And I'm going to end with the only thing I brought
that actually is, at least, fairly new
in the last couple of years.
That's a fairly long piece from a long work
I've been writing for several years called Pushing Water.
That's pretty much finished now and should
be a book this coming year.
This is "Pushing Water," Section 50.
And partly comes out of an engagement
with the half-English, half-Welsh poet
and painter David Jones and his work.
And so there are a couple of words taken that he uses.
One is "anoeth" and the other anoethanau.
And anoeth means something like wonder or mystery.
Actually both of them do.
And sometimes they're associated with the things buried
with Arthur in British myth.
Alas, and away afar and abrupt, in or out of water, the creek
behind the redwood house, where the horse throws a rider
manna wooden to Sequoia.
The syllables connect and condense in the shining waters.
The sands of Iwo Jima, the Bridge on the River Kwai,
the catcher in the rye, the catcher in a crouch stance
holding one or two fingers down, the wind up
and the pinch me before I wake from the dream.
Pinch me in the dark, and I remain
where the water runs quickly over stones,
flat over a ledge, steady as letters falling
upon a page, feet falling on the trail, bodies falling
in the trench, notes falling in the ear, lemons falling
from the tree, tears falling, or flesh tearing,
paper tearing painted walls.
Tearing, the walls do not fall but separate as days,
as minutes, as phonemes.
Ask the wind, said the owl if he's there
and has not fallen into the water.
Pushing up from under the water, the dream
pushes up from under the water.
The muscle folds into the held space, out of the light.
And we begin again.
Press the button.
Hold the phone.
Water the plants.
Water the eyes.
No, she said, with a thundering clarity.
The numbers do matter.
The shape shifts to gender.
Agenda discovered and disproved.
Hair's unkempt, alas and away, abrupt in the negative light,
capable as the wind unravels the perfect web.
Improbable wind centers the margin.
Leaves uplift astray and hold in no pattern.
But gold and green light delivers the world
to eyes inside all heads, kicking the rock,
shuffling the cards, dancing the light steps,
dancing the hard steps, the movement of light
through a prism of water, in or out
of water, push or pull of water.
Balboa, because of letters crossing the waves, full fathom
five, in which the west ends, where the bus gets out.
The place where there is no there there.
The place of field, and wave.
And time's leap to space.
Not see, but see through.
See with.
Starlight, star bright, first star I see through tonight,
first star I see with tonight.
And so microlens, the far-flung field becomes less far,
less flung, less flight of the bumblebees,
more legs leaping flight of lords and ladies crossing
the water, crossing the land crossing the skies,
dotting the I's, crossing the T's.
Through the hole in the e, arriving
at place of first permission, place of last landing,
place to stay, place to dig, place to live, place to leave,
place to die.
I won't need them anymore.
Getting dark, too dark to see through the whole lemon light,
lifting light, bent and clear light, loose light in water.
We begin at 10:30 in the morning.
We continue until 11:30 in the morning.
The first day could be any day.
The second hour could be stuck in time.
The whole hour could be freed in time.
The light hour could be free from time
so that any day may eclipse this day, this day night ellipse.
Good night sun and moon.
You rise.
I set upon no time like the present, no time like all time.
Time to see our image in pushing water,
our word in the curving river, our promise in the light,
our echo in the dark.
Sings a song of sixpence.
Sings a song of 6 gallons not so slowly moving away.
Sing time lapse, flap, fault. Sling lime apps, foot, flaw.
See grimes labs frost falls.
Seegle apster ostaff alse.
Syllable rips a sound away.
Sip a drink of water carved from ice.
What pieces of work are words?
We are such stuff as dreams are dreamed on.
Ask me anything, but give me flesh.
Or bury me face up in the water.
Cover my face with words or what's inside words,
the two solid, liquid flesh of language
push to utter where the point is.
And letters can be placed into the paper
or emerge there from for poems to car, color, self, utter,
ask, round, utter, move, to balance shape of sun
across blue or mottled expanse, or shape of bridge
from the lime deposits, to the landing module.
The constant is movement and change.
What does not change?
In the morning shift of light the street shows its skin,
cracked and chipped lines across and through,
bits of curb broken.
The city runs into its future on to bruised legs.
Let the wind bring water and leaf
down to feet moving on mud across the arc
and through the water.
How fast did they move?
Faster than any whale a mile or more in 3 minutes.
That first creek behind the redwood house to the fishing
hole, where the old catfish grows older still,
we are inside the wave of the world.
God is fully physical.
Paradise is the walk upon the body, where
the letters wake, when the child cries, "come into this world
in order to go up and around."
The day the leaves blew walked in Shunga dynasty time,
when the prevailing color was yellow
and the prevailing wind up and circular,
not boring down in a spiral, digging,
but up, as if an invisible hand had set itself down and lifted
everything to turn over and under with every other thing,
leaves and branches and that ever yellow color.
In the dream was possibility of creating the world again.
The only way was to lift everything up and undergo
a mingling of molecules so that all objects knew
all other objects.
Each was part of each and person, as well.
Love is form.
Love is mingling of form.
We have taken too long to arrive at the wrong place.
Let us begin again as though space is a circle
and time the force that spins it all until we lift up
and fall down dizzy, and bruised, and bruised.
I am pear, and apple, frog, and toad, needle and pin,
head over heels in and out of my shoes
until a mockingbird calls.
And it is time to stand up again on the rock
at the edge of the morning.
Anoeth the marvelous hidden stuff of rock and lime cup time
beyond time, which cannot be used.
What cannot be used is of much use, anoethanau.
Leaves rustle in Birnham wood, or in the Somme,
or North of the great canyon.
Even midsummer, the air cool the path dark
with emerging traces of illumination to navigate
and circumnavigate, hither again to haven, heaven.
hover suspend a wing and a word over a place water
meets land, a place of landing, western shore, Anglesee, birch
by the sea.
Anoeth bid bet y Arthur anoint with bells and art soars
anew by Earth and water.
Dig under the words are inside them.
Word Earth wonder anoeth.
Behind our house a mound of dirt rich for the garden.
Leave it undisturbed until music fills the weeds, the grass,
the red buds, and petals, and purple yellow,
the difficult things of wonder, the uncovered dreams,
anoethau materials in which I speak
of the best of dreams dreamed at midnight when men, women,
and their voices rest.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]