ENTIRETY

Missive #22 - Transcribed Poetic Dictation

[Today began in silence, in silent gathering with beloved elders in my community. As I dropped more deeply into my tiredness, beginning to nod off, rocking back and forth, this glistening missive arrived in the limbo between this and that. It arrived as a boon to me in that moment, restful and restorative, elegant and cleanly. The heron took off and took me with it, some part of me. This was an easy release. Sometimes, it is easier than anything to entrust what is most precious to us to someone or something barely known yet entirely familiar. And then came the evening, and it was one of heartbreak. A day that is meant to herald dancing became one of mourning, one of anger, dismay. In all of this maelstrom, I offer ENTIRETY to you — may it be a boon, may it be a blessing~ Ex Machina, the movie, is playing in the background; I am not really watching it. The power just went off near the end of the film, and Ava just left her enclosure. Is it a coincidence? Is anything not.] Received 10/7/2023 | ~12pm

Listen to the Recitation:

ENTIRETY
Eternity and Entirety are linked
I am entirely tired, tried and true
Worn and honed, sharpened and bent
Upside over around, inside down
All right angles, hems surgered
To keep my edges from fraying
Straying left and out to dry in the rain
Soaking, soaked through. Time and tides
Have tumbled me smooth, an oval
Egg-like rock, gray granite freckled
With mica, with berrylike garnets
Tiny pomegranates dressed in milky quartz
Frozen veins where blood would flow
Petrified, wooden limbs turned animated
Puppet strings, cut loose and hung up
Drooping, dripping. How can I be dripping
When I’m dried all the way through?
To the bone, to the tendon, to the ligament
Cracking and popping, crinkled and hunched,
Hobbled up in a tiny shining pocket
Of forever-now. Yes, this is entirement.
Attirement and attired, dressed to impress
God, myself, the ocean currents
Tumbling me, to and fro, along against
Others in my pocket, in this pocket,
A pocket beach filled with pebbles
The size of roughly hewn rounded out
Hearts, little unwrapped worthers,
Less than worthless and not quite
Worth more than can be imagined
The sun rises, sending us all into
Reverie, reverential, chilled revenants
In icy covenants, smoke hovering
Haze above the near freezing waters.
It is not as cold as it looks, nor
As cold as it seems. Drop my tumbled
Cube in the cove and watch it expand
Absorbing the love of its depletion and
Letting what has been cold become warm.
The mists clear to reveal a castle in the sky
Reflected in the calm waters as an island
Promised; long promised. Calling to us.
We are calling it to us.
The boat rows over to greet us.
Inside is a long-legged heron, gray
Plumage, glowing blue, silver, gold
Periwinkle eyes, the isles of Avalon
Luminous swirls of mica, purplescent
With glittering pearl, clouds masking
10,000 layers of infinitely thin pigment
Revealing themselves one at a time, in order
So as to be appreciated. I am lost in
The labyrinth of their wonder, following
The plays of light as they bend, curving,
No right angles — the circle cannot be
Squared. I allow myself to get lost in
What is in front of me. I tumble into the boat
I have no legs to step with. I have no way to sit
Down, I land regardless, in the bottom of the
Boat, joining others as ballast, rocking
Gently, to and fro, the heron’s gaze
Is a lullaby, crafted meticulously for
Me, to ease myself down, to drop away
My unfrayed hems, to melt through my
Own operation table. I do not need another
Surgery. There is no replacement. There is nothing
To fix. I let myself go, into the next
Layer of the Heron’s swirling eyes, layers
Undoing themselves, undoing me, until
I am all undone and there is nothing left
To undo. The boat makes its way back
To the hidden island, to the floating castle
Of mist, no longer a mystery
And I, no longer a mystic
And I, no longer a rock balanced
Between land and sea, between tides
The heron’s eyes close, and I
Am closed with them, wrapped
Entired and entombed. This tomb too
Is empty. Hell has been harrowed.
There is no one left. There is nowhere
To return to, triumphant. We
Unfurl into eternity, our home and unhiding
Place. My stone becomes a foundation
Rock in the celestial castle before me
I wake in the chamber, a soft bed
Beneath me. Here,
I am alone.
For all the world, alone.
At rest, at last.
I sit up and see, out the arched
Stone window, the ferrier heron take off
And vanish, up, into the gray sky.

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Peder Balke, The Mountain Range 'Trolltindene' (ca. 1845)