Via Negativa

“Who trammels whom?” ~ Dave Bonta

Look at the screen: do you see
the bird in the handle of a cup?
do you see the snail curled in

the floral organs of a cornice? and
that one, all shy and shifting, that
is a human in the shape of a tree.

Wings collapse and flutter open amid
the branches. Sweet orange blossoms turn
into paper fans. Their scent is best

in the morning. When nights are hot,
sometimes they bring to mind the corpse
flower and its perfumes of rotting flesh.

Too sweet, it putrefies the faster. Pour
something cool down the throat’s sticky lining.
The leaf tends to pull away, startled by a touch.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

This verb cannot be reflexive.

But there on the springhouse roof is a thing
fluffing out its feathers, probing under its wings.

Little promise of flight,
ascending and leaving behind—

The verb is not reflexive.
In many languages, the reflexive is rendered
by the transitive verb followed by a reflexive
pronoun +self e.g. “She threw herself
on the bed.” or “Weeping, she threw
herself on the ground.”

This verb is not reflexive.
It prays to be spared, but if that is not to be,
then it prays to be taken quickly.

I’m moved to get down on my knees.
I’m not even sure what is there.

But if you are, you know the heart
does not exist solely for the purpose
of pumping blood.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

The woman in the cafe wearing red lipstick that matches her red boatneck sweater under a grey raincoat says, The poet is someone who is more a voice overheard, not speaking directly. Not spoken to, of, for. If I hold my head like this, if I hold my head perfectly still, if I hold my head aslant. There is a whiff of a voice that curls from the next table like a wisp of cigarette smoke, though smoking has been banned from restaurants and other such public places. Slide a white porcelain cup filled with hot coffee across the oily film of the counter. Run a fingernail across the velvet-covered upholstery and everything is still there: summer’s burnt caramel and diesel, morning’s toast; sriracha, lemon drop, partly sucked licorice whip. Above the curtains I can watch the sun move through a sky shorn of wildness, which is what some might mean when they say untrammeled. She is right, then. About lyric being a form of lilting paraphrase. Shorthand written in pencil, never ink. Code produced by the faithful stenographer. Careful. A stroke in the wrong place makes unintended meaning. But more, also. If it is spare, it prepares for tenderness. At least, the promise of a listening.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Dawn is a blanket of quiet: a few hours yet before the man rises to take up his work. He will ride his bike down the trail in the cold, his feet shod in sandals. For now there is mystery in the heart of this silence, and silence in the frozen fields where all the birds who are one bird sow and harvest grain in one night while he sleeps the sleep of one near despair. You know that story— where task after impossible task is given, where the stakes are raised a little higher each time: count each pearl of sugar before it dissolves in the rain; turn one lock of hair into a spangle of gold. As if to see if (or how) one might rise to the occasion. Their wings make no sound; not even streaked with snow, their color matches the indigo leaves through which they manifest. What wages will he give them? All the birds who are one bird want to be found. He will follow them to their roost high up in the tree. This is the part of the story where a price will be collected. Where something will change.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.