Philip J. Wagner
On The Day The World Was Born
....it was in that long, mean time
when the woman they call the cook of Old World kitchen
stirred the pot. Time was not yet born, but her time came
and she called out for Spring
and Spring came, stabbed her open, ripped the buttons off the sky
and buried them in the earth, then Spring
tore the old woman in half again: split the earth with ragged spikes of silver rivers,
plunged red tipped spears into the black, black
space above and the green sea below.
A chorus sang in the new born sky, called the sharp spears, God,
what we call, Twilight Time, and the cook of the Old World kitchen
called, the world. And it was good,
what we now call North Africa, the first day of Spring
the day the world was born the day the cook
lifted the great iron lid, to let the air rush in into the white
white steam, fill rain with fragrance, weave strands into waterfalls
and let them tumble down and down again, trigger wind,
dust pollen on the wings of stinging bees busy making honey already
over the heads of a man and woman born making love
under an apple tree.
But be careful, it’s her time come again, but this time,
the cook of the Old World kitchen is in front of her mirror
twisting her hair
winding up the wind, tattooing tears on her cheeks
and petting a red bone dragon that snakes up her back.
You know and I know, the kings can never be strong enough.
We know better. We can read the signs:
North Africa is a desert. The world is merchandise.
We read the heat of her rage that melts ice,
see her cheeks swell with blue tears
and hear that sucking sound
of water shifting. We hear the vacuum, a hollow silence just off the shore of every poem.
that odd wind before a tidal wave, the storm warning red flag
with a black square in the center of every poem. No one hears
language dying
a wind with no compass, a poet trying to see with sun-burned eyes
and words.
Listen. Only icons speak
but not for long
being for sale, the poet is drowning
every edge blurs
even the shards of red and black glass in the veins of his poems
dull, his lines leak and loose pressure,
his words hemorrhage, fail their destination. It’s the language
of the Old World, dying
unrequited.
On the day this world was born
the Old World whispered something, and went silent.
Did minarets sound and men everywhere kneel on the shoreline at sunset?
Let this be prayer
lie face down in the leaves and dream.
What we want sways back and forth
between the scattered relics on the battlefield : like grass,
and twilight - which lie where they fall
and step over the thin line of the black threshold
and come back.
So it is - that coming and going,
my prayer: sound and rhythm trying to find the language
to listen for what the old woman said.
Bio:
Philip Wagner has been published in 27 smaller poetry magazines. He's a poetry teacher in Santa Cruz County Mental Health and co-founder of the seminal group Poetry Santa Cruz.
