When we couldn't find an open window
When we couldn't find an open window, we decided to climb back up the mountain to retrieve our knives, our style. But our maps were covered with typographical errors: Kenya was Cain, Albania Abel. And the mapmakers hiding in the woods, clutching copies of the Dead Sea Scrolls, wondered what to do with Montana. Moses? It was enough to exhaust our emotional reserves.
Our wine cellars, too. Even the creek had run dry, despite the warning signs posted near the poisoned spring. We were tempted to set fire to the withered grass, then steal the rolls of barbed wire the fencing company had left at the foot of the mountain. Better to stake out our domain (dusk and daybreak) in the Kingdom of Chance than follow signs corresponding to patters of belief we no longer understood. For it was too late to mount another expedition to the Black Sea.
We were of two minds: either to discover a cure for lockjaw or to learn sign language. Are these the Balkan Mountains , we sang to frighten the mapmakers. Or are we on our way to Babylon ? Our tongues burned, and the blacksmith's tongs hissed at the snakes sunning themselves by the creek. Windows closed around us, like dancers circling a virgin prepared for sacrifice — the naked woman twisting on a litter of teak, eyes fixed on the alter and the glinting knives of the priests ...
Then we remembered the museum guard's warning not to return the wine and ancient texts we had stolen from for the mapmakers. But he had said nothing about the library sending us truckloads of books — so many books we had to abandon our houses and flee to the caves in which the hermits, the Great Invisibles, wrote their testaments to the beyond. Are these the Bitterroots ? we cried. Or are we lost in Bathsheba's tent ? We would have moved into the trees, if we hadn't cut them down to smoke out that feverish band of men fingering compasses, parchment, and stones.
With too many books to read or burn, we could neither quench our thirst nor find the trail to the summit. The sign for father was impossible to learn. Likewise love : a fence to approach with care, a land called Lot on our maps, the makers of which would turn to salt even before we looked and looked our empty gaze away. Only tongs would open our mouths and windows now. And the blacksmith, the holy blacksmith was gone. Snakes coiled, like the woman writhing on the altar.
*****
America? A world of swindling possibilities! the saint preached in the church ruins, in his sermon to the Great Invisibles. His voice rang out over the mud walls and arches crumbling into saltbush: Only the ghosts of the gold diggers know what I mean! He fell to his knees, clutching a pair of scales with which to weigh the nuggets of spirit unearthed by the flash flood that carried away the altar, pews, and gold panners. His benediction? Be fitful and moribund . Then he dismissed the congregation he couldn't see — the higher beings who believed he was either a may-fly or a whale. They left without a word. And when he climbed the mountain back of the ruins, praying for a vision of paradise, he saw a train outrun its tracks and sink into the desert sand.
We had run aground in a schooner named Necessity . And so close to shore! Our charts and compasses were useless; our flags sailed off in a gust of wind; our only signal flares were words. Yet they lit up the sky — at least those dark reaches that might contain ideas like liberty and luck . We wouldn't find a way off the reef, and although waves were battering the ship, splintering the unity that we had found in the course of our travels, still we had hope; a white flag to raise at daybreak, a message in a bottle for the scribe sewing his mouth shut at the bottom of the river.
Thieves swept though the foothills, the same men who had campaigned against canonization of the great auk and gray wolf. They planned to loot the train carrying our dwindling resources: weed seeds, leashes, iron bars to drape across our windows. The engineers and passengers had fled. Who could pass up the chance to spend forty days wandering in the desert or out at sea? Not the saint, nor the thieves, nor even the navigator who fell asleep at our cry of Land !
Temptations everywhere: adders to set loose at the feast that the natives prepared for us, cacti to send to the rain forest, fences to build around The Pharmacy of God . Railroad ties smoldered. Smoke laced with creosote engulfed us, preserving our vision of ourselves, even as we floated out to sea, clinging to pieces of the deck — the ship was gone. But we could see the mountain where the saint was counting the Great Invisibles assembling among the thieves. The sky was ablaze with signs that no one could decipher. Discovery was the word burning the tips of our tongues. We learned it from the gold panners, not the messenger stitching memory up with words like faith and father .
