Sunday, January 15, 2006

Fron the Cave: A Butterfly Leg

A Butterfly Leg

A butterfly’s leg, frames the Roman numerals, the xiv an introduction to poetry.But where did it flap, fly fluttering flew, to what esoteric place did it take without asking. Thelonious knew it, expressed the obscurity of rhythm, the artistic torment of words.

The Lieutenant Governor spoke of it, his stroke slurry speech. Some of the mere sands, some of the boulders and rocks of the beach even knew about it. Desert island donkeys knew about it, the freaking flamingo, the greater defy-er of the world’s acrobats.

Greek philosophers wrote about it, even the Gobustani scratched his own piece in the wall about it. The sturgeon swam to it. Even the barracuda glimmered to it. Giant clams open and close to it. But the dog like sea snake, in its bottom dwelling lair, and is common kin the octopus, with a chameleon quality, an eye that moves, a lizard’s pattern of skin, the great flash of some long lost Frenchies in the sky.

Butterflies on the wind float to it. Pheasant cluck. The jungle chicken burst of colours, Water buffalo gurgle, crocodile basks, great jowled Indian stork sedges and sifts, the wild boar wades in the cooling waters like a good citizen, the black faced maquaes, bound and hoot, away from our trawling fifty year old Land Rover.

They bounded across the savannas, so much more at home there than in the zoos and cages where I had first seen them. What great heron stands upon the rotting stumps and deadheads in the marshes. His swimming sentinels, those lazy monitors, merely keeping appearances. In some cases of Thailand, growing to great lengths for twenty to thirty years, becoming local regulars until swallowing small children whole.

The joys and happinesses of our lives, ourselves create. Be it the memory of a fish, well seasoned, the tanks and the firewalkers, the clack of a bamboo stick, be it the elephant on the pond, enjoying its life, and living in quiet refuge, protected not only by the tuskers, but the better drivers of the crews.

Our wildness, it is leaving us, on the lands of our earth, aside from ours and a few others, much green has left. In its sparcity, all that can be seen is the elephants muddy ass running for its life. Islands where the cuckoo rest, and the kingfishers of Mongolia take breaks. Little foxes curl. Magpies debate. Butterfly hobbles with one less leg.

Some rhythm wonderful in every one I’ve known. Also to the lucid and the charming the numbers and The Band. My caravan is running slow, I take each break I go, to the quiet place with friends with the accordion and drum upon great old North Mountain.

This place, I am standing, a connection of freedom, for the understanding of ancestors. I take each break I know after the seas and the doldrums, to row slow. Listen to the break, listen for the tide break. A slow rumbling knows where my heart will go.
Well it’s on the back rocks, springs clear away, my light is my amethyst, won’t give it away. When we pull together our treasures and our songs line up like ducks in a row. To seed and sow, to plant and to mow, bring this garden up in sound.

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