Emily Strauss
The History of Wateryou wouldn't know, observing dry gravels
tumbled down the slope of the alluvial plain that once a great flood filled the canyon and boulders clashed like gods' nine-pins, the sky dark, angry water fought the cliffs dug the channel deep, frothed and slashed tree trunks stripped, gasping mice scrambled on flowing mud, and now— I am calm now, sane, walking fast at noon under a cloudless sky, cholla spines scattered— you would never know looking at me here on this round rock, hands still, watching a short-horned lizard perched on the hot granite which can't imagine summer monsoons, that I can tell you the feel of wet earth. You wouldn't know if I told you how I swam downstream once, holding a branch of tamarisk, lodged in the channel not breathing, then turned over to walk away slowly, to tell you of resurrection, redemption, of living on dry land. June Third, 1889
Uphill past the bison grazing
on the grasses of early spring up the steep track blazed by deer and elk to the top a flat crest looking down on a thin muddy creek and naked badland ridges yellow patches of fossil dirt he climbed fast in the dawn mist, his breath visible in the cold shadows laid out a pad, began stretching in slow delicate moves before he sat facing east, back straight, eyes closed to enter the silent day alone, a tiny figure motionless for an hour I watched with binoculars waiting for a reprieve. Silent Gapsout here there is no music
to distract from those tiny spaces between a sense-object and its mental response only the whine of insects, rustle of wrens in thick shrubs the high-pitched hum of the world spinning the hollow silence, negative pull of words left unsaid, the air draining away empties the body. I sit alone on a cliff, no grace notes out here only empty light, the wind slightly grazing my head earth tones too subdued for any song, holding still, the voices long gone, only the gaps in my head remain. Woolen CoversSnow will soon fill the gaps
between the smooth poplar trunks and the double apartment block entrances fortified by coal-stoked desiccating heat. It will gather on pressed clean-swept dirt, with rusty leaves piled in rotting baskets, the street sweeper knocking down the last few golden cobwebs with a bamboo pole. It will cover garlic stalks and mounds of cabbages under fresh straw wraps to be dug out later, brushed and sliced for dinner, a recollection of olden days and winter famines. The spaces between the walkways will rise in white hillocks, soft drifts blowing across school girls’ black boots, the snow will line the scraped streets turning to smoke-gray slush and we’ll leap aside when the buses pass, ice swirling in the puddles. It’s time now to gather woolen quilts. |
Dripping Watera thousand feet of ravine
so steep the road insinuates itself back and forth climbing the dry ground a tangle of overgrown brush, wild peas, pines, half-dead oaks the stream long dried it flows only in the wettest years, a few hours at most the land parched despite the daily fogs that rise, and birds— quail, jays juncos must forage beside rabbits and squirrels for water to sustain them-- how in this wide vista they know the one tiny drip of a broken garden hose and land one by one to sip carefully from this small leak-- my silent form immaterial. Dear ReaderIf I could tie the world up in strings
make a manageable bundle that you can carry neatly in your pocket with its name on the label so you can identify yourself then I will have solved your problem and I can let the words go again to tumble around the bottom of the jar like swill in a dank hold and you, dear reader, can afford to ignore them-- the words I have hoarded so long will wash out to sea with the tide leaving you untouched and dry as you watch the dregs run past your feet without understanding. Thinking Without WordsThen, we could know the river's edge,
wet sand sucking the zebras' hooves or icy slopes where near-sapiens climbed and fell and were buried. Those we could feel wordless, but the rest would have been nearly impossible to intuit in the mind without language, how to explain an approaching vision of winter approaching, salmon pushing upstream to spawn, caribou massing on grassy plains flowing south, dark clouds appearing at daybreak-- we may touch fingers to cheeks feel them pressed into a palm, but a signifier must follow or we remain dumb, deer touching noses, flicking tails. Magenta Curves ☊How do we write about the silence
that falls after we stop following a road, and instead watch the sunset wash over cold mountain defiles where snow clings on the dry rocky cliffs above a desert basin, a sinuous curve of magenta? There are no words in the collected shadows the rising blackness covers our thoughts— we can't write of ghosts in a journal of invisible pages. Instead we sleep with the stars in nights winter-cracked lie huddled on stiff grasses and bare earth long enough to feel the absence of dreams. Morning WritingThe ideas play around the edge
like dreams partly remembered a pressure coming suddenly words flicker on the page I write fast before they burn up like starting a flame from dry birch bark on smoldering coals late at night, the red glow faint at first, I add more words, kindling to stoke the blaze before I sink back into three smoky blankets the dream-memory receding with the full moon blue on the spruce outside my window my notebook open, vision blurred but still I write fitfully trying to harness the silence, listening for dawn to call me back. Harvesting Herbs
the thyme and oregano have overgrown
and must be cut & dried in the mud room-- it's time now to process the dried leaves and I remember the only job my ex- husband was useful for: he always prepared our weed for smoking-- carefully removing the stems, saving the seeds, cutting finely, evenly until it rolled up nice and tight-- now I have to take over, but it's only oregano and thyme and I'll keep the seeds, though the stems still go cut not too fine and stuffed into empty spice jars labeled “fine herbs” -- they don't even smell the same |