Raster. Jaargang 4

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Kenneth White
The Bird Path

‘In the northern ocean is a fish... This fish changes into a bird... It's at the time of the great tides that the bird leaves for the southern ocean.’ (Chuang-tzu)

1. Of Childhood

Raised on stilts above the tide-line
the boats stood like eyeless birds
bodies encrusted with salt and shells

again, like thoughts, or maybe like apostles
who'd forgotten how to walk the waters
and remained in a still expectancy

in the background was the wilderness
a waste of thorns and twisted trees
and the red lines of a disused railway

it was there as children we came, with
hands of fire, to blaze the rocks with paint
and by the edge of night enjoy our nakedness

2. Of the City

Once I lived in that city:

haar on my window
a crazy light

men with red dreams
in dark corners

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a girl brought

 

the evangel of sex

 

 

 

I studied

 

the language of dawn

3. Of Studies

It was Bhartrihari who said
that grammar leads to beatitude

I’ve cut the pages, hold it in my hand
open it, and see the black script stand

like the marks a drunken gannet
might leave on the sand

4. Of the Territory

Up here in the white country

any tree for a totem
any rock for an altar

discover!

this ground is suicidal

annihilates everything
but the most essential

poet - your kingdom

5. Of the Emptiness

This is the cold island

lying on the bare stones
gulls crying in the mist -

[p. 267]

 

the immensity of nothing

 

empties the veins and bones

6. Of the Way South

Among the dark sand
and the rosy seaweed

the deep-curved
sea-white clam shell -

she is scattered
over all the earth

7. Of the Pine Country

Pinetrees
slender-trunked pinetrees
slender dark-tufted pinetrees
slender dark-tufted rain-glistening pinetrees

resin
dripping slowly
from their rosy slits