Omniscience, and: In the Woods: A Suite

Omniscience

To shrink down and not be small    but just to see again, he said    of the past, the past as broken mirror,    as weird-looking stick    because this was the woods,    halfway through the hike.

To refrain from the cheesy, the self-serving, from    knowing too much. That voice,    his again. So there were rules. But how can we    know too much, she said. Memory,    she said, come on, it's all about    forgetting. Think of the things    lost to make that box    of odds and ends. They

kept walking. Somewhere, a real road. They could    hear it. He almost told her,    you'll test me now. You'll ask me    how long did it take    to hold a pencil, to write the word    fabulous, or maybe just dog    for the first time. And if he    shook his head- See? she'd say,    see? I remember the fifth grade, he said,    those endless afternoons, don't you?

Not one, she said. They got quiet, the river    on their left now, the water    too low. The whole world    needed rain. But she flashed    on that strange little     storefront in Oregon once,    the counterman saying: why, there    you are! I've been waiting a decade    for you to walk in here.

Then she was telling it, out loud, in the air. Probably    a pick-up line, he said. What    were you? 20? 22? Sudden click    in her head, a double take, two    exposures, one picture,    the first shock of it back    from the photo lab:    and here I thought

it merely some brilliant bit of the novel    my life was writing. Did they pause?    Because I hear him about to say:    so you kept it, that's    funny. They walked on. A field    opened up. Is that    a song sparrow

or a white-throat? he said. I can't remember, she said, notes    rushing downward but three clear    hesitations before that great    blurring. It got darker,    crooked ash and ivy, an overgrown    path. Where I stopped,    where the two of them    kept going.

In the Woods: A Suite

-Norton Island, Maine

I

All right, I pledge to the pinewhat small wonder I can muster.Even then, a certain quiet takesthe woods. The optic nervecan be perfectly awake, pressed backinto trance. Or so I watchedthe Whirling Dervishes once, thinkingthis never happensin real life. But real enough,that life-whatever moments,a hour or two, sittingin those cheap nosebleed seats,so high it was a tinychain reaction, not quitenuclear down there. What'sa dervish? my friend askedafter several minutes, from herown splendid coma.

II

Whatever was betweenDickinson and that fly: I want it.So I'm very still, my flymaking its rounds around the cabin.Its bad radar has it kissingwalls, bouncing off the ceiling.I know. Everyone gets tired thoughthe pines put their limbs outpretty much straight, keep them there, day and night, a verylarge exception. I think what it isto be anything not human. Or how longit's been afternoon, hours now.Or how light only pleaseswhen there's enough shadein it. And the fly. I forgotabout the fly.

III

Somewhere out there, those crowswon't shut up. Maybe they can't. And thenthey do. Which is why the thrush-I thinkit's a thrush-comes outfrom underneath with its weirdechoey thing, huge now but-plaintive,my mother might have said.Like the moment, a week from her death,I put the earphones on herin the hospital bed, Brahms, the firstpiano trio-that cello, that rare violin-whereout of such fury somethingnarrows and goes deep. What is it,she said, tearing up-the first timein hours her speech was clear-whatis it about music?

IV

In the dark of these woods, richloam scent and buzz. In the dark of a car,no moon, only the dash lit up. In the darkof a box the cat...