Startled by Existence

8-2002

Who knows the eyes
of the all-mall-ball,
The sight of a quillion minnows
zigging at the sun,
her tongue
splitting in a trillion forks, or

twittering with song?

Who knows the taste
of the all-mall-ball--
the diatoms and dates, the grippy grass and rancid flesh?--
Her voice, a quadul-gum
of cricket sound
and shriek and speak and breaking glass.

Who knows the hear
of the all-mall-ear

These desperate cries and sparking brains
with pierce of train, and trilling prayer?
Who knows the hair
of all the hares in the world and the scale of the fish
at once?

I am a son of the all mall ball,
one of many
made under EYE
and bound in place--
But given to a shrapnel soul

that likes to ride behind the eyes:

Twisting up- I find my lips pulled taunt with flapping plates

or stretched like hinge from eye to eye, the fringe of baleen as I sweep,
or snapped back like a bear-trap--
voice cracking to the splendor of descending worm.

Oh
I am a mouth with chomping crowns...
bloody sabers draped in deer,
I feel the sear of hot blood in my eye

I roar

I feel the weight of heavy pads, the feline breath and nail--
I ride the racing nerves until I break
into the fountain of the vulture dance,
and “Aren't you beautiful
my love, with bobbing bald and warts
and carrion perfume about your wings.”

I sing the song of morning from the line,

then walk it with flicking tail,
I twine with your like-silky throat, and find
pleasure in your snakey eye.

I am dragonfly amidst cat-tail trees;

darting in shatter-realm of stalk and dock...

I am belly taut with life and kicking hooves,
I feel it move,

but have no thought to tell you
how it feels, I hold a thousand guppies in my gut
and the webbing of the silk-worm net.

I am dolphin dipping joy,
punching through the thick n’ thin,
laughing at the lemon sky.

I am the queen of nature

(born of her but giving birth

to all that gives us life)

Mother of an ancient “Son”,

building underneath my lungs
and soon the ONE of whom the mall-ball sings
(or twists within), will find

the master of our liberation

walking in our eyes.

Note: This very weird poem is (among other things) a reflection on the omniscience of God. What I might try with imagination --living through the eyes of other beasts or men (or Mary in the last verse) –-is a world that God knows in its absolute fullness. He sees from every place, all at once and all the time. No thing is hidden from his eye. All things belong to Him. And we shall behold Him.