Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire

As the Roots Prepare for Literature

A S T H E R O O T S P R E P A R E F O R L I T E R AT U R E Sound, what is your muse? Just now, we found a meaning but too soon— cckkcckk . . . Dawn sprinklers start & crickets wheel, they go down-down, dippy down-down. Smell of toast in the suburbs. The West is burning. Our little mother prays in her sleep, our father rests under his new big scar like America. Ancestors step through flame to get to them. Beyond air, the galaxies whirl ceaselessly as picnic salt— Our childhood sight hath gathered multitudes . . . On streets named for forts or saints, news is brought to foreclosed houses. The medicated grasses wait. In other deserts, soldiers kill other people’s parents. Here the unemployed wear boots in cafés near terrifying pies piled high with cream. Wrens make nests in cholla. Cylindropuntia fulgida. Spirits stand round in the bodies of doves. Do you remember learning to spell? It’s best to bring words slowly into English; wrad (the root of root) shines for centuries underground. It’s not for nothing the shadows are lit when children are called to literature. Now word has gone out that you are here as sleepers curve their heat-shapes to the ground. Hard for you to keep steady, i know. The roots of your words can see fire, though. 5 3 ...