Dragon Head Sculpture by Ai Weiwei
—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA
BECOMING A SONG
I will open my hand.
I will make the gesture
I learned in the lowlands.
It makes the world
Look like morning.
We can see the thin waist
Of last night’s fire find a
Way to the top of the
Oak grove. It has
Rooms among the clouds.
You can come with me.
We know the names
And the saints of the air.
They call you goddess
For you were found asleep
In the forest, your hands pointed
Toward awakening.
You were listened to by
Peacocks who rustled
Their feathers for you;
That soft smoothing, the
Gentlest of branches.
I remember wanting to kiss you
Or wanting to return to the river.
The boat carried a reverie that
Understood how these
Branches worked.
I dreamed I was home.
It was a blaze
I had never seen before.
A thousand tundra swans
Rising above the morning fog
Attempting the same sky
Over and over as in
A dream made of silver
When there had once been
A home.
I recall asking where we were.
You pressed your index
Finger across my lips
To silence me.
We are walking all the ways
Of the forest. Listen for
The small animals, for talking leaves.
There is a calling that
Makes one want to stay forever.
But it is only one’s imagination
And we are only a song.
Zodiac Head Sculpture by Ai Weiwei
PARC GÜELL
The high space of street
Just above Gaudí’s
Parc Güell, at the line
Where one can see
The edge of the park.
Where the neighborhood
Begins again and the magic
Of the park leaks
Back into the streets
And one can hear
The buses lean
On their air brakes.
We leaned back against
A building and turned
Our eyes southward,
Looking over the entire
Landscape, down the high
Hillside, over the top
Of the place, and could see
All the way down to Las Ramblas,
To the Mediterranean sparkling
In the distance.
The air was thick with
The end of Summer.
I left eternity and fell
Into my own mirror,
Not understanding why
I was there at all,
Except to echo the secrets
Collected here, except to know
That the Parc did indeed
Have an end and it showed
Itself to us as a memory
That would happen, but not
For a quarter of a century
Yet. I could see each
Individual part.
It became difficult to stay
In the present for more
Than a few moments
And we hurried back into
Gaudí’s parabolic arches
And gravel pathways
Pieced together by shadows.
We decided we might be hungry
And found our way back
Into the concessions
For coffee, some fruit ,
The sound of two men
Playing guitars and singing
Below the multi-colored
Terraces. I loved you then
But could feel the coin
Spinning as it hit the table.
We were running out of
Words and it became
Difficult to hold your hand
In my own as we made
Our way past the giant
Ceramic lizard covered with children,
Past the dragon gate,
Through the narrow street
And back to the waiting bus,
Where we sat for almost half an hour
In its cool air conditioning,
Not quite believing in the moment
As more than a single instant
Unencumbered by the event
Of our being there, not to be
Recalled for many years.
And you, now dead.
Still trying to explain
The arc of our journey
Using only our breathing
And the elements
Of Earth, Air, Fire and Water.
Allowing them to enter
Our blood as the cosmos
Does, finally being lost
Until this moment in the
Noise of the bus filling up with people,
The big diesel engine
Hauling us up the street,
Down through the city,
Accumulating all it could
To build itself into these
Years of stars and light
And Barcelona alive again.
Intersection, Key Street, Locke
THE DIAMOND
Harvesting water.
Wrapping ourselves in ghosts.
We are the star-forming region.
We are struck by lightning
Even as we believe ourselves
To be protected by a roof of desert,
Of mystery, or years of dreams
Covered with the fingerprints
Memory coats every night with
As it shrieks past the evening
Thin with shadows and a castle
Built of bones that can speak
When addressed as a god.
I had a nightingale that displayed
Itself before me like an actor paid
To look like a dream, to ejaculate
Syllables that rang with clear water.
Always alone, no matter how lewd
Or how possessed with claws,
With a crippled moonlight that
Was somehow lost in the street
Looking for diamonds, even the myth
Diamonds carry in their fountains.
I’m not kidding you.
Come here, close to this window,
The one near that fountain,
Look how myths burst into flame,
The children of nightmares
Locked in the pressure of deep
Carbon. Eventually so smooth
There is no longer room for air
Or imagination. The entire thing
Has become a pointless blue
Or yellow, even violet but without
Anything that is other than diamond.
And so I drag it over to you
Hoping I have found a universe,
Knowing I am forgetting the dream
Even as I bring myself to dream it.
Iris, Locke
THE SOLDIERS
And I thought of the flowers
That held the guns
And opened the yellow moon
To conflagration
As they marched
And marched
And marched
Giving the single
Gift of their death
As they were picked
For bouquets. The pretties
Given to the short edges
Of the memory of death.
Spirits all. Clouding
The skies with
Tumbling light
And thunder
And rain.
Day after day of rain,
Fields in flood and mud
All memory now.
And memory itself
Has so little self
Or, from our brief
Waking, none at all.
The Storm Above My House
Today’s LittleNip:
As far as I am concerned, poetry is a statement concerning the human condition, composed in verse.
—N. Scott Momaday
____________________
Many thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's fine poems and pix! Next Monday (2/22), 7:30pm, Sac. Poetry Center presents D.R. Wagner, Patrick Grizzell plus open mic. 25th & R Sts., Sac. Host: Tim Kahl.
Today at noon, Sac. Area Youth Speaks (SAYS) will host finalists in the first Sacramento Youth Poet Laureate contest. Sac. Public Library, 828 I st., Sac. Free. Info: www.says.ucdavis.edu/student-poet-laureatte/.
For more about Antoni Gaudí’s Parc Güell (and the lizard!) in Spain, see www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/gaudi/park-guell.html
For more about Chinese sculptor Ai Weiwei, see www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/is-ai-weiwei-chinas-most-dangerous-man-17989316/?no-ist/, and his exhibition at the Crocker Art Museum at www.crockerartmuseum.org/exhibitions/ai-weiwei-circle-of-animals/.
—Medusa
Coaster
