Friday, October 09, 2009
Of An Estuary
July 5, 2002: I guess I didn’t yet have a blog, because when I left a comment with Pea I signed off with my name - my actual name, not an email analogue or on-line avatar or other such pseudonym. I signed off as me, to the following words that I suppose I made up on the spot as a comment to it-matters-not-what:
Like convolutions of a brain
or branches of the bronchioles
the stinking brackish water filters
through a comb of peat and mud
that splits and quivers, plunges, bifur-
cates among the sedge and pickle;
sunlight, rosy in the waning,
glints against its purling surface
like the gleam of ruddy diamonds
winking in an old man’s mouth.
The pipers strut among the channels
stabbing with their curved probosces,
stabbing with the joy of being,
stabbing for their furtive supper.
The air is full of respiration
molecules exchanging atoms
water drains across the wetlands
pulling back the living curtain
furrows glisten, odors
rising from them as from wombs
I cannot tell which way it’s flowing
only that it all is moving
You tell me that it smells good
and that is why I have to love you.
This, chilluns, is potery, as writ by poterists as famous as Whatshisname and That Guy With the Coffee Breath. Also, it relieves me of the burden of writing something fresh for you today. The weekend deserves a little new copy, I think, and damned if it looks like I’ll get a chance to scriven any - there’s Chuesok festivities at the Asian tomorrow, and the Harvest Pumpkin Festival out by Petaluma on Sunday. And don’t give me that “Monday’s a Holiday” crap. It’s Columbus Day, and that means I need to build a freaking caravel and sail it around Lake Merced with my stalwart band. Or maybe I can just expel the Jews from Spain. Right now it’s sort of a tossup for me which one I’ll do, but neither leaves much room for blogging. Didn’t you hear it was a dead medium anyway?
Well, from my dead medium to yours, have a relaxing weekend and try not to discover any land masses you aren’t prepared to take good care of. Remember what happened with New Guinea? I didn’t think so....
