Shot Against the Dwelling Sky
The prairie, blindfolded, a broad land shot against the dwelling sky-midday, intense light spilling from the pitcher into the crystal glass that breaks the prism. From the eye behind the clipped wing of the page-the same thing…with little writing, with less witness, on fire. No visitors will come through this afternoon, the heat is too oppressive. Any distance on foot today is much too far. The stillness itself sits and sweats. The dammed power that whirs the turbines downstream has dried up. And the massive props, midair, that face the spin-wheeling sun just sit idle…once downwind. The battled edge of this shopworn planet is hardly welcome. The complicated state of affairs still rages on in other unreachable locations. Travel is in a constant state of trance. News comes second, third, fourth, fifth hand-each plot like pottery remodeled by the evolution of interpretation-yet each vessel comes filled with doubt and double meanings. I stand in a motionless state for an hour. The poker face of the landscape. An hour turns into a day. A day into an month…and so on. The expression of my face, in the mirror of all this, riddled with forgotten disbelief. Everything is shut. Even the insect life…except for one bluebottle fly, the size of a camera, at the end of my nose. That the heart of things is so soft. The narrow passageways, vessels closing up…the soul becoming weighted. At midnight the room is dark. Is this why the heat cannot find a way out of the organ grinder? I think of you now that you have gone away. The letter you left behind was slightly depressing, I thought. An aspirin for a wilted rose will not work.