Via Negativa

The stamp on the creased letter reads: No forwarding address.

Three cypress trees whose roots grew networks in cracked sewer pipes (the landlady sent two men to chop them up).

Two maple keys dangling in an old spiderweb: remnants of a winged creature’s wings.

Assorted metalware (25,000 light bulbs, 6,000 vinyl records, 2 gold rings) in an 80-year-old Serbian stuntman’s stomach. And the bike pedal that did him in.

The world’s largest pig hairball and two deformed calves, sitting in glass cases in an abbey.

Last year we read of cheese and ice cream being made from human milk; the other day: an article on cat owners knitting cardigans from spun, shed fur.

That faint smell of wet dog? Probably mildew from the water reservoir in the steam iron you use to take wrinkles out of traveling robes.

Truthfully, I’d rather wash than iron: soap and water, dirt wrung through the cord. The iron’s false promise: uncreasing some small part of life. Singed polyester therefore a kind of revenge.

In response to Morning Porch and small stone (93).

“A candle-flame is mystery domesticated, the profound made accessible.”

The attitude of bodies in sleep, tender and unguarded, sometimes
makes me want to weep. A fist uncurled: almost a prayer.

Ancient epics begin with invocation— The solitary voice, or one joined by a chorus,
calls others to bear witness to the human scene. Thus histories become prayer.

Most days I have no time to sit in quiet contemplation. Ora et labora,
the monastics say: that motto scrolled in gold leaf, itself a prayer.

In Greece, the orologion referred to various instruments by which
the ancients measured time. Night and day, the ticking hands of prayer.

The Horae are the Hours, goddesses of time and the seasons. They stand around
the throne of Zeus waiting to open or shut the gates of heaven: faithful as prayer.

In other legends, they harness the chariots of the Sun before it speeds
on its way; and take the halter from chafed mouths at end of day.

And every morning the wheel begins again: each bead dividing mystery
and work into their portions— barely a pause between one and the next prayer.

For our First Communion, we made white veils with scalloped edges from tulle,
while catechism teachers told us to listen for an inner voice in prayer.

I’ve listened hard, I’ve turned my ear as faithfully as my hands moving to pick up
the yoke. And still I flicker, and still my life is small and fitful as a votive’s prayer.

Or it feels my life’s a candle burning at both ends: fingers try to tamp the flame,
but the wick’s course is anchored at the core. At least let me burn slower, I pray.

They are not always gentle, those Hours that Janus praised. A breeze could fan a small
flare into conflagration— And fire rages with its own fierce intention, like prayer.

In response to cold mountain (53).

What do I wish? For now, enough time
to see the long grass bending under day-
long rain and decide it is time to go

into the kitchen where I can knead
something with my hands: flour and some
water; salt, oil, a handful of rosemary—

Enough time put the kettle on to boil,
to plant one dried tooth of anise
in the stew to help me remember

to dream; to lay one extra plate
for the one who isn’t here.
And even then night falls,

day slips away, restless as this
body craving respite: languid
thoughts, elusive sleep.

In response to Morning Porch and small stone (91).

“Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings…?” ~ “The Swan,” Mary Oliver

Most days I don’t know rightly what I see, or what I feel. Sometimes the river lightens, sometimes it turns its back and climbs back into its dark bed. Whatever floats on its surface then is heavy as a portent though it makes no sound. There is just breathing, the slightest pulse made by flowers and leaves, brown twigs that have fallen on its skin and are whisked away. But in my class tonight the students are watching a film about the Chilean writer. And when they come to the part where he speaks to the postman of the miner who comes up from underground and commands the poet to write of them, write of their struggle— soot flocked on his face like a mask— I think I sense more than see the slightest ripple, an adjustment of some of the bodies pressed to the seats. What will it take, what rearrangement of atoms in the air? A passing thunderstorm pelts at the windows. And afterward someone gets up to crack the window open, to release the humidity in the room. The evening is so cool, so layered with sound and a thumbnail of fragrance from magnolia trees in bloom outside the building. If you spoke to me of wings I would tilt my head, scan the sky from habit. This is not the wonder, but that it takes courage to remind of how those lifting, beating arms are yoked to a machine, how they are stitched, flag-like, to an architecture of overlapping bones: complex shell encasing the heart, cobbled of honey and wax, of twine and feathers.

In that other world, it’s the first thing that signals dawn before it’s even dawn:
shrill piercing cries of Tik-tilaooook! in the dark, a chorus of caged roosters.

I always wondered why the middleman who calls the bets at cockfights is called the Kristo—
and how sharp the flashing spurs, how vivid the blood-jet feathers of some roosters.

Our first grade teacher lectured us on piety, simplicity, and appetite— admonishing:
You’re not going to be those kinds of kids who demand, every day, a dish of chicken.

My father’s favorite dish was a clear broth with ginger and malunggay or sili leaves;
bobbing in the soup, perfectly boiled, salted, and peppered pieces of chicken.

My husband and one of my daughters were born in the Year of the Dragon; one daughter was born
in the Year of the Snake, another in the Year of the Pig. I am an Ox. My eldest is the Rooster.

Once I went to a sleepy town far south, where writers sat along the seawall all summer. A witch-
island was visible in the distance. Hot off sidewalk grills, we ate skewered parts of chicken.

The sauces drip from your fingers, down your palms. There is a different kind of joy in eating with
your hands. Give me a little salt with my rice, or shrimp sauce. Sometimes it’s better than chicken.

In the far north, past my own hometown, the locals have a dish called pinikpikan. I can’t tell you
more than that it involves the slow, induced coagulation of blood beneath the skin. And a chicken.

One day I wanted to tell you my biggest secret. You stood in the hallway, smiling. There was
no one else around: the perfect opportunity. But my nerves were snarled copper— I was too chicken.