White Body, Green Moss

I

South of the river,

on the flood plain

I walk each evening,

cranes lope through saw-grass

and blunt-headed fish

rise in murky pools,

the late sun spreads

a thin film of light

across the calming waters

and olive trees gather

the thousand swallows

for the long flight.

There, beneath those trees,

the speaking began:

a voice without location

filled my bones,

yet seemed to rise

from the marrow.

It was a sound so deep

it set bushes ablaze;

mountains lifted and swirled

and faces loomed

until I knew that voice

was the voice of God.

II

My son was sleeping; the rough white cloth

riddled with shadows as the sun struck

through our only window. I have only known

this impossible world-our burnished sun

rising from its lake of color, the thick wind

that blows all night, the howling wolves

and the deep pond of a woman's flesh.

He was sleeping; I woke him.

His long lashes fluttered like my hands

as I lifted him from the bed,

the bed of burning straw. I thought:

the beast inhabits my eyes, lurks

in the dark between words, and I lifted him,

just six years old, and held him

as he looked out from his dream.

I stood him on the floor; he looked at his feet.

I laced his sandals, and when he spoke

I knew the deed would be done.

TIL

While vultures carved their spirals

into winds lifted by the sun, its word for heat

rising visibly from the sand, we walked.

Near dusk, we reached the mountains

and he dropped onto the cool moss-his white body

wrapped in white on the green moss-. I turned away,

prayed for strength, unwrapped the knife.

My son slept, his hand draped over his face,

his legs warm and twitching. A fly

hovered over his bare shoulder;

olive leaves shivered with wind, were still.

I raised the knife, and as I did, I looked up

and saw, flying over the single line of black mountains,

two figures, and I heard them call: two violent syllables.

Then they were above us, the two of us-

father and son, and they called again, and again,

the two notes I took for words.

Today,

walking south of the river, | remembered those figures-

wide, dusky wings flapping, necks of carved ivory-

and I knew that I had seen the birth of a new language,

new hope for this singular world, a new word for dust,

or sun, or the thick wind that rages all night.

I placed

the knife on the white cloth, wrapping it slowly.

I did not wake my son; I did not speak.

I no longer hear voices. Often

I stand beneath the olive trees

and watch the sun plunge into the desert,

and I remember an affliction that seemed an ecstasy,

the knife in my hand uplifted, the white body,

green moss. Even the wind

stilled for my perfect witness.