Time of Tyranny, 50
Birds hatch, eggs are laid, nests are built, trees branch, seeds
sprout: it’s always time. Time to recognize the sipping
self as girded shelf supporting stuff conducive to supporting self
recognizing time making its attempt to install
itself with all its belongings. They include forebodings
and long descriptions of the rifle butts that press
against the past shouldered by the men of firing squads
and the verminous skin of dogs with mange even at a very young
age outside cafes or on short chains as if their existence
were a prerequisite to mastering the arts of being
delicately human and a gambler with a passion for mortality
and substituting one value (vivacity) for another (history)
upon the heads of humans grotesque as the programs
they invent to send their opinions forward.
From Tribunal by Lyn Hejinian, published by Omnidawn. Copyright © 2019 by Lyn Hejinian. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Lyn Hejinian
Lyn Hejinian was born in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1941. Poet, essayist, and translator, she authored and coauthored several books of poetry, most recently Tribunal (Omnidawn Publishing, 2019). She served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2006-2012. She taught at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was a professor and John F. Hotchkis Chair Emerita, and lived in Berkeley until her death.