Brenda Hillman

 



 *Day 1*



 



             A metaphor appeared,



    a form of action, while we were reading



just below the trees. It made



             a human & nonhuman meaning....



      (*not sure what nonhuman meaning means*)



So, here we are now.         Unknowing beauty among



    the brutal days.   All year they sat out



reading, each to the other, in their skins.  Days



                                          of             drought in the west,



                            written    of.            Writers



   are stressed most            of             the time, trying



with many forms                 of             life to make energy among.



             Dry months           of             people reading, greenshield



              lichen reading                       to the fence. Indicator



species. Indicators              of             health, in the twilight



                                          of             a terrible year, *crepuscular*—



a Stevens word.   Acts        of             gather & burn  (what now



       is called                       *the          undercommons*). Rosa Parks &



Róża Luxemburg,                the           violence they endured



             amid                      the           infinite failures, unbearable



             if you read             the           histories.  To keep a little



 hope but how:                    the           young. Not to drown while



trying to register                  the           forms of suffering beyond



             or in                      the           *the*, as Stevens wrote,



   the mixture of                  the           dump. To love, despite



             collapse,               the           life forms



             reading to             the           wood... frayed ends of



         days. Days in            the           mind. Wood mind. Science



      also  reading to            the           dream—



           ,    , , ,     , ,    , , , , ,



    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



========================= (*log*)



Some people think lichen looks dead but it is alive in its



dismantling. Some call it moss. It doesn't matter what you call



it.  Anything so radical & ordinary stands for something.



 



 



*Day 2*



 



              A simile sets up space for you to doubt



          ever getting past the suffering...Rilke



    *Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn* staying mostly



                       in his room          & where if they cried out,



                *Who, if i cried out could hear* the children killed...



    A figure of destruction came to us & said,



such admirable life forms on the street as if love



                grew black threads... To be with friends



   you finally see, inside the grief year,



class grief, race grief, loss of love & rain. Ruffle lichen



   spreading near the lake like similes.



                (~i~ had not checked my phone...)



  We need to talk. Wood mind. It’s not just about your



own little darling, the wife of the decomposers said...



                Remember summer the poets



read aloud inside their skin *where the undead meet the dead*



                 Voices sliced across the dusk,  black cilia,



                                           to            read to each other



in beauty in the dusk.           to            see black-edged



life forms on fences              to            lean against



                                                          ovals of energy



while people said listen in the modest dusk,



                                           to            register the horror



                                then     to            pass energy across.



Cortex K+ yellow, medulla K-, KC+ red to orange,



  looks like punctuation while growing along, knowing



                almost nothing, there are twin



                sides to everything  & the beautiful



wrong side is always listening...



 



 









*These two 'journal poems' are from Brenda Hillman's series "Metaphor and Simile—24 poems *



*at year's end."** You can read more from this series in *Lana Turner *[here](http://www.lanaturnerjournal.com/home-8/from-metaphor-simile-journal-poems-at-year-s-end). That *Lana Turner *page*



*also includes several intriguing epigraphs and dedications for the series as a whole. *

When they ask “What are you working on now that the elements



are finished” i say the elements are never finished; in China they



have metal, in India they have ether, in the West we are short on



time. Wood has also been named as an element. In Euro fairy



tales, children are sent into the woods, probably the Black Forest,



carrying baskets covered with cloth made by child laborers just as



factories are beginning. When i first read the Frost snowy woods



piece as a desert child in the 60s, i experienced a calm as he enters



the whose woods these are he thinks he knows, though i didn’t



know that many woods in Tucson or a little horse thinking it queer



or a village. What would it have been like to be sent out with a



small covered basket if you were a peasant child into what we now



call the ecotone, the region between two environments— a marsh



with striped frogs for example— then on into the woods where a



peasant uprising is being planned.



                     We have sent them all into the woods



                     We have sent them all into the woods



                     We have sent them all into the woods



& we know exactly whose thin logged-out woods these are. What



do people need from poetry during the changes? The changes are



immeasurable. Perception, form, & material locked into the



invisible. Many need calm poetry, especially at weddings where



they feel uneasy, & i would certainly write that way if i believed



calm were key to any of it, but if what woods are left are lovely,



dark, deep, they are also oblique, obscure, magical, owned for



profit, full of fragile unnamed species, scarce on time, time that



barely exists though people base their lives on imagining it does. i



hoped to find some wisdom to send back to you & that is what i



am working on now, my present hopeful wild & unknown



friends…



 



 



 



 



*(This poem is an* ekphrastic haibun*.)*