Joseph Donahue
WIND MAP VII
~
minor lives
Only by
imagining this
beach can she sleep
be again small
in tall grass where
the Wright brothers first flew . . .
~
The defeats of day
arrive in ranks at dawn
High in the sky, imperceptible
Recompense awaits as well
It will drift down
It will find her
though she may
not see it for what it is
*
Seraphic flutter
slightly faster than
—suddenly—her heart
Imagined stroll Glowing
yellow forest
white dust path
dropping to water’s
edge where
the bow of a boat
curves up out of the sand
*
Half-buried boat
now her brothers are there
boys again they climb on it
She can feel their mother watching
from the crest of a dune
hidden by the grasses
The mother is alone and full of delight
watching her children play
(Suspicion, however, is not
misplaced as to the
ontological status
of the figures
in this vision)
*
She’s lying in bed, lonely and alone
as a thought begins to form
in her that will not
be complete for years,
the thought of a voice
that can say:
*
“You are not lost
a light has found you
Jesus, who sent the light
hears how you suffer
he reaches to you across
an immense distance.
This light is also
within you
Its warmth tells of
a tenderness,
of a sign, a promise
in the ever-deepening
abyss of what may still
appear to you as
your
abandonment”
~
These pages fly free
bright and blank
toward mountains of metallic flakes
residue of a universal fire
Snow patches
here and there
Every year, incredulity
Where have the birds been?
The guard has not yet opened up the clinic
Cold cloud of fog
A mile from the iceberg
the ship drops anchor
the artist sets his easel on the floe
paint treated not to freeze
You were enlisted long ago in what
could be said to be
a prototype of
a policy the government
now calls
Maximum Disruption
They send you as far from home
as possible and give you
a job you hate
The last of the leaves are so pale
from a distance they could be
blossoms on an island
in the polar north
Were a kiss to resemble them
it could never be forgotten
in just one lifetime
Warmth of
that girl’s mouth in the tumbling snow along a trail
Later, she wiped the extra jam
onto her bare knee
apricot glister
Next door an argument
welfare mothers in Switzerland
(It seemed to have a personal subtext)
Rum radiates through the cake
So, in earlier times, the soul
broke in waves
through the body
A greater life never known till now
this nibble, this bite,
this slice of an old recipe
(in the minds of the settlers this was heaven)
this gift baked, covered, and carried
through a cold night still warm
into our time and place
The trees are all bare
High in a dry tangle a crow
Grey, overcast morning
Falling flakes dissolve midair
meant only, it would seem,
to revive surprise
This after a night on a cot in a barn
by the stall of a failing horse
A cry for a mode of being that had never existed
had gone up from
holes and trenches and pits
soon to be hidden in mist rolling down a hill
A thief in the night took away my words
Did I fall asleep and leave the door unlocked?
Some words I have no doubt already spoken again
certainly those with which I curse the thief
Others will never come back
I feel like weeping for this loss
I am too old to appear this foolish
yet here I indisputably am
Considering how a century from now
what we celebrate as enlightened and liberating
will appear as oppressive . . .
We will achieve in the esteem of our descendants
the moral heights of slave traders
or sadistically minded asylum attendants
burying a body after a mishap
But yesterday at the home of the home-birth advocates
it was like the rural Texas of my childhood
Baby goats sprang up onto the kitchen counter
The government provided basic services
It was a level of perfection
I wish I could fold it
in a card and send it to you
wherever in nonexistence you are
(Things do end badly for some
Others are rewarded beyond measure
All of life is under a spell)
A ball of fire is crossing the sky
Who can say what else might not be occurring?
