Fata Morgana

poem #117

photo by the author

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One year ago today 
I heard a man describe 
the black city they reported 
in the clouds above Jiangxi,

and though we have no mountain 
here, four rivers descend 
to split the Nature we can see — 
this is how we speak of it — 
a still small voice advises me: 
apologize for your sincerity,
and either give phenomena 
the side-eye, or tangle up their sense 
in necromantic rhymes...

            I saw the damnable town 
force its bruise through the pollution,
and I count the rivers properly 
when I travel, making note
of their invisible origin, 
the strength that comes 
from nowhere. Is that enough? 

I asked the man from Jiangxi
to what point points the peaks 
in total night, and where 
their rivers go? Do I or we describe 
some classic sense wherein great gods 
abound invisibly outside 
the rough-hewn stone in early morning 
pinks, waiting just beyond high houses 
we have made — for whom? For them? 

Give me back their names 
cousin, and I will order all four rivers 
with their abandoned weights,
build this city that eternally suggests itself
and yet refuses to alight.

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