I love this power, these words, the true incantations found deep amidst the raw red of the hot rocks as they lie poised and waiting for the next eruption, the next ascension into air, into light.
An Icelandic volcano is demonstrating right now how to make new land, fire and ice. The Americas and Europe are getting ever further apart at a stately pace. No words are needed there. The evocation there needs no words, and stating protection in the face of that fire will not work. But here, here the words are singular and stout, present and deep and they rattle my bones until I find a new shape.
My brothers in Siberia read the maternal line, the mitochondrial code from a finger bone and found out that another man came out of Africa earlier than we did, and drew away from us a million years ago. This is too new for Erectus and Heidelbergensis. They drew away 2.5 million years ago. This man was not like us in his lineage but we might have known him anyway. He continued on the planet to at least 40,000 years ago, perhaps later. So now there are four different groups of Homo coexistent 40,000 eyears ago. Sapiens, called Cro-Magnon, Neanderthalensis, Floresiensis, and this new fellow we have just learned of and not yet named. All tool using, all probably speaking, all living in tribal societies and wearing jewelry, all probably burying their dead, but all coming from Africa in different migrations and reaching far away lands on foot. I pray it wasn’t us that killed them all off. I am afraid it was.
Watching For Hawks
I am riverine
watching for hawks when I see
you walking the bank.
My old heart catches
at the sight of your long legs
and my scales glisten.
I remember you
sister from before and yes,
that's when I leap out
to see you better.
April 26, 2009 3:55 PM
Hurry
1 week ago
Sometimes when I look into the eyes of a dog or a cat, I feel that sense of recognition - we're not so far away.
ReplyDeleteI know. After you get past the way we try to somehow make the four footeds into human children, the distance grows in some ways but not in others. There are two forms of inner process and both form complete "thoughts". The mental process requires complex cerebral structures and a specialized electrochemical process. The somatic process is based on the immune system and hormones, a more purely chemical process, a body brain beyond the spinal process. This is the site of what we call feelings and intuitive process. It is slower, depending as it does on the wash of orchestrated chemistry rather than the myriad of synapse. In this process the difference may well give the advantage to the four footeds.
ReplyDeleteI have a book that points out this chemical system, the "feeling" system as a diffuse mind that is involved in the hypnotic process. It is what is accessed after a client is put in deep trance. Remove most of our excess cerebrum and it remains basically unaffected. It is this way of processing data that we share with the four footeds.
Oh look. I neglect the blogging world for a couple of weeks, and just see what I've missed. It's going to take me ages to catch up. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to post this reply on my blog right away, just to let people know I'm still alive.
At the river
Where the river curves low
and slick as a black snake’s back,
holding tight treasured minerals
in its cold, greedy grasp, just there
I imagine I can see the sun
glint for a fraction of a moment
off your amphibious sleek body,
a spy’s body, slipped in here
between the beginning and an old,
forgotten end, my friend
Where the river rumbles low
with the guttural throat
of an angry storm, there,
just there I remember how you
were clasped, held fast
by the icy, greedy fingers
of the mirror-black water,
your hair woven green as if
with ceremonial reeds, while the fish
danced their solemn, scaled dreams
in slow circles down your cheek
down your beloved, your still, soft cheek