A Fever
Xipc Totec--god of spring
death mask with a gaping mouth
demands blood
a human sacrifice
haven't you felt that way yourself
smelling the fruit tree blossoms
before the green leaves,
looking down the highway
homesick for someplace
you have never been...
When I was sixteen I danced choreographed
To Mahler's Fifth symphony, the fourth movement
Adagietto--that summer at sleep-away camp
Where sweaty at the barre with girls who cared
And could do much more than me
We stretched in reflection.
he ballet master hit me on the knee--
"Think here, think with your kneee"
He said in that voice
Which evinced worship in some
Obediance in all.
I couldn't place him then, mysterious, and cool
Toward our bodies, it was only as an adult I realized
He was a contemporary of Cage's, Ballanchines,
Gay, a modernist, hooked on D.T. Suzuki
New York-style Zen.
After class, we'd leap into the pool
Hold one poise or another
Briefly underwater
And on the night of the performance
Float to what seemed
The world's loveliest music
Competing with cicadas and crickets.
Once in the evening we sat at his feet
And he talked, about exactly what I cannot reconstruct
ImperManence? Or--concentration?
And looking up, I saw his head glow
With an aura, a saint's halo
And didn't even realize then
He was the first of many masters
I didn't choose to follow.
The word "face" is plural in Hebrew
As if anything--person, crystal, cliff--
Must have more than one facet
Mimbres pots, usually painted
With leaping rams, waterbirds' beaks full of fish
Suddenly go black
The insides burnished and unadorned
Without katsina mask
Or serpent
Savanarola preached and Boticelli burned
Canvas with goddesses stretched wide
Lounging naked on a cloud
The first Hebrew word for god is plural
Angels might also be
Feelings with wings
Close your eyes and see 400 miles of road
Before the invention of the wheel
And dream that there were kings in Chaco
--Miriam Sagan