sw00068rs-s1poem5

 Rooted Sky 2007
 -
                                       I.  Inhabiting the Air

Revealing the Source


Words
put one off
for hours sometimes;
sometimes,
           for years.

Take, for instance,
"culture".
            No flag
can really
give it form;
no flaunted skill
or costume.
Even if one
would see
          beyond
his own
language,
ripe and full,
he could not
hold it.

To jostle
such a word
from the imperium of mind
to the stability of rock
or, even, of skin,
a man
needs to travel
into himself
miles;
       for popped
(as words proclaim we are)
                           away
from the Gutenberg Galaxy,
we will not let
its stars
be symbols now
but must have each one
as it is -
           our imaginations
           have changed.

Artists
        painted
their mythic lives
on the walls of caves;
musicians,
on the winds;
dancers,
from the rooted earth
through nimble bones;
poets,
in constellations of words.

imagination / miles

For this 
language,
"culture" began
as adoration
and the wheel
and the tillage of land;

religion,
science,
art.

Caught 
in today,
          imaginations
have not changed;
they have only
forgotten.

[ "Revealing the Source" was 
   originally published in Yes. ] 


 -------
Brian A. J. Salchert