The Fixed Stars: Thirty-Seven Emblems for the Perilous Season

4. John’s Day

THE FIXED STARS 137 4.1 The Lemon Peel Woman The young builder is there on John’s Day. He sees the sweet plum woman. He was uncertain whether to come. The sweet plum woman is wearing paper wings. Come, they all said. You are not a child. You are permitted to come. The builder moves from one community to another, and his difficulty is to know whether he is permitted, or rather desired, to take part in the John’s Day festivity. He wasn’t here last John’s Day and he won’t be here next John’s Day. He arrives and leaves midyear like a vagabond. Are any of them taking him by the hand? Take one by the hand, says the almond blossom man. That’s what we’re here for, to take each other by the hand. The builder fills his mug with salted pecans. Salt is a symbol of John’s Day. The salt and the bell. The canopies over the proscenium meadow are woven of fresh river-rushes hung with silks, sky-blue and sea-green, and strings of rock salt beads like smoketrails. The grass is burnt gold and everywhere is a layer of dust. Lids of barrels CHAPTER 4 JoHn’S DAy 138 BRIAN CONN clatter against sides of barrels and hands reach for peaches. Peaches, people say. Rapini marinade. Cashews. The builder goes to the well and sees the lemon peel woman. She has painted lemon-yellow spirals on her shoulders and thighs, and on her scalp is a cap of plaited lemon peel. The builder and the lemon peel woman drink water together in silence. Something falls on the lemon peel woman and she screams. The thing falls off. It is lost. What was it? she says. I couldn’t see, says the builder. The lemon peel woman leaves the well. The pomegranate woman takes the brine moss man by the hand. They walk past the builder into the forest. The pickled squash woman puts her arm in the builder’s arm. They sit side by side on the well. She is a dark freckled woman wearing a spherical calligraphied silkpaper hat. She says, fathers mothers? He says, natural child: born on the road. She stands in front of him and puts her palm on his chest. What you need is a garland of ivy. She goes to the blue ivy woman. They speak at length and then go into the forest together. The builder is alone. He takes pickled cabbage from a barrel. The pickled cabbage man is at the salted plum barrel. The salted plum man is talking to the raisin woman. The raisin woman bites a pear. Apples smooth as marble, pears soft as down. I wasn’t sure whether I should come, says the builder. Come, says the pine resin woman. Do you want to go into the forest with me? I’m only asking. It’s kind of you to ask, he says. Not at all. She eats half of an orange. The white pineapple woman takes her by the hand and the two of them go into the forest. The cranberry mash woman upends the empty pomegranate barrel. Pomegranates are often the first to go. The THE FIXED STARS 139 cranberry mash woman stands on the pomegranate barrel and plays a bassoon. It is the first music of the day. The milk thistle woman is digging with a spade. The spade is hard black cyclate like the mud when the river recedes . She unearths three clay jars, sealed with beeswax since the last John’s Day. She breaks the seals. The jars are filled with pungent fermented radish. She pours the contents of all three jars into the fermented radish barrel. On John’s Day the barrels are hexagonal, straight-sided, made of new yellow pine polished smooth; they are as high as a woman’s thighs. The mugs are black outside and white inside and hang around people’s necks on blue sashes. The chopsticks are chopsticks. The milk thistle woman pushes the fermented radish barrel between the salted almond barrel and the persimmon barrel. The avocado man scoops some fermented radish in his mug and eats it with his chopsticks. Prepare for John’s Day with pleasing scents and deodorant colonies. In the morning the air smells of grapefruit. There is no soap on John’s Day. The cranberry...