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amid the growing craze for automatons The voice within the device that moves      is not (as if nothing human could be quite that moving) My precious edgling:though some believe the answers be given by a man concealed, these are speaking machines. They were risking their lives. Usually a woman or a child, who woke up inside the oracle, who swallowed the burning oil, and who forces the idols to speak? Though when the bishop Theophilus broke open the statues at Alexandria, he found them hollow it does not necessarily follow that The penalty for trickery was death. Such is the wealth of belief. Behind a finely painted sheet of shell a voice unlatched surrounds the world.

Wheal Emma and Brookwood are abandoned copper mines whose remains are located near Buckfastleigh, within the Dartmoor National Park, an area with a long history of widespread industrial activity. From this one locality, in the second half of the nineteenth century, more than thirty thousand tons of copper ore were raised, processed, and shipped for smelting. In 1859, in order to stabilize and increase the power supply, Wheal Emma Leat (a fifteen-mile-long channel) was cut across moorland and around woodland valleys to transport water from the River Swincombe and to feed the mines by supplementing the Mardle, a tributary of the Dart. Some of this now empty moorland waterway can be walked today on Dartmoor. I am grateful to Kevin and Donna Cox, owners of the Brook Manor estate, for showing my collaborator, Ignacio Acosta , and me over the remains of mine workings on their land. Widening the plug doorway on the bob wall left no surface evidence. The Mardle has a floodplain fair and wide. Material would have been trammed directly, although blacked ochreous water flows freely from the collapsed portal. Humphrey kept Kevin back when we went into the near horizontal dark adit stooped at the panic shaft. In Brook Wood at the combe head is a small killas quarry predating all three setts. Rent was paid to the Brook Wood adventurers. Three areas of dumping partially covered this crumbled masonry within woodland of varying density just south of the tarmac road. Yet a leat is depicted on the 1886 OS map channeled entirely in a raised wooden aqueduct. Wheal Emma Leat, 2017, by Ignacio Acosta. Engine House, 2017, by Ignacio Acosta. Then buildings fall into decay where ivy and tree growth have taken hold. The silted channel follows the contour round hills and combes using the best-fit method to Wheal Emma sett. Whereas conifer scrub and dense patches of rhododendron are seen quite late in the sequence. All 99 stations were used and having passed over the wheel water may have been diverted. The long wheelhouse sides are not straight but slightly kinked to provide for a dished 60-ft wheel over an arched tailrace exit at floor level. In this same evening were those people engaged to feast on roast beef and strong ale nearby. Within the valley of the holy brook the mines are situated near Buckfastleigh, crushed ores are hauled for the South Wales copper smelters, Alfred Jenkin their agent in Cornwall. Over and over had they been in the heaven of expectation finding the ore ground pitched eastward; those who gambled their lives in swift currents and dark treacherous pools. Granting two properties as one sett at a royalty of 1/24 together with fine machinery, wheels, a beam engine, and water privileges. One hundred and twenty- five workers being then separated only by a small transverse valley. The flat rods moved off so quietly that those not looking were unconscious of their being in motion. Steam was employed only at limited scale. Emma, 116 fathoms below adit, pumping backed-up water for life itself: men cutting lode in fume- and dust-ridden air or crushing with hand tools, spalling, cobbing, came our tramroad to harbor direct in Totnes and thence by sea to Neath — no more windlass or horse-whim turning. What you see here is the dressing floor. Their Phoenician purple dye — their copper with fifteen percent Cornish tin. Remember when a solid solution of metal elements was defined by ecstatic bonding. Water poured over its surface producing hydrogen gas. The new material is stable and ready for use but scaled-up production could fuel cannibal drones. Tailrace, 2017, by Ignacio Acosta. Green Pool, 2017, by Ignacio Acosta. We love the color and the stillness. Nothing would live in this water now at the base of a spoil heap two stories high. Worm casts and broadly scattered pits are laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. This is the green pool: a water soak away made from glass epoxy. They are brown and green like uneven flat loaves and the museum label reads tortas de cobre . Moss grows on anything like black flame retardant mechanically supports and electrically connects — the fenced-off shaft protecting the river from what leaches out between sea-borne traders. At these horizons the levels were extended over 330 fathoms. Small groups of self-employed miners and their families continued to migrate. Here was alluvial gold mixed with sand and gravel, producing more than 14 heads of stamps were capable of crushing. Composed of quartz, peach, and gossan with black and yellow copper letting down a stream of mineralized water. For in much of this section the leat had been cut from solid rock. A stone-lined sluice is just visible. 4,000 shares on the cost book system, streamworks in eluvial ground, 5 shillings each deposit. Nothing but a washing strake such as we use, commodified and priced both minerals since the Bronze Age in West Devon, in Cornwall beneath a layer of black sand. An adit is also brought home to the spot from below: narrow tailings in steep profile cast every shovel full as it rises into a tye. £40,000 worth of copper ore from above the 50-fathom level. Water breaks up the soil, exposing mere threads of land, linear strips cut into channels called races dug across the ground to be worked, removing the overburden.

