Cynosure
deer – sleek supple light
in the woods – hesitates
then leaps taking the eye
into an ecology of movement
a breathing heartbeat liquid
form pouring elegant
between trees
-O-
the bullet
a kind of eye
wherever it
enters makes
a center
an apparent horizon
where light separates
wick
in the middle of the candle
-O-
I am a body of those
who love me
they live inside
the deer in the woods of me
brings me curious into contact
and materialization
the gift of that
to read and be read shot through
with a knowing the world goes in
mysterious make of it what you will
-O-
My mother advised me to use a spade
to divide my clump of bleeding hearts
I buried the blade of my narrowest shovel
into the center of the clutch of roots
the cupped scoop cut across not down
clipped their length
my crude spring
transplantation of hearts from the front
to the backyard dependent on so many factors
The difference between a spade and a shovel:
the angle of the fall from the handle
-O-
(at the center
of each galaxy
is a black hole
the man on the radio said)
-O-
For a while the dead
robin under our yew becomes
a center its radius extending
to the yard next-door
with each storm the robin’s body
melts into the soil new ivies quilt
across the rusty chest and ebony beak
another robin sometimes comes stands
at the perimeter bends its head listening
-O-
Horizon separates
the trajectories
of light
deer:
stillness-to-flash
flash-stilled
-O-
Each center within
a radius of meaning
(methane hotspots
nuclear testing sites
wind shifts the radius
of cancer
money shifts
the fallout)
The pandemic too is a picture –
a veritable Venn dance of pink radii
strewn across the map of the world
Centers proliferate
a third eye is necessary
an epicenter
situated above
the true center
of disturbance
-O-
At the center of the car the driver.
the passenger. no. the cash
that passes hand to hand.
no. the distance traveled.
no. the road
unspooling
between the wheels.
-O-
At the center of the sun
is a hole in the retina
light stings its receptor
fire licks the wick
the soul, it burns inside
-O-
(What will you teach us O Pandemic?
What centers will vie? What revolution
will win around what will it spin?)
-O-
Rain concentrates a feeling
(radiating ache
marrow traces
bone-white glass)
Once a birth contraction pulse
of red heat the body
a corporal administrator
of production and goods
head and heart threaded
throughout venal arterial
-O-
The blossoms on my peach tree wait for
the bees each ruffled shirt unbuttoned
rain and snow and sleet have saturated
the pink blush bees in abeyance
How specific some needs are coming
with their calling cards their tiny windows
of availability they have a certain radius
the sun knows the wound-up earth gets it
Like a toddler the blossoms insist
Pollinate me now or I will bear no fruit!
-O-
All over the state the old
biology is learning the new weather
and the radius of possibility grows
lopsided
the universe it seems
has an up and a down an undreamed of
directionality we thought it was just
more and more expanding out
from an event
this the afterglow of the party
aura and aurora spilled milky way
lighting up this livable place
our Little Gidding
the end of all our exploring
-O-
Five days of 60º my mother said Then
you’ll find morels (and if those days
happen in March instead of May?)
the mushrooms know
they feel the soil the earth tells them
when to grow
-O-
What to make of the voice its emanating
nature timbre and frequencies
the swallowing of the upper and the lower
the lessening that’s inevitable the pruning
of the infant mind the narrowing of possibility
-O-
Once I was an astronaut of the brain devising
exercises and traps reflective mirrors to light up
the hard cerebral corners the mystery
of the corpus collosum – that center of
the split brain its tuning fork structure
its allowance of cognitive frequencies
I studied the loss of category and number
the geography of capacity
the shape of the whole
I tested undergraduates
made them read red in blue and green in yellow
I plumbed the organization the tagged
information
feasted on
meanings so small
as meaning is its little bits hoof and leaves
genome and Virus seconds and minutes
-O-
It turns out galaxies are larded with black holes
like respiratory droplets in air they are everywhere
we’re just beginning to see –
and one is visible even to the naked eye
via a path in neighboring stars
(on the artist’s rendering the black hole is painted red)
A black hole doesn’t swallow every star in its vicinity
which is why we didn’t know it was there
said the astronomer it doesn’t
behave as we thought so we missed it
its density isn’t absolute
all along it has been there breathing darkness
in the swaying forest of stars
~ Mary Buchinger ~
Notes on “Cynosure”
The possibility of directionality in the universe was reported by researchers at the University of New South Wales in April, 2020.
The reference to “Little Gidding” and quote is taken from T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets.
In the spring of 2020, researchers detected a black hole within 1,000 light years of earth; https://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso2007/eso2007a.pdf.
Table of Contents
Cloud… Eric Myvraagnes… Cover image
Publisher’s note… Kimberly Gladman
Notes from January… Hilary Sallick… poetry
Cynosure… Mary Buchinger… poetry
Πρᾶξις (Praxis) 30… Chris Bohner… visual art
Πρᾶξις (Praxis) 39… Chris Bohner… visual art
My Big Quit… Greta L. Ode… essay
Aftershock… Kimberly Gladman… essay
Yes, Dear Grandchildren… Ellen Fisher… visual art
A Parenting Epiphany… Philip M. Jackson… essay
The Hand and Faucet Duet… Denise Freed… dance (link)
From To Bury the Dead… Greta L. Ode… fiction
Why Isn’t Everybody Into Wittgenstein?... Kimberly Gladman… essay
The Saints Will All Be Blue… Ingrid Scheibler… visual art
Immersive Van Gogh… Kimberly Gladman… review
Infinite Placeholder Regress… Scott Axelrod… essay
Quantslut… Kimberly Gladman… column
e-PI-phany… Keith Tornheim… poetry
Toward a Higher Order… Naomi Myrvaagnes… poetry
Orgy… trans. Kimberly Gladman (Felix Hausdorff)... poetry in translation
Tractatus… Nicola Welda… essay
Eyecollage… Steve Adler-Golden… visual art
Don’t Look Up… Rich Fontes, Kimberly Gladman… dialogue
Shorting the Earth… Kimberly Gladman… fiction
Remembering E.O. Wilson… Sam Schrager… essay
A Posthumous Apology to E.O. Wilson… Debra David… poetry