FRANCK ANDRÉ JAMMEThe downpour, in the garden, had stopped falling. They were still there,
unperturbed:
—What do you think would be best now?To be honest, I’m really not sure.
—michael tweed
The Recitation of Forgetting
Eyes, then a mouth. And spots, suddenly, that cloud this face, soon the sky
was pitted with gold flies. I wrestled, she felt it, she said: ‘‘If, ultimately, nothing
appears nor disappears? Everything sees, everything speaks.’’
I breathed out, I didn’t know any more, I breathed out. I advanced toward the
core of strength, that was all. ‘‘You’ll see a doorway some day,’’ she said. ‘‘Your
disobedience, needle in the world’s blood; your will, almost a desire.’’
Road of the east, stony, that climbs and exacts! Up there, the hermit kept
watch over the pass, she knew his story. That he came from the northern pla-
teaus, from the country where the eagle’s down curls on the hat; that he brought
to life the drum skins and the old song. He had stuck out his native tongue at her,
one evening: ‘‘It’s without any support that one utters. Everything comes to pass
through enchantment.’’
She said: ‘‘You abandon yourself and you observe a few moments of silence.
Listen, you’re breathing. Sometimes you graze the root—barely, I know, but I’ve
already seen it tremble. There is nothing behind things, there are only things.
Which multiply, still, and indefinitely. So?’’
And I wondered: ‘‘What are you doing there, on this highway, your face in
your hand—that is muddled with its own footsteps, pushes a stone, like that, then
pushes another. While a single red line, against the earth’s ocher. Sleeping wall of
energy and blood, of fear and force. Other trials. Did you find yourself, child?
Did you lose yourself?’’
—john ashbery
Often You Come
Often you come with your bird on your wrist. That is, it would seem so. You
come and you wait. He doesn’t resemble you, loses patience quickly, scratches the
glove of his master, starts to sink his claws in. When he grows too nervous under