Lay of the Land

I. LANDMARKS

Odysseus knew he was home when
The earth rose up into
The shape of a hill

And a clutch of olive trees
Twisted their silver limbs
Into a broken net

He felt the wind
Reach the skin of his back
Through its mesh

The impression of
Their knotted roots
On his bare feet.

It was the first
Return to Ithaca,
The bloodless one.

Topography means
Little to me--
It's all street names

And exit signs
I live, and I travel
On paper. I have never said,

"I know every turn
Of this path, every stone,
The grass remembers me;
I could walk it blindfolded."

II. LEVEL AND LINE

But of course to you
It's not a mystery;
The science of trusting

The outer and inner ear,
The rise and fall,
The death of the echo.

You for whom "north"
Still has meaning,
You with your compass

And balance, plotting
The corners, charting
The strength of the wind--

Is there a point
When you begin to remember
The earth? When you know

To lean in, to step wide,
For the incline,
The soft spot?

How long is it before
The stubborn soil
Of an unfriendly place

Begins to tell you
What you need
To know?

III. TECTONIC SHIFT

Romanticization;
of course.
What do I know

Only what I learned
From pretending I could
Still navigate.

When I was nineteen
The earth heaved
Beneath me;

Shook out its surface
Like a blanket,
And laid it back down.

Suddenly alone
On the Z axis,
Popped from the grid,

An empty wind blowing
In the space above
The encrypted parchment.

I gave myself headaches
When I went back,
Trying to read it.

So in the polar air,
I learned the art
Of embodiment,

How to take space,
How to move through
The third kingdom

As somewhere, for you
The light
Was going out, slowly

And within your
Contractile space
You negotiated shadow.

IV. HIC SUNT DRACONES

We long ago came to our separate
Ends of this many-ended
World, and discovered

Things were different, but
That the rumors were
Greatly exaggerated.

My siren was not
The least interested
In driving me mad;

And when the sun
Stopped rising, you found
It was still quite warm

That, defeated in darkness,
The shadows no longer
Kept knowledge from you.

V. RETURN VOYAGE

But however the new
Map is drawn, it must still
Have limits

And nothing prepared you
For leaving this place
That you learned so hard

To travel back
Into lost memory
Toward him.

And from the set of your jaw
As you enter the blank waters
With pilot and charts,

I--think--I can see
The question--*How will I know
When I'm home?*

All I can wish you
From my safe harbor
Is a smooth crossing,

A landfall on
A generous shore
In good weather

And a quick learning,
A swift map
Of the new old world.

So, sitting here
Working out
What to say
From--no, I don't
Even know
How far away--
(And what could
Geography,
Distance, mean
Anyhow
Here inside
The machine)

So, choking down
Loss like a
Bitter seed,
You know as I
Do, words aren't
What you need--
And wanting to
Do more than
Language can
I hate that here
Language is
All I am--

A header, dark
Blots in a
Bluish sheen--
A text that looks
Different on
Every screen,
Weightless, a
Footfall that
Makes no noise,
A hug you
Can't feel, speech
WIthout a voice--

So what am I--
Pixils,
Light and air--
Still, if, wraith
That I am, you
Can tell I care--

Well, could we
Say this means
No one is gone--
What are we,
Or what else
Is logging on
But faith, acts
Of trust in what
We can't see;
Proof, for what
It's worth, of other
Ways to be--

That heartbeat
and pulse don't
define "survive,"
That in the flesh
Need not be how
We stay alive?

Cold comfort,
Now when you
Can only feel
The sharp sting,
The loss of
The breathing real.
So what do
I mean--well,
It's not clear--
Whatever good
It does, know--
I'm out here.