“He said what she knew and she knew what he said but she couldn’t say what she knew. They walked thirty steps and said thirty words and counted each word that they stepped. He stopped when she stopped, until he could no longer stop, then he stopped, but didn’t say what he knew because he couldn’t say anything at all.”
What are those? said Alex. They are papers for my English class. Your English class? said Alex. Yes, said Blurtso, the teacher showed us a book called, “Romans éclairs,” by Bernard Teyssèdre. It contains a series of one-paragraph novels. One-paragraph novels? said Alex. Yes, said Blurtso, “roman” means “novel,” and “éclair” means “lightining,” therefore “lightning novel.” Would you like to hear my first one? I’d love to, said Alex.
“She looked at him because he was looking, and he looked back. Then she spoke when he wasn’t speaking, and he spoke back, and they both listened. Time stood still while it passed, and no one saw what they were seeing when he spoke and she spoke and they both listened. And no one heard what they were hearing when they were both hearing.”
“A lesson in beauty”
Because the flowers hide patiently
under the cool blanket of autumn,
because the spring comes quietly
with the sound of melting snow,
because the breeze touches softly
with the fresh fragrance of summer,
I will have to learn to see,
to listen and to feel,
if I am to find you.
“I cannot offer”
The hills do not know me
and the waves erase my name,
I cannot offer the gifts of the earth.
I cannot offer the broad mountain and wild rose,
the moody sky and its quarreling clouds.
My hooves are frightened,
they fall on the rocky path,
and they tear on the virgin thorns.
Because its waters do not call me,
I cannot offer the gifts of the earth.
But you sprang from the soil.
You awoke in the blue day
that echoed in the trees,
opened your arms, and embraced the dawn.
Your voice flew from branch to branch,
and your happy hooves played,
laughing with the stream.
The wind whispered secrets of the stone,
and the sun sketched your soul
with stretching shadows.
I cannot offer the earth,
so I wait the night in silence
to admire your midnight crown.
“With two hooves”
With two hooves and a full heart
I have fashioned a poem.
It was born of a fragrant branch
cut from the top of a white mountain.
With a delicate blade I shaped it,
refined its roughness,
I smoothed, sanded, and stroked it
until it had the softness of your snout.
With a dark varnish
I released the blood in its veins.
It was born as you were, it is yours.
I traveled the winds of salt,
where the waves ache
and the rivers meet and mix.
At a silver lake I listened.
I crossed the seasons,
and found in the fountains of spring
the voice that knows your name.
With earth on my hooves,
I bring this poem
to the silent place where you keep
the secrets of your heart.
“Your eyes”
The shades of sky
in the seasons
are not so numerous
as the shades of your eyes.
With dawn’s first glow
they opened,
extracting light
and drinking color,
singing,
with the play and splash
of the stream.
Hills, feathers, and branches
were the instruments
of their song,
and they went reading
the notes of the day,
reading its words,
(reading these words),
and casting their image
in the reflecting eyes
of another.
They continued,
sharing their illuminated
give and take,
until twilight released its rivers,
and your eyes,
like the tip of an alpine peak
caught the last sparks
of fleeting fire.
Through electric shadows
they carried their light,
until evening closed
and they opened anew,
stars,
in the night of your dreams.
“Your name”
The world was still new,
uncertain shapes and sounds,
when first
you heard your name.
“Lizzy” could have been an apple,
or a butterfly, or a sunset in spring,
but its syllables
became a seed,
the sprout of your center.
Little by little
you grew comfortable
with the sound and the colors
in your name,
its wings sailed
from voice to voice,
crossing
the houses and streets and trees,
making its way
to the peak of a dream.
At the first competition
it seemed the chilly name of another.
It was not yet you,
its essence was untested,
so you went seeking,
searching in weary mirrors,
in questioning shadows,
in solitude,
until you found
its true voice singing
in the slow light of dedication.
It was then it lingered,
and stopped a Blurtso that passed,
thinking it was the echo of an apple,
or a butterfly, or spring.
“Moonrise”
Just above whirl the sparks
and the planets in space.
Their silver tails leave wounds
on the dark glass of the sky.
Tonight the moon mounts
the slow steps of the spheres,
raised like an idol by holy hands,
scaling the edge of the night.
At the summit the light lingers,
awaiting its worldly worship,
then descends, riding on ropes,
borne on the back of the air.
Like a burning crystal,
the moon has been sent for you.
It lights and carries your name
to a place beyond the sound
of the whistle and whirl of stars.
“Lizzy”
A single obsession of light,
a single smile
in the soil of the soul,
a flash in the shadow,
a burning planet,
a single note from the spheres.
A single light illuminating
the water’s crash
at the cliffs of the heart,
a leaping light of statues
erected and razed in the foam,
an undulating light reflecting
the swell and hollow and sway.
A simple light persisting,
in absence,
an extinguished star that continues.
What’s that you’ve been writing? said Alex. It’s a collection of poems, said Blurtso. A collection? said Alex. Yes, said Blurtso, for Lizzy. I’m calling it, Graham Cracker Crumbs. Why? said Alex. Because when I see her pass, said Blurtso, and then she’s gone, I feel as empty as an empty pie tin. Oh, said Alex, and the poems are the crumbs that remain? Yes, said Blurtso, the remnants of my lost rapture. Can I hear one? said Alex. Sure, said Blurtso, this is about the time I saw her limping across campus. I call it, “O my love limps so!”
“O my love limps so!
“The birds were sweetly chirping
and the grass was growing green,
as I waited on my bench
for the jenny of my dreams.
While the shadows slowly passed,
not a vision did I spy,
‘til suddenly across the grass,
a limping caught my eye.
My love is sorely stricken,
she’s suff’ring and distressed!
Her left rear hoof is lagging,
is lagging behind the rest!
Oh lovely injured unguis!
Oh tender cloven pes!
Of late so sweet enticing,
now dragging on the grass.
Oh ass! Oh hoof! Oh ankle
so twisted and exposed!
The pain that’s in your heel
pricks the loving heart that knows!
That’s very good, said Alex, but what’s an “unguis”? “Unguis,” said Blurtso, is the Latin word for hoof. What about “pes”? said Alex. “Pes” is the Latin word for foot. Oh, said Alex, I guess Latin’s not very poetic. No, said Blurtso, I guess not.