Cynthia Hogue

Elle’s writing her book of wisdom. She writes until she cannot hold her pen. The labyrinth miraculously is uncovered. An American woman’s progressing on her knees. She read something but not Elle’s book. No one will read Elle’s book. I walk the circular path, first the left side, then the right, casting petals to the north, east, south, and west (this intuitively). A diminutive prelate shoos me away. When he leaves, I return to the center. The organist, practicing, strikes up Phantom. Elle says she cannot hear him. Elle! I cry,I cannot see you. I had prayed Death spare you. Remember our meal among the termites of Arcadia Street, that cottage of spirits with its riddled beams and long veranda bordered by plantain trees, and the spiral you traced for me on scrap-paper? I kept it for such a long time. The organist, of course, is playing Bach. A boy has scattered the petals I threw. Elle’s voice surrounds me. The quiet hills I lift mine eyes.

Everything looped, spiraled, circular (thought) But the labyrinth’s not a maze but a singular way to strike “the profoundest chord” across aspire Those who enter the labyrinth can leave (pilgrims sometime don’t) (Elle did not) Inside the largest circle (the labyrinth itself) splits into equal parts (demi-arcs or waves) No, silly, Elle whispers,petals If measured through the centre of the petals there should be two parts for each petal and one for the entry, but calculations from the measurements show that this is not so. The difference is about ½”. There is no way around this problem. We must seek a solution to the geometry of petals, the consequential mystery of Elle’s message: I was sick and am not healed.     I am not blind but dead.     I am not dead but silenced.     Alone, in love.

There was an ancient well-site beneath the labyrinth I did not reach, the part underground, labeled (what else?) The Crypt. But labels always hide something about what they seem to define. They set the thing apart without disclosing why. Alive costs a pretty penny to see The Crypt now.