Our bodies felt vulgar, our speech, disgraceful
A girl flared all else stopped
“A great force maintains
the tyranny of the apparent,”
she explained, “but this is because
what is kept hidden
so powerfully contradicts
what now seems to be
Hopelessness
makes no sense
For the really real to come to be
our thought must move
like a brushstroke
through waves of color
When the trees sway
it’s true, the wind could be
coming from
anywhere
but that will be less
catastrophic
when Athens and Jerusalem live
again in our hearts”
~
Of ways to arrange
the intelligible order
one is in regard to dolphins
*
The sound they send out
through the water brings to the minds of
dolphins not present
the image of what the
one sounding,
far off, has seen
*
The size and shape, say,
of an approaching predator
*
The sound does not
encode information
Our mistake is to think of
syntax and symbols
These are embellishments
upon what our ears and throats do
*
Language will
never reveal itself as
a trans-species occurrence
until the brain of the
dolphin has been wired
*
Until we see the consequence
of their hearing
see what the dolphins see
within themselves
*
The first volume of my autobiography
will be called Didn’t The second: Not This Either
In both, dreams will be a truer life no
image has ever rendered
*
Hexagram 24 comes close
after the terror of hexagram 23
—the roof falling in
—no one can be trusted
Outliving another shuffle of the sticks
seems impossible
—your house will be destroyed
—you will not be
remembered
*
Who once
started a company
charmed investors
kept lawyers on standby
in advance of patent infringement
A small room, eight
or ten screens ringing the walls
nothing yet invented
*
The world cries out for so much
*
An app, for example,
that tells corporations
it’s time to die
that finds a way to whisper
“You are holding on
entirely though litigation
through stopping others
through dread
of the innovation
that will end you”
*
This is the hell of hexagram 23
—the flow of disquiet this time of year
—such troubles as you have had
are continuing to have
*
(You asked me
to check out, at night,
an armload of books for you
and I did, they were all
books of philosophy
among them Bishop Berkeley
Our love deepened even more
as I carried out into the night
into the depth of our secret bond
armloads of philosophy
contemplating
your beauty anew
just as you contemplate
philosophy
your love of wisdom
so great you risked
contacting me
deep in the
dreariness of day
knowing not until night
could I slip free in a dream)
*
(Now may the delight of your own thought take its place
in the history of the world!)
*
Hexagram 24 can be felt
—the roof of the house has fallen in
—who persevere are destroyed
—the best is: do nothing
—the season will support no action,
not until the turning of the
sky’s tide of light and warmth
*
As if the return of the light
had never before been considered
could not until now be held to be possible
Excitement in the heights of the sky
*
Is there, in the ocean, an exact
point where the turning of the tide begins?
Waves tipping one way
tip another
one direction becomes
an impossibility
a reversal stirs
This exact point
must be known by now
Surely a dolphin can sense it
Its cry alerts the others
Far away they hear
the exact modulation
They feel the turning just
before it happens
in the most isolate places
as amid the distractions of
the most populous seas
Even in Atlantis
the dolphins sense
a distant turning
*
Prepare for the rule of hexagram 24
wrecked roof
=
foundation
*
The mind is a flash of
pertinent data
arriving over a distance
The mind receives what in only
a loose sense could be called word
scenes filling my head
stuff others seem to know
Perhaps information comes through the skin
Perhaps right now a wave,
a message, a message
in the shape of a wave
pulses over and through me
*
Someday results from
a supercollider will confirm this
*
After all, there is no evidence
until there is a theory
and no theory can develop
until death and dreams
and inconsolable weeping
have brought you to the point where
friends are concerned about your “state of mind”
*
Feeling as you do a great joy
this could happen again
*
It’s cool and bright on the sidewalks
Some shops are open, some are not
*
Waking, you thought you had dreamed of
the weekend on a weekday
but the dream is correct
this is still the weekend
close now to the moment of
light’s greatest purity
past the gnarl of a distant tree
*
It is well known that dreams during solstice
are particularly limpid
open as they are to light from
beyond the sun
*
(But for those in a forest what other
religion is there save one
derived from shadows
where the sun is stopped
from doing what it is good at?)
*
A way of thinking was
established long ago
You feel you can almost remember when
thought arrived in a certain way
Certain thoughts came
others, not
The flutter of thoughts not
meant for you
passing through you
on the way to other minds
minds where there are or might be
words to bring
the thought into being
a certain kind
of being
And of thoughts that are
done with minds
passing through almost entirely unthought
save for the flutter sudden alertness
Within a current
a presence has come close
that in this lifetime
given the limits of your
intelligence, of your discernment, of
your character, of your heart
will not be
disclosed to you
only the flutter of its passing
only the feelings of
a vibration slipping through you
that will make sense to others
better suited, elsewhere
Yet you have felt it
the presence of thoughts
not destined for you
at the edge of what thoughts are yours
those, that is, which will stop
occurring when you die
You feel a bit bad
that you are excluded
exiled, unworthy
a knight not shone the Grail
But it is also so joyful
the experience of
the limit of thought,
the intimation of what is
not thought
and not yet thought is
in fact, ecstatic
~
minor lives
Only by
imagining this
beach can she sleep
be again small
in tall grass where
the Wright brothers first flew . . .
