In the trek interior,
...I could no longer
feel her
In the grove of bone
.....trees, she was
everything
Untouched,
....unseen and
unmounted
Unflinching,
.. uncalled-for,
....unabashed
Sick of looking
....at seabirds,
she sleeps soundly
In Boredom,
....in bedrooms
the mainland
Imprisons the
...heartland
without asking
How dare we?
Dear Emily Dickinson,
ReplyDeleteI live with your sister. We lived together almost a year now. Though we've never met, I've been told that you'd approve of me. Everything seems to be going well. Though from where you're sitting, you probably don't need me to tell you that--even when you were young enough to be alive, you knew.
I think I had mentioned before (in my last letter? it was a while ago. i can't remember, because you didn't answer) that your sister, she has this habit, and maybe you had it too? She talks in her sleep. And even stranger, the inverse: sleeps in her talk. The two kinds of talking go back and forth. Sometimes I miss things. But the things I catch, I tell you, they're enough to elevate the act of listening.
Today while she was awake napping, she mumbled a few very clear, sharp, oblique things about "bone trees" and "Boredom" capital B, and how it must be like to be imprisoned in the heartland without asking. The best said things always reach beyond anyone's ability to dice them up and explain them. Same with this stuff she was talking away, into the air. I'm not sure what it means. It shoots off in so many directions. But the thing is, the thing I'm finding very hard to explain, is how those directions all seem plausible extensions of a very knowing, authoritative, existentially jacked power of mood.
It remind me a lot of you, how you used to talk. And still do. Though people die and don't come back, I know that, maybe the theory of reincarnation isn't a metaphor for just everything. Maybe it's a literal operation for certain things--like a tone of voice, a way of entering something wholly and then honoring that thing by not forcing to say anything. Just to embody it, ride it out and then, when it's time for it to leave, to let it do so.
Your sister. I may need to listen to her more closely. We have a few years ahead of us yet, so maybe I'll get a little closer to following these things she's saying. Who knows. It's like you said. No promises. Because there's something greater and more essential than promises out there. Anyway, thanks, that's where I'm at.
But maybe you can tell me--where's she?