.......................................................affixed
.........................................captured

bringing............................................................

the dawn.................................

we rise

...........................into heaven

apart.........

.........................................out of reach

.

.

Hanging Keys

.

Walking
to the lot
where Gendenwitha parks
Pahn finds
a delivery truck
the owner having gone off
leaving his keys
in the locking cap

Pahn remarks to her
that anyone
could take those keys
and get into that truck
seeing what might be there
and seeing
if there were anything
desirable

But Pahn is constrained
to consider it really
because she isn’t his
and he has no right
to go there

.

.

On the Forehead of Dawn

.

In a field of dim light
Gendenwitha begins
as a point
multi-rayed

beams splintered
as if through glass

coming out
of a distant left
to hover

while the sense
of a Spanish word
luminaria
poorly defined
coats the air behind him

thickening

losing her crisp
brittleness

acquiring
flexible
blunt spines

devolving into a green
fetal projection

she begins to speak
in tones of long
and straight

floating to his body

and attaches

shrinks
strengthens

becomes erect

.

.

A Small Dark Blue Myth

The time

between them

definite

from the beginning

                                              Gendenwitha is

known                                           not

                                             lying beside him

the length

of a spring                             she has never                            It seems

the span                                                                                          so

of evening                                    Aware                     inconsequential

the distance                          of her presence                          to speak

to her car                                    parting                     of an attraction

Last words                             the realization                         or to ask

insignificant                               entering                                that he

                                                the body of                 might have had

a black sweater                           waking                               once this

a chain                                     that a deity                         small light

new blue jeans                          of sunrise                          in his room

                                             has restrained

without                                         him                                     denied

acknowledgment                                                                    even the

                                                                                          conception

                                                                                           of a single

                                                                                              pinpoint

                                                                                     in the heavens

                                                                                        she is there

                                                                                  on the forehead

                                                                                              of dawn

                                                                                      beyond reach

                                                                                   his punishment

                                                                                          for having

                                                                                          come back

                                                                                             to earth

 

An Elemental

.

In the beer-garden
on her way back to
South Africa
Eealohna
sits talking over the bleached
wooden deck
rising
and dissolving
into stream-gravel

Pahn’s arms
extend
a wooden frame
to catch and hold
her falling
alluvium
He
carries her to
the table
where
he lets loose her pebbles
to scatter

Going back
to the bleached bench
Gendenwitha
appears
in her place…

…as the professor
leads the class
in a tour of the campus
they laugh
and cavort

admitting
their joy in each other

and when it is time
to sleep
they lie together

…

During the night
he holds her like a child

At some point
she sits up
afraid

and he protects her
from his doubts
in the curve
made
by his stomach
and his thighs
leaning up
to hold her

…

In accepting sleep
and startling from it
she has been taken
again
to the firmament

and Eealohna
is again
in the pool rack

triangular now

Then lifting her stones
pointing at the sky
the tip narrows
with awakening

and he reaches
down
to her
there
where she has become

the delta

.

.

Gendenwitha

A spirit/nymph of dawn (‘affixed to the forehead of dawn’) thespian.


Gendenwitha
Hanging Keys
On the Forehead of Dawn
A Small Dark Blue Myth
An Elemental
.