~
The defeats of day
arrive in ranks at dawn
High in the sky, imperceptible
Recompense awaits as well
It will drift down
It will find her
though she may
not see it for what it is
*
Seraphic flutter
slightly faster than
—suddenly—her heart
Imagined stroll Glowing
yellow forest
white dust path
dropping to water’s
edge where
the bow of a boat
curves up out of the sand
*
Half-buried boat
now her brothers are there
boys again they climb on it
She can feel their mother watching
from the crest of a dune
hidden by the grasses
The mother is alone and full of delight
watching her children play
(Suspicion, however, is not
misplaced as to the
ontological status
of the figures
in this vision)
*
She’s lying in bed, lonely and alone
as a thought begins to form
in her that will not
be complete for years,
the thought of a voice
that can say:
*
“You are not lost
a light has found you
Jesus, who sent the light
hears how you suffer
he reaches to you across
an immense distance.
This light is also
within you
Its warmth tells of
a tenderness,
of a sign, a promise
in the ever-deepening
abyss of what may still
appear to you as
your
abandonment”
~
These pages fly free
bright and blank
toward mountains of metallic flakes
residue of a universal fire
Snow patches
here and there
Every year, incredulity
Where have the birds been?
The guard has not yet opened up the clinic
Cold cloud of fog
A mile from the iceberg
the ship drops anchor
the artist sets his easel on the floe
paint treated not to freeze
You were enlisted long ago in what
could be said to be
a prototype of
a policy the government
now calls
Maximum Disruption
They send you as far from home
as possible and give you
a job you hate
The last of the leaves are so pale
from a distance they could be
blossoms on an island
in the polar north
Were a kiss to resemble them
it could never be forgotten
in just one lifetime
Warmth of
that girl’s mouth in the tumbling snow along a trail
Later, she wiped the extra jam
onto her bare knee
apricot glister
Next door an argument
welfare mothers in Switzerland
(It seemed to have a personal subtext)
Rum radiates through the cake
So, in earlier times, the soul
broke in waves
through the body
A greater life never known till now
this nibble, this bite,
this slice of an old recipe
(in the minds of the settlers this was heaven)
this gift baked, covered, and carried
through a cold night still warm
into our time and place
The trees are all bare
High in a dry tangle a crow
Grey, overcast morning
Falling flakes dissolve midair
meant only, it would seem,
to revive surprise
This after a night on a cot in a barn
by the stall of a failing horse
A cry for a mode of being that had never existed
had gone up from
holes and trenches and pits
soon to be hidden in mist rolling down a hill
A thief in the night took away my words
Did I fall asleep and leave the door unlocked?
Some words I have no doubt already spoken again
certainly those with which I curse the thief
Others will never come back
I feel like weeping for this loss
I am too old to appear this foolish
yet here I indisputably am
Considering how a century from now
what we celebrate as enlightened and liberating
will appear as oppressive . . .
We will achieve in the esteem of our descendants
the moral heights of slave traders
or sadistically minded asylum attendants
burying a body after a mishap
But yesterday at the home of the home-birth advocates
it was like the rural Texas of my childhood
Baby goats sprang up onto the kitchen counter
The government provided basic services
It was a level of perfection
I wish I could fold it
in a card and send it to you
wherever in nonexistence you are
(Things do end badly for some
Others are rewarded beyond measure
All of life is under a spell)
A ball of fire is crossing the sky
Who can say what else might not be occurring?
