what if a loaf
split open in the oven
oh mouth
what if a love
were left out to ripen
under the moon
what if a leaf
let go the moment
the fetus kicked
what if a life
drew power from each
caught breath
Simplicity Itself
Psalm 2.0: the movie
This new film, the result of a collaboration with two of my favorite poetry filmmakers, Janet Lees and Marc Neys, was the highlight of my week.
Here’s how Janet introduced it on Facebook:
A collaboration between Dave Bonta, Marc Neys and me. Dave wrote the poem in response to a film clip I shared on Instagram, a mirrored image of a pebble I’d thrown in the river, and Marc composed several pieces of music to the clip. This is one of the pieces, all brilliant, that we think works really well with Dave’s incredible poem.
It’s fun to collaborate with fellow loners, each of us kind of doing our own thing in response to the others.
If you missed the plain-text version of Psalm 2.0, I posted it back on October 3rd.
Extra Terrestrial: audiovisual version by Marc Neys
Regular readers may remember this poem from last June. My friend Marc Neys has just released a video adaptation. Check it out:
Watch on Vimeo
New videohaiku: the future…
What does it mean to look forward to something any more, in a world hurtling toward ecological collapse if not thermonuclear destruction? There was a bestseller back in the 1970s called Future Shock about the social and psychological damage incurred by modern society’s relentless drive toward progress… or so I imagine, having never actually read it. But it’s been on my mind lately despite that minor detail. I’ve also been thinking a lot about ignorance, both in epistemological and sociological terms, and not coming to any firm conclusions because I rarely do. That’s a poet thing, I suppose. Not knowing the future, though, seems essential to mere survival, let along progress, as the Rene Char quote in the sidebar here says: “How can we live without the unknown before us?”
This has been a horrific summer in many parts of North America, but here in central Pennsylvania we went from a severe spring drought to a very wet but relatively cool summer. Trees went from nearly dropping their leaves at the beginning of June to massive growth spurts in July—aided, I’m sure, by all the extra CO2 in the atmosphere. And part of what kept things cool for us was the haze from burning forests elsewhere, as I’ve mentioned in various poems. But one of the pleasures of haiku is being liberated from having to explain things. They can just lurk in the background, mostly inaudible to the reader. Distant flashes that can mean whatever you want them to.
The fireflies, who had been scarce early on, had their highest numbers toward the end of the season. I shot this 30-second clip of them on my phone at dusk last week, just as the weather was turning from muggy to cool. Three nights ago the katydids started up; in a week or so, their throb will be all we hear. I look forward to weeks of good sleep.
Homebody
the way a tendril winds
spiraling into steadfastness
clockwise or counter-clockwise
there’s wisdom in it
every time i circle my home ground
i grasp it a bit better
till i can wind through the house at night
without even having to see
hands and feet discover
how much they already know
not the exact number of steps
but the way they feel
iambic trochaic
anapestic spondaic
my feet and the ground
are old lovers after dark
i make a circuit of the trails
the milky way changes direction
thank-you-ma’ams dug last year
no longer make me stumble
but sometimes i forget where i am
and a moment of pure terror descends
and when sleep sits on my eyelids
other places i’ve known come back to me
or me to them legs twitching
taking their measure once more
though dream steps follow
a slower stranger rhythm
and sometimes in the morning i’ll ache
in unexpected places
Fabulous
Today was a day for visions… though not necessarily a day for understanding. The light had a special quality to it, that early spring haziness.
It was a day bookended by thunderstorms. The temperature climbed into the low 60s.
A fire hydrant at the edge of town stood guard over a feral underground.
Near the crest of the ridge, I saw a tree eating a large rock.
I don’t like that someone did this but I can’t help but admire the tree’s response.
I’ve noticed this tree before, but not after a hard rain. Its eye of lichen really blazed forth, and its green suit of moss was fabulous.
The rain also accentuated the distinction between the two halves of this oak, one dead, the other very much alive. This too seems fabulous, in the specific sense that it reminds me of something out of a fable.
Lichens brighten in the rain. They open all their pores.
