Ronald Johnson

Today I saw the word written on the poplar leaves. It was

As the morning advanced the sun became bright and warm, cloudless, calm, serene. About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand our attention—a shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, & continuing, without any interruption, till the close of the day . . . There is a natural occurrence to be met with upon the highest part of our down in hot summer days, and that is a loud audible humming of bees in the air, though not one insect is to be seen . . . In a district so diversified as this, so full of hollow vales and hanging woods, it is no wonder that echoes should abound. Many we have discovered that return a tunable ring of bells, or the melody of birds; but we were still at a loss for a polysyllabical, articulate echo, till a young gentleman, who had parted from his company in a summer walk, and was calling after them, stumbled upon a very curious one in a spot where it might least be expected . . . We procured a cuckoo, and cutting open the breastbone and exposing the intestines to sight, found the crop lying as mentioned above. This stomach was large and round, and stuffed hard, like a pincushion, with food, which upon nice examination, we found to consist of various insects, such as small scarabs, spiders, and dragon-flies; the last of which, as they were just emerging out of the aurelia state, we have seen cuckoos catching on the wing. Among this farrago also were to be seen maggots, and many seeds, which belonged either to gooseberries, currants, cranberries, or some such fruit . . . All nature is so full, that that district produces the greatest variety which is the most examined . . . Gilbert White 1 Upon First Opening a Cuckoo

quincunx of succulents subtle colors and forms succinct in dust appropriate the pot assigned, set each for spill into Other always my core dream winding a garden secret in every sense

I Also reputed to be golden, Quivira: Cibola, unknown to Coronado, meant ‘buffalo’ to the Indians, but onward, to El Dorado, ‘The Gilded One’, a country where boats were incrusted with gold, where golden bells hung from trees (tho the food there, said to be served on gold, was buffalo). ‘We took the hump from both sides of the hump ribs, of all the carcasses.  In taking out the hump we inserted the knife at the coupling of the loin, cutting forward down the lower side, as far forward as the perpendicular ribs ran; then, starting at the loin again, would cut down the upper side, thus taking out a strip from a full-grown animal about three feet long.  Near the front of the hump ribs it would be ten or twelve inches wide & four or five inches thick.  When first taken out it was hung up for a couple of days with the big end down.  It became shrunken, tender & brittle, with no taint.  The front end had a streak of lean alternating with fat & when fried in tallow, made a feast for the gods’. The prairie soil was ‘black & fat’ &, according to Castaneda, the marrow of the land. On that soil, later to be stripped for prairie sod-houses, wild turkeys flocked among the persimmons their flesh succulent from golden sand plums, bitter with china-berries. The coyotes, their eyes aglow on the dark horizon, barked at a moon above the lowing of buffalo, heard twenty miles away. And cottonwood trees, from whose buds the Indians made clear yellow, scattered their drift in spring filling the gullies. The Quivirans were to tell Coranado ‘the things where you are now are of great importance’. II As Coronado turned to retrace his steps, the Smoky Hills were visible north across a stream enveloped in an atmospheric haze in which the hills became distant, impossible mountains— ‘where you are now’ the Indians had said, ‘of great importance’. The country they traveled over was so level, if one looked at the buffalo the sky could be seen between their legs, so that at a distance they appeared to be smooth-trunked pines whose tops jointed— & if there was one bull, it seemed four pines. The country was round, as if a man should imagine himself in a bowl, & could see sky at its edge an arrow’s shot away. And if any man were to lie down on his back, he lost sight of the ground. Did Coronado see also in that late summer storm, before he turned south, an horizon of dark funnels tapering toward the earth, coming with the thunderous sound of a buffalo herd out of the plains—a calm & sulphurous air in which clouds were drawn like lightning toward the funnels— scattering his men to hide among grassy hollows? A tornado against the sky like buffalo who were beared as goats, with the hump of a camel, the mane of a lion & who carried their tails erect as they ran, like any European scorpion. O Coronado, all country is round to those who lose sight of the ground. Canceas, Cansez, Kansies, Konza: the Indian word meaning smoky, from an atmospheric condition in the fall of the year, called Indian Summer: smoke in the air, in Quivira.

I I hear you are whispering there O stars of heaven, O suns—O grass of graves. . . If you do not say anything how can I say anything?

shambles this way antipodean being come full circle sparks in darkness lightning’s eternal return flipped the ecliptic

O Tree into the World, Man the chosen Rose out of Chaos: Song Thunder amid held daffodil, the hills of yellow celandine in sudden sun

for Patricia Anderson “To do as Adam did” through the twilight’s fluoride glare Mercury in perihelion (rotating exactly three times while circling the sun twice) to Pluto foot tilt up the slide at either plane and build a Garden of the brain. Internetted eternities, interspersed with cypresses ply ringed air about the many spectacled apples there. Flamestitch niches orb in swivel orb, The Muses thrush at center turning.Phospheros arborescens they sing sense’s struck crystal clarities to knock the knees (or scarlet hollyhock, against a near blue sky). No end of fountains lost among the shrubberies full eye may bare. Fixed stars with fireflies jam the lilac. The Lord is a delicate hammerer. Gold hive upon gray matter He taps synapse (“carrying to”) (“carrying away”) an immense bronze pinecone moon-knit at the end of a vista of sunny jets d’eau, silver poplars. All shivered in a pool. Literally, a flowing: form-take-hand -with-form (That Which Fasteneth Us) pillar to pillar the great dance arch itself through all that is or was or will be, 3/4 time. This will be a glade at the head of one stream and a resonant gnomon before it will stretch regions of signaling gnat-like resiliencies in the atmosphere of where we are — or were. Or will be, when the mingled frame of mind of man is celebration. Gates, which separate the wings of tiered ilex, open in caverns of atoms passing from one into another’s zenith of periodic movement, vast helicoidal shift: a vaulting of arteries beating their heads against the dark. This is the body of light. Vertically in a chromatic spread chord — Elysian elision — J’avais bâti, dans un rêve, un palais, un château ou des grottes

Aship, reel in fountainhead enclosure of roses skies indigo, gold moon Omphalos triumphant “only connect” end, point of beginning of old, apotheosis chandelier fond du lac cross (mortal) hid boundary compass beyond confines music of the spheres solved, mosaic of Cosmos snowflakes lit darkest sea, bowsprit the deeps bound white antipodes such conflagration of souls Dawn in Erewhon, corporeal cornucopia one being, surround in bloom flow essential seed portal system Milky Way as Unmoved Mover under orders axis mundi, ascend scale organism omnipotent poised in flesh, awake horns psaltery Fanfare for the Common Man mind set razor an edge, blood fulfill final ablution fire purify baton Oompapah! to lead the band anystray orchestra knows who destination core of the universe (so rings redwood of eons) gospel sentience Lo!allegro non troppo remake mankind, a joyous noise into the void “from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it” as speech arc Simulacrum, O chorus us Homo Sapiens in a major key! tools, consonant & vowel to fashion a voice commensurate wheel of time Origins great aorta leaved from the wrist up, but yet to attain the skies all arrowed a rainbow midair, ad astra per aspera countdown for Lift Off