Sometimes we're only skin deep,
And trying to be infinite.
While using satellites
They think they found Noah's ark,
Which means there was one.
Then history happened as if without,
When all this time
There's been an ark in the world.
If I lost my memory,
If I drowned in a Zen tsunami,
If nothing was or would be,
Would I know you by heart?
Would I fall in love again?
Would you recognize me?
Last night in the northern
Thule you said you can hear the aurora.
Last night the night sky burned green before the stars and
Tremulous glaciers paused to permit the sound.
Last night a choir of lost children sang beyond the northern ice:
The echoes off the sun of our voices unborn.
When our illusory blood and flesh
Wear shards of infinity,
Won't forever make everydream real?
Electric echos undampened as luminous clouds
Etched voices on stars
Ending never, always, eternal.
Most New Jerseyians don't think of Alaska. Some have never heard of it. The names of Alaskan cities conjure no mental notion beyond a vague high school remembrance of Jack London trying in vain to start a fire and dying for want of a flint.
We were born in a bubble that extended from Manhattan to Philly. Everything inside had a reference position on the Turnpike or the Parkway. Exit numbers were the GPS coordinates of everything we needed to locate. Beyond was terra incognita. Dragons and waterfalls. The bottomless pit from which emerged our grandparents and chicken chow mein.
Though I loved everyone, I could not stay there. It was not my home.
As women are lunar, bears are solar.
When the bears awaken for spring, they go hunting
And the radio says when you encounter a bear
You shouldn't run because bears chase and kill running things.
They can't help themselves.
So when you encounter one, stand your ground.
Though the black bear is the most human-amenable of the ursine family,
In hand-to-claw combat, no human is a match for a bear.
So when you encounter a bear and are standing your ground
Your continued existence is at the pleasure of the animal.
This can be unsettling to the human,
As truth frequently is.
As the lives of men follow curved open arcs, so women are perfect circles. And all unanswered wishes go somewhere to wait.
While travelling in Greenland an Inuit elder told the tourist she could hear the Aurora Borealis. There was a time to go and a place to stand, and even within sight of civilization she could hear the lights.
So at the appointed time the tourist woman went to the ice. She saw night sky fill with rippling green clouds that blotted then revealed the stars. At first she heard only the frigid Arctic breeze fluttering past her ears. Then she there was a tone, impure and wavering like that of a child learning to sing. Then the sound grew stronger and she could just hear it over the wind. It was joined by other notes like other tiny voices in the distance over the horizon.
And she wanted to believe she was imagining it. That it was a mental fabrication.
That there are no voices of children yet to be.
But a woman exists at the pleasure of the heavenly gyre.
And men are just distant children
Who wish themselves into the wilderness
Never again to be seen.
It was morning. She asked him, "How do you like your oatmeal?"
"Uh oh."
"What?"
"Why are you asking me this?"
"I want you to be happy. How do you like it?"
"It's oatmeal. There isn't a way to it. I never learned any oatmeal styles."
"There are as many as there are people."
"Ok, then. Lumpy."
"I try very hard to make it smooth."
"Don't try so hard. I'll be happier."
"Oatmeal is not supposed to be lumpy."
"How do you know? Is it on the label? Is there an edict from the god of oatmeal - 'thou shalt eradicate all lumpage?'"
"Don't get smart-mouthed with me."
"I'm trying to be funny."
"Well, you're not."
"I think I'll make myself some eggs."
"But I have all this oatmeal going. You're going to make me throw it all away."
"Ok. I'll have oatmeal. Did you see the garbage on the street this morning? I picked it up on the way back from my run. I think a bear got into someone's can."
"Did you hear the aurora last night?"
"Did I -- what? Auroras don't make noise. They're light. High energy particles swimming around in the earth's magnetic field. Quantum radiation, sort of electronic thingy, up there, kind of..."
"I want a child."
"They should put a bungee cord on their garbage can. Keep the bears out."
"I want to have a baby."
"Ok. We can do that."
"No, you don't understand me. I want a child."
"Ok."
"You're not listening."
"Honey, the oatmeal is done, I think. And I hear you. But what would we do with one?"
"You don't do anything with a baby. It's a baby."
"We could feed it to the bears. Maybe they'd stay out of the garbage."
"That's not funny."
"I'm not trying to be funny."
"Well, you're not."
"Sweetie, I have an idea. Let's have a baby."
"..."
"Seeing as how you're looking forward to the agony of labor."
"..."
"I mean, I have the fun part. You have to go through all the -- you know."
"..."
"Honey?"
"..."
"Look. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, now. I come down here expecting we're going to have a nice breakfast and then auroras and the babies -- how about this. I'll go back upstairs and come down again. We can start over."
"You really don't understand anything, do you."
"I'm just a guy. I don't know who you think you married. I'm just some guy."
"It sounded like children singing."
"Like children."
"Like a choir. Like a church in the distance."
"What were they singing?"
"..."
"I love you, honey."
"I want us to be a family."
"I do, too. I love you. Can we have breakfast now?"
My dearest, in summer I was led to my dad's grave
And there placed a picture
Of us, when we were young.
And I asked the cold earth, "Father, are all sons haunted by dreams?
Dad, what advice have you for me? What have become of the roof and the stairs you built?
Where are the songs you sung?"
And touched the name on the stone, my own.
As if that was the warmth and curve of him.
No. I am what is left of him.
I have been a dream's captive
And inconsiderate of reality's truth.
To intrude upon the southern void
And to the north and the bears and the sky full of voices.
Flowing inevitably toward the invisible inevitable
Wishing well to those drowning in the wake.
Dearest, when I am gone missing, I will have returned my voice.
And this is how you will find me:
Where the sky rings, wait for them.
A phalanx of thickly clothed children will lead you to my grave,
And stand upon it cheerfully emiting stacatto breath clouds,
Legs twiching, hands darting, fingers pointing, all saying,
"This is where we put him. This is where we last saw our father.
Here beside the ice.
May we go now?
Can we have our cookie?"