*****
What feathers song? the saint asked, measuring the height and width of the waterfall, the volcanic cataract the thieves diverted every night into the abandoned spa, where the Great Invisibles held court among the bathers. Farther along the ledge, at the entrance to the cave famous for the visions granted to its inhabitants, a woman picked through the bones of the hermits who inspired the saint to fast in spring. What fathers our delight ? he said aloud. The woman looked away.
The mines were boarded up. Flocks of canaries circled the geysers in the slag heaps lining the mountain. The miners' ghosts prayed for another Annunciation, an avalanche — anything to save the coach of the company football team, the driller who had lost his voice and memory in the last explosion. The spray from the waterfall didn't scald the saint; absolution was out of the question. He might have been taking measurements for a bridal gown or a set of widow's weeds.
Steam and nooses everywhere, and no one to hide behind, no dress to tug or tar and feather. Silver bracelets kept disappearing from the shops. The only gold was blue — the sky, not the water draining from the locks behind the stadium, water mixed with white paint. The barge stuck in the canal, loaded with hymnals for the pilgrims marching up the mountain, resembled an iceberg. Of course the nooses melted; the steam was useful only to a stamp collector who sent letters to the dead. And the widow? She wore a turquoise dress two sizes too big for the woman who trained the canaries. She was searching the spa for the silversmith who had disappeared in the desert.
In a geyser the saint heard ghosts counting silver and the saved. The waterfall was tall enough to house a miracle and wider than the future. What would be announced? Departure times for the missing miners: they never smelled the gas collecting in the chute. Birdcages floated downstream, whitened by the paint. A yellow dress hung from the ledge above the saint. Angel , he chanted.
The last prospectors built a fire under the gallows-tree, when the thieves forced water into the earth, poisoning the stream. Nothing could change the widow's mind about wearing a tourniquet to the evening service, not even the coach's frantic signals. Snow clouds gathered. Slag covered the new field in the stadium. All the fathers would be there tonight, all the sons. Singing.
Our wine cellars, too. Even the creek had run dry, despite the warning signs posted near the poisoned spring. We were tempted to set fire to the withered grass, then steal the rolls of barbed wire the fencing company had left at the foot of the mountain. Better to stake out our domain (dusk and daybreak) in the Kingdom of Chance than follow signs corresponding to patters of belief we no longer understood. For it was too late to mount another expedition to the Black Sea.
We were of two minds: either to discover a cure for lockjaw or to learn sign language. Are these the Balkan Mountains , we sang to frighten the mapmakers. Or are we on our way to Babylon ? Our tongues burned, and the blacksmith's tongs hissed at the snakes sunning themselves by the creek. Windows closed around us, like dancers circling a virgin prepared for sacrifice — the naked woman twisting on a litter of teak, eyes fixed on the alter and the glinting knives of the priests ...
Then we remembered the museum guard's warning not to return the wine and ancient texts we had stolen from for the mapmakers. But he had said nothing about the library sending us truckloads of books — so many books we had to abandon our houses and flee to the caves in which the hermits, the Great Invisibles, wrote their testaments to the beyond. Are these the Bitterroots ? we cried. Or are we lost in Bathsheba's tent ? We would have moved into the trees, if we hadn't cut them down to smoke out that feverish band of men fingering compasses, parchment, and stones.
With too many books to read or burn, we could neither quench our thirst nor find the trail to the summit. The sign for father was impossible to learn. Likewise love : a fence to approach with care, a land called Lot on our maps, the makers of which would turn to salt even before we looked and looked our empty gaze away. Only tongs would open our mouths and windows now. And the blacksmith, the holy blacksmith was gone. Snakes coiled, like the woman writhing on the altar.
