The pastries were awfully dry. An absence of hummingbirds— of any humming, and birds’ lead feathers made it difficult to fly. Clouds had not yet learned to clot, billow, represent. Stars unshot, anonymous. Moon and sun indifferent. No one owned a house, a pond, a rock on which to rest your head. No arc, no here then there. Beginning meant alive. The end was dead. Art still a ways away—no lyre. Beauty, an accident. Needs and wants bundled like twigs then set on fire. Except, no fire. Candles had no wicks. Fruit lacked seed. Books bereft of plot. Ornament and condiment were empty cisterns. There were pots. It was pure act. No motivation, consequence, imagination. Sometimes, a flare, a glow, a gleam. No questions asked. No revelation. And I was not yet capital I. Still just an eye. No mouth, no verb, no AM to carry dark from day, dirt or sea from sky— God not God until one dove called out “where the hell’s dry land?” An answer formed. A raven shrugged and toed a line across the sand. New, the sand. New, the vast notion of this long division. New, the understanding that this time, there would be no revision.
From Hilarity by Patty Seyburn. Copyright © 2009 by Patty Seyburn. Used by permission of New Issues Poetry & Prose, Western Michigan University. All rights reserved.