No night, no dawn, inside the earth, there were
flaming oceans without a center, nothing was born.
Above the tideless breakers, firefalls,
ageless fires that had no English name,
made their way to the sublime,
flaming gardens, flowers of good and evil—
never seen colors that were intimate,
changing red rock blooming ochre fires,
no clouds. The sky was earth.
Rivers unprisoned themselves, firestars, volcanoes
broke out into icy virgin waters, creating
the first living things: two cells, invisible threads,
with needs, a holy collision. Call them desires,
wants, necessities, a need for another.
A stone thrown up needs to come down,
darling multiplicities.
First one cell and then the other came to be from fires
into glacial waters, swam a little,
licked to life the color ochre off the rocks.
Were there flowers of good before flowers of evil?
There were human voices before there was writing,
the most beautiful instrument a woman,
man or singing child. To hear the written word,
I read aloud, “What is love? ‘tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter.”
Idle reader, the secret is to listen.
I did not hear the first fires enter the icy waters—
they once made a daylily, a flower of good.
I favor the fleurs du mal quartier in the woods.
I cup my hand over my ear.