Scott Cairns

—Katounakia, 2007 The cave itself is pleasantly austere, with little clutter—nothing save a narrow slab, a threadbare woolen wrap, and in the chipped-out recess here three sooty icons lit by oil lamp. Just beyond the dim cave's aperture, a blackened kettle rests among the coals, whereby, each afternoon, a grip of wild greens is boiled to a tender mess. The eremite lies prostrate near two books—a gospel and the Syrian's collected prose—whose pages turn assisted by a breeze. Besides the thread of wood smoke rising from the coals, no other motion takes the eye. The old man's face is pressed into the earth, his body stretched as if to reach ahead. The pot boils dry. He feeds on what we do not see, and may be satisfied.

You’ll need a corpse, your own or someone else’s. You’ll need a certain distance; the less you care about your corpse the better. Light should be unforgiving, so as to lend a literal aspect to your project. Flesh should be putty, each hair of the brows, each lash, a pencil mark. If the skeleton is intact, its shape may suggest beginnings of a structure, though even here modification might occur; heavier tools are waiting in the drawer, as well as wire, varied lengths and thicknesses of doweling. Odd hollows may be filled with bundled towel. As for the fluids, arrange them on the cart in a pleasing manner. I prefer we speak of ointments. This notion of one’s anointing will help distract you from a simpler story of your handiwork. Those people in the parlor made requests, remember? Don’t be concerned. Whatever this was to them, it is all yours now. The clay of your creation lies before you, invites your hand. Becoming anxious? That’s good. You should be a little anxious. You’re ready. Hold the knife as you would a quill, hardly at all. See that first line before you cross it, and draw.

This morning the world’s white face reminds us that life intends to become serious again. And the same loud birds that all summer long annoyed us with their high attitudes and chatter silently line the gibbet of the fence a little stunned, chastened enough. They look as if they’re waiting for things to grow worse, but are watching the house, as if somewhere in their dim memories they recall something about this abandoned garden that could save them. The neighbor’s dog has also learned to wake without exaggeration. And the neighbor himself has made it to his car with less noise, starting the small engine with a kind of reverence. At the window his wife witnesses this bleak tableau, blinking her eyes, silent. I fill the feeders to the top and cart them to the tree, hurrying back inside to leave the morning to these ridiculous birds, who, reminded, find the rough shelters, bow, and then feed.

προσέλθετε For near is where you’ll meet what you have wandered far to find. And near is where you’ll very likely see how far the near obtains. In the dark katholikon

Agion Oros, 2006 The air is cool and is right thick with birdsong as our bleary crew files out, of a sudden disinterred from three sepulchral hours of prayer into an amber brilliance rioting outside the cemetery chapel. With bits of   Greek and English intermixed, the monks invite us to the portico for coffee, παξιμάδια, a shot of cold ρακί. As I say, the air is cool, animate and lit, and in such light the road already beckons, so I skip the coffee, pound the shot, and pocket two hard biscuits. And yes, the way is broad at first, but narrows soon enough. παξιμάδια — pahximáthia — Greek biscotti; ρακί — rahkeé — Greek grappa

After Stevens It was when he said expansively There is no such thing as the truth

You could almost think the word synonymous with mind, given our so far narrow history, and the excessive esteem in which we have been led to hold what is, in this case, our rightly designated nervous systems. Little wonder then that some presume the mind itself both part and parcel of the person, the very seat of soul and, lately, crucible for a host of chemical incentives—combinations of which can pretty much answer for most of our habits and for our affections. When even the handy lexicon cannot quite place the nous as anything beyond one rustic ancestor of reason, you might be satisfied to trouble the odd term no further—and so would fail to find your way to it, most fruitful faculty untried. Dormant in its roaring cave, the heart’s intellective aptitude grows dim, unless you find a way to wake it. So, let’s try something, even now. Even as you tend these lines, attend for a moment to your breath as you draw it in: regard the breath’s cool descent, a stream from mouth to throat to the furnace of the heart. Observe that queer, cool confluence of breath and blood, and do your thinking there.