the worshipper the god

as any one thing of a thousand

that we are, were, might have been or be

from one to the other the eye darts

a one-legged man

struggling for balance

Glossa

the source is

in the pause

the source is

in the spring

the split wishbone

twangs in your throat

the hunter’s arrow

shatters your heel

the avalanche wind

whips the harp of shocked trees

the startled caribou pulse in waves

through river and mist

the rain has drenched you

no skin to hold the body in

you’ve found

your tongue

Tree Line

i. m. Stan Brakhage (1933–2003)

tree rings

an absent biography

litmus of lost events

a perch to gather

the rain’s drumbeats

to begin again

a sentence in dusty green

snow sutra of chained wheels

on the salt road

summer japa of crickets announcing

a delay in nightfall

song snagged in a flayed tree

its words rustling in a fugitive wind

marking the quay

from which the sun boat sails

to begin again

to lose your way

After the Story

i. m. Chandra Hoskote (1934–2015)

From the anthill came the voice

Two white birds perched on a branch,

one killed by a hunter’s arrow.

The first poem written in its blood:

the mourning sage’s sudden curse

falls on the hunter’s ear as verse.

From the anthill came the voice

Prisoner on the island of his suspicions,

alone under his white silk canopy,

he murmurs the chants that his ageing priests

heap on the fire sacrifice. Then from nowhere,

two boys’ voices, high flutes above the drone.

Dropped masks, startled faces. The boys sing

From the anthill came the voice

of the golden deer in the forest, the princess

carried off by the demon chief, the war, the siege,

the giant red monkey cartwheeling across the sky

and burning the island fortress. When the war ends,

the prince fixes his wife’s fourteen-year wait

with a cold stare and an ordeal by fire.

The fire plays honest witness.

From the anthill came the voice

But the prince cannot bridge

a distance greater than the stormy sea.

Doubt again for him, again exile for her,

love twisted and beaten on a washerman’s stone.

At last she will have had enough of his tests:

she will ask the furrowed earth to swallow her.

He stands up shaking, his eyes opened wide

as his children sing to the king his own story.

The Bungalows of South Avenue

I’d followed a bus that called itself ‘Destiny’

in large white capitals across its back windows

down a burning road in April.

We passed a scrim,

its lush palm-beach sunset trapped in a haze

shimmering above the asphalt, then rolled to a stop

where workers had squatted for a quick lunch.

A ladder leaned against the side of a house

I’d known as a child: cool mint verandahs,

lace blinds, iced tea. Now I ran my hand