A dry strip of bark appears virtually lifeless in contrast to rain-soaked portions, where moss, algae and lichen have been revived.
But no one beats wood frogs for revivals. From suspended animation to full-on orgy. It boggles the mind.
Some (more) facts about paradise
It’s always such a gift and an honor when my artist friends make adaptations of my work. Marc Neys surprised me with this yesterday: a complete and I think effective re-imagining of the original poem. You know, what any attentive reader does. But most readers aren’t crazy-brilliant Belgian artist-composers.
Into the Open
an empty space is still data
my phone reminds me
no space is truly empty
a falling leaf reminds me
the time of long shadows
has come ‘round again
cedar waxwings whistle
through bare branches
the low sun catches on wings
in lieu of leaves
rests in a red oak
undressing in the wind
and flickers like an angel
resisting temptation
to follow the leaves down
spinning spiralling
or rocking back and forth
like a cradle
if only i could sleep
and leaf out when i wake
clinging to hope makes us
as empty as the future
let the earth take
its own sweet time
let this glory
be enough
Saved by Death
forest downpour heard
first in the treetops
i picture a cinematic
rain of arrows
or maybe small frogs
like the two in the road earlier
one still moving
the other just bones and wasps
i took picture after picture
on my phone which now
rests like a joey
in a dry pocket
soon the gravel road
is two torrents
and i am a turtle hunched
under poncho and umbrella
and half a heartbeat
behind the flash of lightning
a deafening crash
up where i would’ve walked
had i not stopped for death
and taken pictures
Bad Snufkin, butterfly battle, saved by the privy
My interior monologue: I don’t get why people still need mythic archetypes. Are we really so shallow?
Five minutes later: Let’s be honest, you’re still just a Moomintroll who longs to be Snufkin.
And that felt like a pretty solid insight, you know?
The moral of the story: Be sure to expose your children to the Moomin books—they’re pretty great.
There’s much more I could say on all of this but I’m currently (evening of June 28) chasing the sunset up a steep hillside. Which is absolutely not a metaphor for anything.
*
I understand the need for sacred theatre, i.e. ritual, around major life events—especially death, when the survivors are the most earnest in their need to behave as if a truer but less tangible reality exists in which total annihilation can be overcome or evaded somehow.
*
hot tub
laid bare in the woods
a junkie’s pale face
(via Woodrat photohaiku)
*
My interior monologue is heavily laced with sarcasm. I suppose that’s a Gen X thing. (Yes, of course you do. That’s the kind of sophisticated analysis you’re known for.)
Perfectly healthy, I’m sure.
***
“If everyone just thought like me, the world would be a better place” is a hallmark of both imperialism and fanaticism — in fact, they summon each other up, I think.
This is not idle philosophical speculation. Most left-wing revolutions turn repressive because fundamentally the revolutionaries are either too fanatical to accept that there will always be dissent, or too callous to care.
***
The forest is full of mourning cloak butterflies with pristine-looking wings: the new generation has just turned into adults. They will likely be aestivating soon, but in the meantime they’re defending territories in the woods.
I watched two mourning cloaks battling for several minutes on the side of an oak this afternoon. Since tree sap is their main source of food, perhaps this tree is especially good tasting. They used front and middle feet to bat at each other; mouthparts didn’t seem to be involved, and wings only a little. Here’s a brief video of the very end of the fight:
***
Bushwhacking through a Pennsylvania state forest, it’s impossible to stay lost for long. My first sign that a road was near, this morning, was a hunting camp privy. As is so often the case.
At one scenic overlook, a memorial to someone who leapt to his death. I actually remember this. I was a Penn State undergrad at the time.
Someone had spray-painted “no fear” on the retaining wall-like structure:
*
I remember my parents pointing out a “lovers’ leap” place on some family trip when I was a little kid, and how baffled I was. If romance made people jump to their deaths, it struck me as something best avoided.
*
Some trails are notional—made through bushwhacking.
Some trails are roads.
Some trails are the spines of mountains.
And some Snufkins go for a wander primarily to get a new perspective on where they live.
