Hillman - Seasonal works with letters on fire

ALSO BY BRENDA HILLMANPOETRYWhite DressFortressDeath TractatesBright ExistenceLoose SugarCascadiaPieces of Air in the EpicPractical WaterCHAPBOOKSCoffee, 3 A.M.Autumn SojournThe FirecageAS EDITORThe Poems of Emily DickinsonThe Grand Permission: New Writings
on Poetics and Motherhood [WITH PATRICIA DIENSTFREY] Writing the Silences: Selected Poems
of Richard O. Moore [WITH PAUL EBENKAMP] SEASONAL WORKS WITH LETTERS ON FIREWESLEYAN POETRY Published by Wesleyan University Press Middletown, CT 06459 Copyright 2013 by Brenda Hillman All rights reserved Library of Congress Control Number: 2013939069 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request Design and composition by Quemadura Printed on acid-free, recycled paper in the United States of America Wesleyan University Press is a member of the Green Press Initiative. The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled stock. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Cover art and design by Quemadura. D. D.

WRIGHT & LYN HEJINIAN TO BOOKSTORES, TO KLM & CC TO THE GROUP READING PROUST IN THE GARDEN TO BAUDELAIRE, MICHAEL O & MICHAEL P TO PARIS, TO NORMA COLE & WALTER BENJAMIN TO POETS IN NORWAY, BERLIN & CHINA TO POETS IN LIBYA, MYANMAR, SEOUL & BRAZIL TO THE SPIRITS AWAKE IN THE NIGHT, TO BODIES TO WOMEN AWAKE IN THE WORLD TO PEOPLE MOANING AT GAS PUMPS, TO THE STUDENTS TO PROTESTING CORPORATE VIOLENCE TO DUST IN FORECLOSED HOUSES, TO FACTS TO MARIE HOWE & BRADLEY MANNING TO HUMANS AT SAINT MARYS, TO THE SQUIRRELS TO PROSE, TO LINDA S & JANE V TO CAL BEDIENT, ANNAH SOBELMAN & THE CATS TO FOOD & THE FUTURE OF POETRY TO CHILDREN LEARNING TO SPELL, TO THE SPELL TO FRAN LERNER & NAN NORENE TO HUMAN & NONHUMAN MEANING, TO LICHEN TO LEON LEARNING TO READ TO THE WARBLERS OF CALIFORNIA, TO BASEBALL TO BOB UPSTAIRS WORKING TO LOVE & THE UNSAYABLE TO THE FIRE IN EVERYTHING CONTENTSI. ON THE MIRACLE OF NAMELESS FEELINGI went out to the hazel woodBecause a fire was in my head W. B. YEATS The Song of Wandering Aengus Hummingbird darted from his perch and stole a spark of fire. He tucked it under his throat and flew directly back home. JULES EVENS Transcription of Where Fire Comes From, a Miwok tale Hoy que en mis ojos brujos hay candelas. [Today the candles burn in my witch eyes.] CSAR VALLEJO Los dados eternos Brenda, it doesnt exist. JACK COLLOM Conversational aside, Naropa ARGUMENT:microseasons, vowels, panicles, California grasses, existence, sex, the cosmos, childhood reading, guilt, noons, letters in summer fruit, autumn equinox, the stalk market, stemming the crisis, termites, winter electricity, the sixties, learning the y, solstice, spirits, wars we hate, motives, Candlemas, margins, spring songs, people with birthdays in May, Tesla, memory loss, deserts, Claudia & Don in the desert, summers in the Sierra, crosses in vineyards, the nineties, parents old age, codex, loops in consonants, drones, the bodys nerves, spoken bird poetry, candles in the witches eyesthese, my love, are made of fireTO SPIRITS OF FIRE AFTER HARVEST Between earth & its noun, i felt a fire What does it mean by i, Mrs? It means, (& i quote): one of the vowels in the brain & some of the yous; we were interested in the type of thing humans cant know, interested in kinds of think animals think a rabbit or a skink! (Eumeces skiltonianus) when autumn brings a grammar, wasps circle the dry stalks & you can totally see through amber ankles dangling in dazzle under our lord the sun of literature Between noon & its noun, there were ridged & golden runes on pumpkins bluish gourdsin the fields (their white eyes lined up inside)Wait a sec. JACK COLLOM Conversational aside, Naropa ARGUMENT:microseasons, vowels, panicles, California grasses, existence, sex, the cosmos, childhood reading, guilt, noons, letters in summer fruit, autumn equinox, the stalk market, stemming the crisis, termites, winter electricity, the sixties, learning the y, solstice, spirits, wars we hate, motives, Candlemas, margins, spring songs, people with birthdays in May, Tesla, memory loss, deserts, Claudia & Don in the desert, summers in the Sierra, crosses in vineyards, the nineties, parents old age, codex, loops in consonants, drones, the bodys nerves, spoken bird poetry, candles in the witches eyesthese, my love, are made of fireTO SPIRITS OF FIRE AFTER HARVEST Between earth & its noun, i felt a fire What does it mean by i, Mrs? It means, (& i quote): one of the vowels in the brain & some of the yous; we were interested in the type of thing humans cant know, interested in kinds of think animals think a rabbit or a skink! (Eumeces skiltonianus) when autumn brings a grammar, wasps circle the dry stalks & you can totally see through amber ankles dangling in dazzle under our lord the sun of literature Between noon & its noun, there were ridged & golden runes on pumpkins bluish gourdsin the fields (their white eyes lined up inside)Wait a sec.

Please dont nail the door shut. The air is friendly & non-existent as Veronicas veil Earth, dont torment your fool, your ambassador clown. Bring the x of oxygen & sex, a fox running sideways, through present noon SOME KINDS OF READING IN CHILDHOOD Do you remember Picture Day? Then, when the packets came back in each childs eyes: incomprehensible fire; you were ordinary, in the sense of: the endangered west; your mother wiped the windshield with a shredded Kleenex (thats why you deserved your oily treats) Inside the school, reading made sparks: peril, peril, peril-&-awe; outside the school, acres of signs in cellophane noon, where under the school, termites take the tasty beams into their bodies [Incisitermes minor] delicate hairless arms Save the volcanoes for later, flame-folder. You did such a good job with the maps! The world has created a sickness but the sickness is being reversed Consonants can be reasoned with, but vowels start firesnow! breathing twice: Now! Here come the bandit occupiers: silence & meaning THE FUEL OF AN INFINITE LIFE You argue with someone at work. The chemical change in your shadow meets the dry grass at the edge of his shadow like an adolescent planning on burning a field, or the love you wanted to have later with another, the memory of what your energy made before he began to speak. It is impossible to discuss anything with your boss because he has consulted the priest & they will never see you again; you stored that in the chamber of geometric symbols, saying to the wings above the granary, there is the fact of the barren stalks, the pharaohs dream of hunger, saying to yourself (a prophetic mute), the hour will come someday for fire until there are years of storing energy in these postures, drawing circles with bones from the nine names & lights that make words into sticks for winnowing the shadows of falsity or ridicule.

Even the world, wide as it is, cannot exhaust the fuel of your life when you are one of the interpreters about to escape from the dream with your archived & flexible heat, trying to keep from hating them at the marketplace, to remember what would transform judgment into action if only you could abandon the gifts as if they were nothing, after you & the pharaohs huts are long gone; the dream will not be idle when it touches the tip of the match to the willing field after the harvest