Poem 1:
A message for Dr. Anne Teresa, linguist, professor, and architect:
We have heard of your desire to Find the Morning, dear Doctor, and so we have enclosed Directions for Your Eyes Only. Please forgive our lack of explanation of Ourselves; we are private folk and do not Care for visits or thank-you-letters. We wish you Luck on your endeavors.
Directions:
1. Bring only a small knapsack for one Important Book, stationery, and several small pens. Food will be provided. While this is not a Direction, it is necessary to find the way.
2. Follow the nearest sidewalk as long as it will go. When you reach a Building or Grove of Trees, you will have to climb over it.
3. Every sidewalk ends next to a powerline. This will make things easy for you. Now you must choose either Right or Left. You may not turn back once you have chosen. You may not ever go back.
4. Follow the powerline.
5. Yes, keep following it.
6. You may pick the raspberries next to the highway. Please be careful to take just enough and no more, and don’t put any in your knapsack. These should sustain you throughout the evening.
7. The sun is setting as you walk. Your brown rubber boots slip on the gravel, which means you must take them off. From now on, you must be barefoot, and you may not sleep.
8. Follow the powerline.
9. Follow the powerline.
10. You have come to the jungle by now, which is full of dark screaming monkeys and snakes that slide upside-down and hang laughing from the twisting trunks of bone-white trees. It is the death-jungle, and you must bear it. There is no food now, even though you are hungry. You must be hungry, as only those who have hungered can find the Sun.
11. Your dress is torn, Doctor, and your feet are torn to bits, but you go on—you will go on. This is why we gave you the Directions; we have seen the hunger in your eyes. You have written pages and pages about the Old Languages, the click-sounds of the Khoisan and the throat-singing of ancient white tribes, of cathedrals echoed with the tongues of glossolalia whirling to the heavens, why, why do they sing? Why do they click-song to each other across the shepherding hills, why do they reach out a hand to touch, why do they cry to invisible gods, gods, god, God? why did they nail an innocent man to a tree, why do they reach out their hands, why do they cry out in the desert and raise their bleeding hands to the sky? how can a dead language come to life? how can the dead—the dead—the dead—
12. You have slept. We have forgotten you are only human. There are no blankets in the death-jungle, but there are large banana leaves, and these, alone, are harmless. You have slept wrapped in the cocoon of the banana leaf, the Page of Pages, where words more ancient than Death Itself are written, comforting your nakedness. But morning is nigh.
13. You have seen the powerline has ended. The orange murmur of sunrise beckons, but it is over the green rolling hills, rolling like the sea, like the roar of many waters.
14. Run to the green hills.
15. You have run, breathless. Your feet have bled and your body is wrapped in only the banana leaf; your hair is akimbo, your face is streaked with dirt, but it is fresh morning dirt, and you are laughing. You stand at the top of the hills. You have found the Morning Rise. The Sun is rising, rising, over the rolling green hills, and finally, your tongue is loosed and they are pouring from your mouth, the click-songs, the throat-songs, the thousand dead languages come alive in the joy of your ecstasy at the sight of the Sun, the rising, coming, running, running, bleeding, alive, alive, alive!
Poem 2:
It's time to buy some bread, I dread the trip
although it's not far
but I have to get showered
dressed
and that takes half a day
(at least it feels that way)
and drag me to my chair
which I don't mind
but it's not fair that streets are made
for two-legged instead of two-wheeled
(plus some small wheels to make it worse)
the baker's door is too small
I can't get in
so the trick is, play pathetic
hold a note that says
- one loaf of bread, raisin
- one cake, glazed
and hope I get my wallet back
Poem 3:
1. I go out at dawn, while the dew is on the grass, and the birds are singing.
2. I go past the farm, and by the side of the pond, where the water is still.
3. I cross the bridge, by the light of the moon, when the nightingale is singing,
4. And I come to the place, where the wood begins.
5. There, I light a fire, and roast the chestnuts, that I have brought along.
6. When they are cooked, I place them on a platter, and put on a few branches for a spit.
7. Then, I make a bed on the ground, and lie down, while I watch the fire till daylight.
Poem 4:
If you would go to
Happiness,
Follow the road of all desires,
The road that is long and crooked,
To the north and to the south,
And cross the great ocean.
Prompt -- The poem, which takes the form of a series of directions describing how a person should get to a particular place, is written below: