Etel Adnan
while whales keep swimming north
for Vincent Katz
Revelation is continuous.
Incredible
what am I searching for?
Last summer an august moon
acted on an irrigated field
the water soon disappeared
whales kept swimming north
California fires are
spreading
making infernos jealous
highways tumbling over
each other
breaking narratives apart
The world is turning
within its dizziness
a woman is lying under
her woolen covers
smashing her dreams
with her wrists
murder is in the air
Olson’s letter to the F.B.I.
was returned
America failed that
day
got stranded
We are so powerless
dreaming pitiful dreams
heads bent on the zinc
fever at the door
railway stations are closing
their travelers have died
The horizon is stuffed with
low plains
a foghorn is tooting
the President is tweeting
the subways leaking
gasoline
will two and two make four for ever?
Money is piling up
as fast as money does
and big clouds are deserting
their territories
the fires are spreading
danger points
at every corner
confusion is welcome
like bread for the hungry
an alarm clock gets to be
useless in an airport
the damage is everywhere
black holes are waiting
for the too many that are being
born
the fires are expanding . . .
Pretty soon our bones
will be stacked in
museums
open the window and
watch the sunset feast
on red fish
don’t call for help
angels are on vacation
subliminal messages
are crowding the land
My spirit can descend
the stairway
everything is utterly possible.
II
Strange languages engage
the air
Ulysses has just landed
his coat is torn
the voyage was filled
with thorns
California is still burning
with primeval fires
and Ulysses is sitting
on scorched earth
in this winter
the ocean is boiling with
anger
I mean in the northern
hemisphere
A promenade on the beach
quiets one’s insanity
but it’s always “for a while”
the billboards have erased all
directions
and delayed the agony
of waiting at bus stops
for the end of the day
Champagne is flowing
in parties and bars
away from the hills
—and homes—going
up in flames
the thirst has many needs
desires are bubbling
as ephemeral
as the morning dew
or a jazz note
California is burning
we steadily hear voices
over the radio . . .
are one’s belongings
one’s life?
Cars have their own
artificial intelligence:
they take us to foreign
planets
where rivers intersect with
the mind that splits and
drives on.
III
The moon is ablaze at
its edges
swollen
over California highways
where the land is burning
the fire is equally reaching
my brain
where acres of
thoughts
are up in flames
it’s scintillating
in there
lights in the midst of
massive sheets of smoke
what’s gone does matter . . .
beds and memories
now companions
in absence
what is fire?
A voracious spirit
probably
a being’s anger made
manifest
an angel sowing panic
a cosmic love-affair went
wrong
in an ultimate pit
The brain given to me
is burning
along the roads of
California
California being my second
origin
Its mountains raised my
spirit
I became one with the sap
of its trees
nature is at war with
itself
in a language still
un-decoded
somehow all there is
is not of this world
IV
don’t light your cigarette
don’t play with fire
then what’s left to do?
In the depth of the country
where cemeteries lie
next to people alive
silence rules
at night fear takes over
bedsheets remain cold
even in summer’s heat
and over beer
people enjoy a talk on the war
it doesn’t matter if the catastrophe
happened now or if they got it
through textbooks
there’s hatred in the air
Fires are entering their reality
smells of burned horses
the levelling down of
city quarters
and chaparral feeding
more fires
but the fires didn’t make their way
into statistics yet
TV gives them the status of national
events
in your gut you know
you have rediscovered
your ability to cry
but we have brought so much violence
to the world
(always ‘over there’)
that understanding bypassed us
chunks of the country are disappearing
leaving us naked to the bone
finding solidarity
such as with a boat lost in high seas
recovered by Melville
the forests are going up
in ecstatic flames
There’s no harm in staying home
and keeping the storm outside
if you can
fires have a way to clean up
landscapes as well as
guilts
they’re thoroughly
innocent
we watch them
we do
and those who die in them
redeem us.