Thoughts on Crater 308
…io nol feci Dedalo…
Dante’s Inferno 29:116
It is freedom we sail to. Or this is our story. Who gets to fly
when the winds are not hers to control? Yet, there is no
coastline, nor even a sea. Only mind. And, when the wax
melts, pesanteur. In the dancing, we break from our
flatlands to conquer the vertical: bird, child or fountain
finding a way to mark time. Then laugh, to be out of it:
time can’t mark us. Like the circle of women who lift up
their feet as they turn, we can imagine a bronze held
in stasis. A chord from the phorminx is sounding…
can’t sound, in this medium. Dressing the oak tree
in bridal white flitters, I am always the bridesmaid, never
the ant who carries its thread to the heart of a sea shell.
Spiral that never unwinds. It’s a riddle. Solve it, you find
me. Saw from a fish-spine. Constructing the compass.
If the partridge won’t fly, is she weightless? I stand
in my crater: lost wax. If you go to the far side, you see it.