The palm at the end of the mind, beyond the last thought, rises in the bronze distance. A gold feathered bird sings in the palm, without human meaning, without human feeling, a foreign song. You know then that it is not the reason that makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine. The palm stands on the edge of space. The wind moves slowly in the branches. The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

Sunday, January 27, 2019

Descent to the Dead


      from The Art of Surgery (Vallum Chapbook Series, No.26)

In so far as I transform myself
into my song, I can live again
forever, although the song
will be dead as this body's dead,
lying by itself in the dark, the shut
book, drying out. Yet the song can be resurrected
at any time by anyone—by you—
the body not. The song needs only someone,
not God. And God doesn't need to resurrect
the song because he hears it
always, as we say: just as he doesn't need
to resurrect our bodies. He knows
and loves them unchangingly; it seems
he raises them for us, who can't.
Left to ourselves we would lie in filthy
silence and self-contempt. He appears
in you in the form of your will
to hear the dead song: your will mostly defeated
in wandering the buzzing maze
of every day. The song
needs only paltry you to live. lt wants
to catch the blood of your wandering
attention, drink it, give it
a body. It wants
just a moment, a moment of a repeated
descent to the dead
that your life can make,
which in so far as it descends
and listens
lives.


--A. F. Moritz

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