In the Dark and Hemlock

.They conifer                                                    
They sit with darkness                                 
It covers their skin like sweat..........
in evening
                  on granite
                   by hemlocks

The air is coniferous
                                                    balsam incense
droplets     hanging                  
           on branchlets

Rain
is resting
                                           coming in the sky       and gone

Evergreen wind
white sand                                 
black soil

multicolored men
                                               seek shelter

They find a stable
                             of hemlock wood
                                                with resin
grey

Searching for emptiness
entering in hope
                                        of emptiness

They encounter instead    
                                                brown priests
                                              hooded
                                       moving about

They feel out of place
               and their uneasiness heightens
                 when they look up to see
                                                               a noose in the rafters

A priestess comes to guide them
To her     Ahgreyeuss says                                           
“My name is Ahgreyeuss Pahn
I’m going to Virginia
I’m going to meet Litteljahn”

“Yes”                                                          
She says                              
“We have a bed for you”

In the loft above the noose
there are bedrolls                       
                  grey and green in rows
some empty
some occupied
Ahgreyeuss knows those sleepers                                               
he knows them

Blanketing
he listens to the darkness
               covering his eyes
              shutting out the light
               to hear the needle-leaved sound
of humus                                                                                 swept                                                                          

by hemlock weep                                        

.

.

Presence

                                                        North
packing                                          
        with Litteljahn and equipment
Pahn searches for wool socks                  
suspecting Litteljahn    of stealing them     
feeling guilty    for his suspicion       
                       finally Pahn finds a pair
and is ready for travel               

He goes south with a ride                                      
                a station wagon
to a town close to home             
where he finds a building full   
of voyagers         and brown
paneling        He is asked
how he will get home                                                      
             He says
it is close enough to walk         
                                               but goes looking
for a hitchhike         
Outside        the heavens        
gloom       along the freeway              and       
river       and drizzle bids him                                                     
to the residences
                                                                 The rain
comes autumn
the homes
turning yellow                     
 clapboard
                                                        silent
Pahn walks streets                                                     
                         Peering
into                                     
this recurring neighborhood 
He lost his camper here once                             
      It rolled
away while he was                                                           
                              sleeping in it     and he never found it again
River vacillates           being                       
Eel or Willamette
In the town's outskirts
             across the rimy field                   is Oregon
but when Pahn meets the freeway               
                                             again
                                                                       in another town
           the river is certainly Eel        and she lures him
                                                                     He can’t resist her
                     blue grayness               miles
of drenching                                                      
                        the filling of
                  his throat                     he enters
                                                                          her
                                                          She carries him
to the wilderness
                                  black nesting
hemlock                                                   
            wet meadows
                                                                                 green
determination      belied by bending
and vapors                and finally
 
                                     with countercurrents
                                                                      Pahn is
rushed through the riparian                                                    
woods                             

He clambers from the wet
blackness      joining a presence and
                       climbing the rock bluffs of a fusion land
Oregon/England 
                                                   He
has grown large     surveying
the diminished countryside      glancing
alternately at his maps     The presence
                                                                       points out
the towns     He names them
and shows Ahgreyeuss Pahn
Eel's mouth

They have come to the sea
and the presence has given Pahn a gift
a wonder
a glass float         The sun
caught shining
through test tubes on end            The presence
instructs Pahn to swim
with the refracting glass
but it hurries ahead of him
out to sea growing          and is lost           Unconcerned
the presence brings Pahn ashore   dry
to a public building

This building finishes the journey
The presence stays outside
becoming Paul McCartney playing
guitar
Pahn goes inside
It is a friendly building
a place of repose or study
The walls are brown        paneling
like the mobile home where
his grandfather lived in the last
years before he died        Pahn is
at once disappointed and
relieved at the sameness

Regardless              he knows
he has arrived

Litteljahn

A grandiose sprite.


In the Dark and Hemlock
Presence
.