Dedicated to the People of Darfur: Writings on Fear, Risk, and Hope

Rescuing Fire from the Flood

24 SHERWIN BITSUI I blanket the poems with reservation mud and call it saad. I listen for the crackling of dried earth under foot—it is the story’s memory of the first four worlds. Beyond this are just strip malls and casinos acting like suns around which we moth. The silence above “here” is an escape hole that I use to keep myself free from this text. (As to not be bound.) (As to be risking my life so the page may not return with me and shake me loose from sleep again.) (otherwiseIwouldspeaklikethiswithoutmuchbreathuntilI _____.) I imagine x’s drawn over my eyes, and say no, do not look at the poem again. The poem looks for air inside a paper bag, finds a worm, clenches its rubbery lips around it, feels for a hook, and is shocked that the worm is only a worm, that its meal—the hook—was just an image the poet imagined. Saad naashch’ ⫽ words I draw with. When I entered this world, all the words I heard stood up straight: nihízaad bee hzhn. tddn bee ‘atn, etc. But recently they’ve begun to climb away from the page, as if they too, are afraid to be burned by the flowering of this new world. There are ceremonies for this. Rescuing Fire from the Flood






















CH007.qxd 7/15/09 7:31 AM Page 24 RESCUING FIRE FROM THE FLOOD 25 There are stars reflecting in pools of water where the poem slept last night. I’ve rescued nothing for myself. The poem flickered in my left hand, then dimmed when I breathed in city air. I’ve just returned from writing. The doves outside are sleeping on the grass like anchors for clouds. The cars river up and down the interstate near hear, and I am awakened by a poem’s dreaming. It sings: cars rivering. It speaks: splintering from a polished clay bowl. It taught me something that I’m not entirely sure of yet. Forgetting began my recent poetry manuscript and I’ve placed my hand in fire again, waiting for its wings to carry me back to the waiting room of hzh⫽. There are songs for this. There is a poem of fire flickering in the flood’s teeth. CH007.qxd 7/15/09 7:31 AM Page 25 CH007.qxd 7/15/09 7:31 AM Page 26 ...