#387 - tianwen tu

20. i.21

387

2.21

tianwen tu

ekphrastic for a Song Dynasty star map

 

I consider them cities of light

the point made wide

and many as tongues to tell

 

cross, scratch

a turn of mansions

instruments

some picnic, this the rug

 

perfect the uses of things as they seem

 

edged arrows, the spider come

 

there must have been a tiny tear

 

not joining the dots

to kingdom past river

 

flit insects smaller than we see

elliptic eliptricks

can’t show this whizz

 

clouds of star

and star obscuring

 

moonlit to a tide returned

and see the daylight creatures

bolted to the dark of time

 

they know the circles bent

truths of how we came

 

monsters of imagining

 

utensils, flinted bone

mud thrown

mainly ladders

 

all tighter to the centre

 

dragons!

of the deep and flown

 

respective eternities

boy girl across the river

 

we live in a far crease folded

worn to light

is how we know

 

as the caged bird

under the blanket frays

to glimpse a moted planetstream

 

all perfect because stone

 

and if the singing stops

all of this sky falls down

 

then the blinding

of a day begins

and we will name the star

our own