(no subject)
Nov. 18th, 2012 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
proximoceptionDeep in the darkest and the strangest jungle
I found at last the first religion's temple.
It was a monkey statue formed from five
Enormous trees they twisted while alive,
Those first ones, with an anger-dripping patience,
Till leaves, wood took on beast configurations.
The roofless head was hollow, so my plane,
Set down inside, stood in for that god's brain.
I leaned out of its eyes into the dim
And took the hand of one outswinging limb
Which set me down in moss that gave like bread
Beneath me to the depth of my own head.
I left into the jungle to explore it,
But found that it was really several forests
At once: the roots of this in fact were branches
Of more beneath, emerging from vast trenches.
Climbing into one of these I found
Its own woods grew from branches further down.
Though thick with moss, these maze descents stayed passable
So that I knew I'd met the not quite possible.
The knowing was like counting out one's teeth
With one's tongue's tip but finding mostly feet.
It grew too black to find the way back out
So out was something I made do without.
The things I did there seldom stood to reason,
Mis or displaced in gaps less street than season:
I'd fight some creature till I'd understand
In horror it had always been my hand,
I married one I neither saw nor met,
Spent years on tasks that later I'd forget,
Decided I was my own eye until
I realized that a lidless eye would spill,
Which made me see that I must be a lid.
I fluttered up and down the day I did.
Tripping on the monkey's tail today
I found I'd somehow finally made my way
Back to something rooted to something else
That wasn't another thing but just itself.
The plane was made of pillows now with clocks
Embroidered on one side of each, but thoughts
Could now be thought without their taking breath
And knives to duel their opposites to death.
A tiny clear spot in an endless green,
The one loose Here in choking-dense Between,
The only view up whence I once arrived,
That avenue of forever separate lights.
I found at last the first religion's temple.
It was a monkey statue formed from five
Enormous trees they twisted while alive,
Those first ones, with an anger-dripping patience,
Till leaves, wood took on beast configurations.
The roofless head was hollow, so my plane,
Set down inside, stood in for that god's brain.
I leaned out of its eyes into the dim
And took the hand of one outswinging limb
Which set me down in moss that gave like bread
Beneath me to the depth of my own head.
I left into the jungle to explore it,
But found that it was really several forests
At once: the roots of this in fact were branches
Of more beneath, emerging from vast trenches.
Climbing into one of these I found
Its own woods grew from branches further down.
Though thick with moss, these maze descents stayed passable
So that I knew I'd met the not quite possible.
The knowing was like counting out one's teeth
With one's tongue's tip but finding mostly feet.
It grew too black to find the way back out
So out was something I made do without.
The things I did there seldom stood to reason,
Mis or displaced in gaps less street than season:
I'd fight some creature till I'd understand
In horror it had always been my hand,
I married one I neither saw nor met,
Spent years on tasks that later I'd forget,
Decided I was my own eye until
I realized that a lidless eye would spill,
Which made me see that I must be a lid.
I fluttered up and down the day I did.
Tripping on the monkey's tail today
I found I'd somehow finally made my way
Back to something rooted to something else
That wasn't another thing but just itself.
The plane was made of pillows now with clocks
Embroidered on one side of each, but thoughts
Could now be thought without their taking breath
And knives to duel their opposites to death.
A tiny clear spot in an endless green,
The one loose Here in choking-dense Between,
The only view up whence I once arrived,
That avenue of forever separate lights.
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no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 02:15 am (UTC)