Song of the Andoumboulou: 124

    They lay where lag lay, longsince busted up, no longer  young, they the wounded            onesthey’d heard about, the aban-    doned girl’s name now Melis-  sa, Peter the abandoned boy’s…            All    they wanted was to lose track,  not to be counting, step slide    into step without notice, notchnot stand in slide’s way… Late            ce-  lestial evening emoting more    than was there to emote, theyrose without thinking, so much            of    the writing dead people’s writ-ing, so much of the singing dead  people sang… A step song they’d            have      sung had they sung, stepped as if  out of a dream had they stepped, step    so sustained each foot followedsuit, fleet foot’s midnight creep. An            ar-    rest of sorts, having so lost track,      advance though they did all thesame. All they wanted was to float, fall  away risen, soon-come, recalcitrant,            anage unto themselves, a new verb tense    we would need to say it right, the  light of something lackluster, so let            go…     Thus they happened upon the noise      garden, stone chimes ringing so loudlythey winced, headskin wrinkled raisin-  like, heads hung surviving the assault.            Soit was they went on, undeterred, upstart    obsession all there was of them to  know, hands held up to their heads            bet-      ter to hear it, the tolling they were  followed by… A step song it would’ve    been had there been one, stone mal-let might step take the real song’s place,            step  stone balafon. David S. blew in back ofthem, Kaushiki out in front, step’s lone    solution come around again, step’s            ben-  efit unwon… Afterward everyone sat      around talking. Step was on every lip.    “Step,” some said, “would never do            that.”  Some said, “Step’s to blame…” None      of us could say what step was, neither    we nor them. We ran or stood or walked            in    it notwithstanding step eluded us, the  song it would’ve been not the song we            sang,    we who did sing  a song

    What if there were a country calledstep, we wondered, a whole planet  almost or even a whole planet…            The  philosophic posse’s unrest was        upon us… Next was what we knew  even less than step… Teased-out            em-   anation turned adamant, stone ma-    rimba struck in love’s pursuit.Love’s polity none but to be done            with    it we thought. On second thought      we thought otherwise… Sarodstrings floated on waves far away, a  sigh, an extenuated thumri, a bhajan            so    abstract it was only what step was,with us but so distant we wept… Step  seemed all inflection, pure étude.            Step    City we’d have called it could we      catch up, a kind of test. Steplandwe’d have called it, Planet Step…  Steep we might’ve heard or steppe,            weshook our heads. No second e fell out,    no second p. We shook our heads no it turned out. What if the country            we    were in were the one we meant, weagain went wondering, step toward  step step taken… Taken, we lay in            lag’s      domain, soon to be released we were  taught. Fretful, mournful, said to’ve    been sprung, come back regrettingsome lack, some extinguishment, there            to      be gone back to, there what lapse e-  volved… Theoretic release. Abstract    elation. Bumped-up intaglio the badge            we  begged it be, step    unbeknownstor not

    An ars poetica late in the day. Let      step equal next, let regret go.So spoke the epiphanous they we  were chorus to, we who were            more      they the more we thought…  March music rose from the    ground. We wondered were            we  going somewhere. As best we    could we blew rosewood flutes,played bedouin the best we could.            Wind    worked with us, ourkestral, breathand disturbed air… O, to lie curled  as one again, we thought, retreat            to    an older mode though we might,            no  peace came our    way

In a dark room lit by light from    the hallway, a dance done in            lag’s  lap lag brought...