Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003

A Bit of Rice

“We learned before this to read the cracks of fever, at nine, and one, and five,” the artist says. The flat deflection of the piano player’s eyes. Poem with Words by Thornton Dial Day by day you are being drawn through the TV’s violet needle’s eye. Luminous is the hope you have been content with. The shaman breaks the wrist of his countryman to get him to talk. The film crew walk around at the edge. A guru beams in his jazz musician’s shades. Luminous is the hope you have been content with. —Graveyard traveler, I am coming in. A Bit of Rice A bit of rice in a string bag: the rice spills, we have to sweep it up . . . What will be left here when you die? Not the rice not the tea left somewhere when the monk 234 door in the mountain knocked over the cup not not The Night of Wally’s Service, Wally Said, “Most people will reflect back to you however they feel about themselves, but you have to say Hey, don’t look at me that way, I’m only one day dead, I need care. But not Mark, who looks at you with love. No matter what. Like today, in church, I was off somewhere, off Provincetown, most people wanted me to come back, but not Mark.” Rodney Dying R. is sitting in a draft —we trade places. I see that he has a large, round hole from the top of his head down into his belly, a tunnel with blood and bones around it. He is himself, not pretending but completely courteous and sweet. He says, You have to wrap your feet with paper from now on for this new journey. growing darkness, growing light 235 ...