The Legend of the Cosmic Hen

This entry is part 19 of 22 in the series Alternate Histories

 

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Gerard Manley Hopkins

Before there was a cosmic egg, there was a cosmic hen. Even in the absence of gravity, she couldn’t stay airborne.

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She was alone. When her feet got frost-bitten & began to bleed, she had to cannibalize herself.

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It was her need to bathe that gave rise to the galaxies. Bright dust spun out from hen-shaped holes.

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Laying left her slightly crazed. To this day, hens stand over their newly laid eggs & declare their readiness to buck, buck — buck all! Only then do they settle, croon & brood.

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Free range has its limits. For billions of years she waited in the middle of nowhere, listening for a car, for a cart — for anything on wheels to come along so she could race in front of it, wings outspread, making the first cross.

Dear little worm of niggling jealousy,

worm of a thousand and one disguises:
today I acknowledge you live in me too.
Teach me to see your other aspect, the one
that patiently cultivates the soil in the dark,
tunneling without sight beneath the foundations
where it is easy to believe every rumor that carries
from the world above, like a tinny echo on flimsy
string— Like you, I have only myself, my only
implement for navigating the formidable expanse
ahead: so much debris, thick veins of gravel
and flint, rain of mud and muck pressing
down on pockets of growth and precious air
—And the reward? Luxuriant green, thick
dream a body could sink back in.

 

In response to small stone (180).

On Hold

This entry is part 26 of 29 in the series Conversari

 

Held remotely
says the message on your screen
when I interrupt our call to take another.

Talking or holding: you can’t do both,
even in a world whose far reaches
no longer exceed our grasp.

On the other side of the ocean, I read Resume.
When we do, you tell me laughing
you almost miss being held.

Five hours apart, yet we share a single present,
speaking, listening, from one infinitesimal
moment to the next: we hold.


See Rachel’s photographic response, “Hope and Anchor.”

The Viking Buddha

This entry is part 18 of 22 in the series Alternate Histories

 

Ornament from a bucket found in the Oseberg mound grave in the county of Vestfold, Norway.
brass ornament found with the Oseberg ship burial

Four hammers of Thor,
nested just so, form
a Buddhist swastika with feet.
Steering by the sun,
we run in circles.

A gaze trained to focus
on a pitching horizon
turns to an inward shore.
Breathe like a rower,
in time with the waves.

Legs fold into a knot:
braided serpents.
The fierce brow unknits.
Only the scowl still hints
at the strength of his vow.
The truest viking leaves
everything behind.


Image from Saamiblog, via the Wikipedia Commons. Cf. the Helgö Buddha.

Synecdoche

The first figurehead was an animal lashed to a pole on the front of a raft or a fishing boat. In all this, the bottom line, the signature, was tender for the gods: what could be bartered for a full day’s catch, the love of a woman, the breath of a child returned from the brink. Who knows when the first surrogate was carved out of wood, stained with dye from flowers and herbs, with soot and smoke? The chin juts out over water, and across its surface the long neck hovers like a blue-green shadow. It’s difficult to keep the body’s balance while holding the arms out in supplication, and so they’re lashed together at the elbows or wrists.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Anonymous.

Anonymous

This entry is part 17 of 22 in the series Alternate Histories

 

The first Anonymous was an albino who wrote a complete novel on his own skin in an effort to disappear into the text. Readers became so absorbed, they mistook his eyes for animated punctuation. In the novel, three sailors vied for the love of a nameless ship’s figurehead, who never unfolded her arms except for storms. It takes a lot of character to reject the comfort & convenience of a handle. You could die & nobody would know who they were burying, or you could live forever, fathering & mothering orphans.

The second Anonymous was less creative, as you’d expect. Sixty percent of his body was nothing but water.

El Camino

We read that story, tonight, about the woman who was moved to remember the name— the name and the life of the boy who came and stood outside her window all that cold, rainy night, before she went away— The name and the life of the boy who took to his bed a week after that— who took ill with bronchitis, pneumonia— it is not clear; then swiftly passed from this world to the next— And we read that it was a song that touched a chord and sprung this memory open like epiphany— Like sudden snowfall more brilliant than light, outlining the roofs, the streets, each lamp-post in town— And do we know, do we know what that is like, someone asked— such recklessness, such love? And how many will say they would burn for some glimmer, remote, unreachable, afar? The pillows are cold; the coverlet needs turning— But here we are, with our love of warmth, of touch, of what is kind— We close our eyes, we slip our muddy feet into the icy stream.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Pilgrimage.

Pilgrimage

for Yahia Lababidi

A star turns cold in an effort to cast a shadow. Or so they say.

A mayfly fresh out of the water, finding itself without functional mouthparts, molts one more time just to make sure.

The Chinese inventors of the compass weren’t travelers trying to make their way through the world, but gardeners & home decorators trying to make their world through the Way.

Her obsessive pursuit of stillness gives the dancer no rest.

While the others were saluting the flag, I saluted the wind.