I remember when we lived
beneath creation
with our language suited
to the fatuous and fantastic.
When we never wondered
what our slide rules might not measure,
we saw our ambit through camerae obscurae,
pinpoints of the truth inverted.
I remember when we lived
beneath creation
with our language suited
to the fatuous and fantastic.
When we never wondered
what our slide rules might not measure,
we saw our ambit through camerae obscurae,
pinpoints of the truth inverted.
An arid future in a waterless world,
where all our understanding wavers
on a bridge to whiteness.
We are replicants in the land
of nothing new, and the westerlies,
hot and dry, are blowing away the children.
As they fall, we fall.
In the photocopied forest,
where origami birds shed origami feathers,
where duplicates with papered eyes
riffle through the files of our dreaming,
where carbon copied life is rampant,
Rosalyn shows me a quick start guide
for human prototypes,
their care and feeding, how to keep them far
from wheels and fire,
thermodynamics
and recirculant mechanics.
Our bonsai minds are caged and shaped,
replicas in miniature of something greater:
trains, the sky, and lightning.
The rail clatters its rhythms but the carriages never move.
They’re always here, and through a frame, a door,
a window, a hole cut in a rainy mirror,
you can see them waiting.
Telma was painting the feature wall
with essence of vanilla. Joanne was reading
a possible book, perhaps the persistence of trains,
or a painting, the persimmonence of time.
She’d need her glasses to be sure.