Our bodies felt vulgar, our speech, disgraceful
A girl flared all else stopped
“A great force maintains
the tyranny of the apparent,”
she explained, “but this is because
what is kept hidden
so powerfully contradicts
what now seems to be
Hopelessness
makes no sense
For the really real to come to be
our thought must move
like a brushstroke
through waves of color
When the trees sway
it’s true, the wind could be
coming from
anywhere
but that will be less
catastrophic
when Athens and Jerusalem live
again in our hearts”
~
Of ways to arrange
the intelligible order
one is in regard to dolphins
*
The sound they send out
through the water brings to the minds of
dolphins not present
the image of what the
one sounding,
far off, has seen
*
The size and shape, say,
of an approaching predator
*
The sound does not
encode information
Our mistake is to think of
syntax and symbols
These are embellishments
upon what our ears and throats do
*
Language will
never reveal itself as
a trans-species occurrence
until the brain of the
dolphin has been wired
*
Until we see the consequence
of their hearing
see what the dolphins see
within themselves
*
The first volume of my autobiography
will be called Didn’t The second: Not This Either
In both, dreams will be a truer life no
image has ever rendered
*
Hexagram 24 comes close
after the terror of hexagram 23
—the roof falling in
—no one can be trusted
Outliving another shuffle of the sticks
seems impossible
—your house will be destroyed
—you will not be
remembered
*
Who once
started a company
charmed investors
kept lawyers on standby
in advance of patent infringement
A small room, eight
or ten screens ringing the walls
nothing yet invented
*
The world cries out for so much
*
An app, for example,
that tells corporations
it’s time to die
that finds a way to whisper
“You are holding on
entirely though litigation
through stopping others
through dread
of the innovation
that will end you”
*
This is the hell of hexagram 23
—the flow of disquiet this time of year
—such troubles as you have had
are continuing to have
*
(You asked me
to check out, at night,
an armload of books for you
and I did, they were all
books of philosophy
among them Bishop Berkeley
Our love deepened even more
as I carried out into the night
into the depth of our secret bond
armloads of philosophy
contemplating
your beauty anew
just as you contemplate
philosophy
your love of wisdom
so great you risked
contacting me
deep in the
dreariness of day
knowing not until night
could I slip free in a dream)
*
(Now may the delight of your own thought take its place
in the history of the world!)
*
Hexagram 24 can be felt
—the roof of the house has fallen in
—who persevere are destroyed
—the best is: do nothing
—the season will support no action,
not until the turning of the
sky’s tide of light and warmth
*
As if the return of the light
had never before been considered
could not until now be held to be possible
Excitement in the heights of the sky
*
Is there, in the ocean, an exact
point where the turning of the tide begins?
Waves tipping one way
tip another
one direction becomes
an impossibility
a reversal stirs
This exact point
must be known by now
Surely a dolphin can sense it
Its cry alerts the others
Far away they hear
the exact modulation
They feel the turning just
before it happens
in the most isolate places
as amid the distractions of
the most populous seas
Even in Atlantis
the dolphins sense
a distant turning
*
Prepare for the rule of hexagram 24
wrecked roof
=
foundation
*
The mind is a flash of
pertinent data
arriving over a distance
The mind receives what in only
a loose sense could be called word
scenes filling my head
stuff others seem to know
Perhaps information comes through the skin
Perhaps right now a wave,
a message, a message
in the shape of a wave
pulses over and through me
*
Someday results from
a supercollider will confirm this
*
After all, there is no evidence
until there is a theory
and no theory can develop
until death and dreams
and inconsolable weeping
have brought you to the point where
friends are concerned about your “state of mind”
*
Feeling as you do a great joy
this could happen again
*
It’s cool and bright on the sidewalks
Some shops are open, some are not
*
Waking, you thought you had dreamed of
the weekend on a weekday
but the dream is correct
this is still the weekend
close now to the moment of
light’s greatest purity
past the gnarl of a distant tree
*
It is well known that dreams during solstice
are particularly limpid
open as they are to light from
beyond the sun
*
(But for those in a forest what other
religion is there save one
derived from shadows
where the sun is stopped
from doing what it is good at?)
*
A way of thinking was
established long ago
You feel you can almost remember when
thought arrived in a certain way
Certain thoughts came
others, not
The flutter of thoughts not
meant for you
passing through you
on the way to other minds
minds where there are or might be
words to bring
the thought into being
a certain kind
of being
And of thoughts that are
done with minds
passing through almost entirely unthought
save for the flutter sudden alertness
Within a current
a presence has come close
that in this lifetime
given the limits of your
intelligence, of your discernment, of
your character, of your heart
will not be
disclosed to you
only the flutter of its passing
only the feelings of
a vibration slipping through you
that will make sense to others
better suited, elsewhere
Yet you have felt it
the presence of thoughts
not destined for you
at the edge of what thoughts are yours
those, that is, which will stop
occurring when you die
You feel a bit bad
that you are excluded
exiled, unworthy
a knight not shone the Grail
But it is also so joyful
the experience of
the limit of thought,
the intimation of what is
not thought
and not yet thought is
in fact, ecstatic