for Spalding Gray The West and North winds both lover us, wanting, bitter, to bring us in close in the small hold. Tongues loll and laze, while the flap and snapping above: crazy wanderlust. The basin must cradle, keep her passengers, though the hero abandoned the ferry for the real sea. Is nothing worthy? Wallet on bench. Wallet at home. Wallet at rest. The child, even his cries, must the ship balance, makes me wild to right this unhumanly keeling. I have six arms, am the dismembered figurehead, ballast, breasts covered in blue scales. I am at rudder, at bow, at mast, at rigging, at deck, at halyard, at stern, when the hold explodes with screaming. One boy has stolen the other’s marble. The boat shifts, tilts. A wallet washes up against us. Is this what you meant when you said a family steadied you? Is this what they see when they see me and my six handless arms, shining torso and cuspid humor? The figurehead has no need for eyelids, must on-guard, vigil, dry eyed. But she dreams. Dreams. The sail, its fine apparel, its linen long-shadow: a tiny hand opening, budlike

Tonight I will remember the model With the wide, sad mouth Who used to pose for father Because I love the dangers of memory, The boarded window and door, Rooms where one bare bulb Makes shadows swell up the wall. And yet I recall only vaguely The way her hem rustled on the floor Like sand against tin Laisse-moi tranquille, epicier, It said because I want it to Say something memorable. I want her back That brilliant, farfetched woman Who drank coffee in our garden And the days father fed me Absinthe through a sugar cube So I would be asleep by noon And wake to find Ramona posing Naked with a tambourine. Tonight the whole world is a garden In which the immortal whispers Something about art And its opportunities: Memory like a bolt of silk In a tailor’s arms Can be made into anything Especially misfortune, Especially the year Ramona spent In a wrath almost Biblical And so far from the world Not even the moon could find Her study in Paris Where the doors opened to the river.

When I stop to consider my calling, remark the places a wayward temper impelled me I’ve found in light of where I wandered lost the most appalling evils could have befallen; but when I disregard the journey it’s hard to even fathom I endured so much affliction; what’s more, my days being spent, I feel I’ve seen my wariness go with them. I’ll come to my end, for I surrendered artless to someone with the science to dispel and destroy me if so inclined, else the know-how to want to; for if, with this very hand I could slaughter myself, why—not on my account but because so suited—would my enemy do otherwise? ………………………………………………………………… Cuando me paro a contemplar mi estado y a ver los pasos por do me han traído, hallo, según por do anduve, perdido, que la mayor mal pudiera haber llegado; mas cuando del camino estó olvidado, a tanto mal no sé por dó he venido; sé que me acabo, y más he yo sentido ver acabar conmigo mi cuidado. Yo acabaré, que me entregué sin arte a quien sabrá perderme y acabarme si quisiere, y aún sabrá querello; que, pues mi voluntad puede matarme, la suya, que no es tanto de mi parte, pudiendo, ¿qué hará sino hacello? [Garcilaso de la Vega, 1501?-1536]

When lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds too late that men betray, What charm can sooth her melancholy, What art can wash her guilt away? The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, To give repentance to her lover, And wring his bosom—is to die.

When my Sorrow was born I nursed it with care, and watched over it with loving tenderness. And my Sorrow grew like all living things, strong and beautiful and full of wondrous delights. And we loved one another, my Sorrow and I, and we loved the world about us; for Sorrow had a kindly heart and mine was kindly with Sorrow. And when we conversed, my Sorrow and I, our days were winged and our nights were girdled with dreams; for Sorrow had an eloquent tongue, and mine was eloquent with Sorrow. And when we sang together, my Sorrow and I, our neighbors sat at their windows and listened; for our songs were deep as the sea and our melodies were full of strange memories. And when we walked together, my Sorrow and I, people gazed at us with gentle eyes and whispered in words of exceeding sweetness. And there were those who looked with envy upon us, for Sorrow was a noble thing and I was proud with Sorrow. But my Sorrow died, like all living things, and alone I am left to muse and ponder. And now when I speak my words fall heavily upon my ears. And when I sing my songs my neighbours come not to listen. And when I walk the streets no one looks at me. Only in my sleep I hear voices saying in pity, “See, there lies the man whose Sorrow is dead.”

The boy painted himself white and ran into the darkness. We let the words “he may be dead, bury him,” bury him. We took his clothes to the rummage sale in the basement of the mission We put his photographs and drawings in a birdcage and covered it with a starquilt. For four nights voices carried clear to the river. After winter so many storms moved in strangers came among us They danced They shoveled in the shadows of trees Then, somehow we all felt all of us were of this one boy.

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock, And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock, And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens, And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence; O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best, With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest, As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock. They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here— Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees; But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock— When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock. The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn, And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn; The stubble in the furries—kindo’ lonesome-like, but still A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill; The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed; The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover over-head!— O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock! Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps; And your cider-makin’ ’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! ... I don’t know how to tell it—but ef sich a thing could be As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me— I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock— When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

When to her lute Corinna sings, Her voice revives the leaden strings, And doth in highest notes appear As any challenged echo clear; But when she doth of mourning speak, Ev’n with her sighs the strings do break. And as her lute doth live or die, Let by her passion, so must I: For when of pleasure she doth sing, My thoughts enjoy a sudden spring, But if she doth of sorrow speak, Ev’n from my heart the strings do break.