*****
America? A world of swindling possibilities! the saint preached in the church ruins, in his sermon to the Great Invisibles. His voice rang out over the mud walls and arches crumbling into saltbush: Only the ghosts of the gold diggers know what I mean! He fell to his knees, clutching a pair of scales with which to weigh the nuggets of spirit unearthed by the flash flood that carried away the altar, pews, and gold panners. His benediction? Be fitful and moribund . Then he dismissed the congregation he couldn't see — the higher beings who believed he was either a may-fly or a whale. They left without a word. And when he climbed the mountain back of the ruins, praying for a vision of paradise, he saw a train outrun its tracks and sink into the desert sand.
We had run aground in a schooner named Necessity . And so close to shore! Our charts and compasses were useless; our flags sailed off in a gust of wind; our only signal flares were words. Yet they lit up the sky — at least those dark reaches that might contain ideas like liberty and luck . We wouldn't find a way off the reef, and although waves were battering the ship, splintering the unity that we had found in the course of our travels, still we had hope; a white flag to raise at daybreak, a message in a bottle for the scribe sewing his mouth shut at the bottom of the river.
Thieves swept though the foothills, the same men who had campaigned against canonization of the great auk and gray wolf. They planned to loot the train carrying our dwindling resources: weed seeds, leashes, iron bars to drape across our windows. The engineers and passengers had fled. Who could pass up the chance to spend forty days wandering in the desert or out at sea? Not the saint, nor the thieves, nor even the navigator who fell asleep at our cry of Land !
Temptations everywhere: adders to set loose at the feast that the natives prepared for us, cacti to send to the rain forest, fences to build around The Pharmacy of God . Railroad ties smoldered. Smoke laced with creosote engulfed us, preserving our vision of ourselves, even as we floated out to sea, clinging to pieces of the deck — the ship was gone. But we could see the mountain where the saint was counting the Great Invisibles assembling among the thieves. The sky was ablaze with signs that no one could decipher. Discovery was the word burning the tips of our tongues. We learned it from the gold panners, not the messenger stitching memory up with words like faith and father .
*****
What feathers song? the saint asked, measuring the height and width of the waterfall, the volcanic cataract the thieves diverted every night into the abandoned spa, where the Great Invisibles held court among the bathers. Farther along the ledge, at the entrance to the cave famous for the visions granted to its inhabitants, a woman picked through the bones of the hermits who inspired the saint to fast in spring. What fathers our delight ? he said aloud. The woman looked away.
The mines were boarded up. Flocks of canaries circled the geysers in the slag heaps lining the mountain. The miners' ghosts prayed for another Annunciation, an avalanche — anything to save the coach of the company football team, the driller who had lost his voice and memory in the last explosion. The spray from the waterfall didn't scald the saint; absolution was out of the question. He might have been taking measurements for a bridal gown or a set of widow's weeds.
Steam and nooses everywhere, and no one to hide behind, no dress to tug or tar and feather. Silver bracelets kept disappearing from the shops. The only gold was blue — the sky, not the water draining from the locks behind the stadium, water mixed with white paint. The barge stuck in the canal, loaded with hymnals for the pilgrims marching up the mountain, resembled an iceberg. Of course the nooses melted; the steam was useful only to a stamp collector who sent letters to the dead. And the widow? She wore a turquoise dress two sizes too big for the woman who trained the canaries. She was searching the spa for the silversmith who had disappeared in the desert.
In a geyser the saint heard ghosts counting silver and the saved. The waterfall was tall enough to house a miracle and wider than the future. What would be announced? Departure times for the missing miners: they never smelled the gas collecting in the chute. Birdcages floated downstream, whitened by the paint. A yellow dress hung from the ledge above the saint. Angel , he chanted.
The last prospectors built a fire under the gallows-tree, when the thieves forced water into the earth, poisoning the stream. Nothing could change the widow's mind about wearing a tourniquet to the evening service, not even the coach's frantic signals. Snow clouds gathered. Slag covered the new field in the stadium. All the fathers would be there tonight, all the sons. Singing.
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