Trace. Eric Pankey

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       The Creation of Adam

      A lizard circled the marble lip of the wellhead.

      In the wind, a shutter banged, disturbed the sparrow flock,

      Which lifted like a sail, only to settle again on cobbles.

      The other noon sounds? A horse turning a millstone.

      Rust inching up a drainpipe. The spilling of sand

      Down an anthill. The dog whimpering in a dream.

      Bees shuttled between the hive and the garden.

      On a cross of branches tied with baling wire,

      An old man hung a ragged wool overcoat.

      As he weeded, he instructed the scarecrow

      On the doctrine and conundrum of free will.

      When a crow landed on the scarecrow’s shoulder,

      The scarecrow, who had listened well, knew

      If he chose, he could shrug and shoo the crow.

      If he chose. And could shrug. And could move his lips.

       As of Yet

      Call it paradise, this enclosure of trees.

      No graves yet. No seasons. Time itself

      As of yet uncreated. Nothing as of yet

      Handmade. No stone knife. No bone needle.

      No spear point. Call it paradise

      Where a flint has yet to spark or deadfall

      Flare beneath lightning, flare, then

      Smother in a downpour, the char

      Slick black beneath a first rainbow.

      He has yet to learn to slaughter or tame the wolf,

      To don the wolf-mask. As of yet, her body

      Has not opened into birth, pain, and burden.

      Beyond the enclosure of trees, a scattering

      Of rocks they must still name and knap into tools:

      Chert, agate, chalcedony, and for miles — Quick-quenched lava: obsidian.

       Works and Days

      At the fray of memory

      A drop of sweat down her breast veers and misses her nipple

      Chaos, it’s said, was born first

      Riverside willow leaf turns, turns, caught in an eddy

      Instant yet everlasting

      Iron oxide, smeared ochres, charcoal gestures: flanks, tusks, hooves

      Cuckoo song among the oaks

      Orion at the horizon; linens freeze on a line

      By noon shade evaporates

      At the fray, at the fray of memory

       Primitive Water

      Cherry blossoms on the ink-stone —

      Gutters, leaf-choked, overflow —

      The path along the ridgeback washed out —

      Seedlings, saplings, a poplar girded with wrist-thick vines —

      If not for the gnarled, knuckley habit of words I might at last have a purchase on silence —

      The deer freeze, skitter, then fly —

      Snare of antlers —

      The burden and effort of constructing meaning —

      The quick bickering of jays —

      The river seen from above as the character for dragon —

      Five crows roost and shake down blossoms —

      Myth, not history, predates one’s childhood —

      There one can disinter the gibbous moon, the essential Arcanum, the primitive water’s source —

       Models of Paradise

      The mountain, all haze and mist,

      Is without fixed form,

      yet by mid-morning

      It stands clear: an ax-trimmed jade fragment.

      After the afterimage slips away,

      One utters against

      the utter silence

      And time congeals again, as always, as matter.

      The water tastes of lead, or rather the aftertaste of lead:

      Honey of exile,

      salt of lacrimae antiquae — One part per billion yet distinct.

      Distracted, I looked around as others prayed.

      Sinew fitted to bone.

      Muscle to sinew.

      The body’s dust is dust.

      Ice, a cold weld, holds for now.

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