Two poems from 'Bone Map' [Rec]
I loved these so much, I just had to share them. They're from the collection Bone Map, by Sara Eliza Johnson. I've been reading and re-reading it off and on for the last couple of weeks. The following two are my favourites, though. Partly because they remind me of certain characters, but mostly just because I find the language lovely. It's definitely worth taking a look through this collection if you can get your hands on it.
Elegy Surrounded by Water
Out at sea, each night
is long. Each night
has one sound I know:
the moon against the water
like your cheek against mine
in another life.
I am finding a way
to reach where you are.
I am thinking of lighting
the voice on fire.
Of lighting the dark oil
of the sea on fire,
each drop a note
singing the daylight up.
Listen - I am
trying to send you
a human sound,
which is bones
cracking to bend an arrow
back, a long whistle
across the field
of a body you remember
because it remembers
yours. We are built
to live in each other.
This means we are built
to ruin. Each night
I dream back another piece
of you - an eye,
a ligament - and each day
wake on the water
with another hole.
The Dream of Water
Alone on a boat at night
with no wind. A magnetic field
glows inside each object, and each star
above pulls on my body,
and each fish in the sea turns
to ghost-trail, to concaved white.
The sea is a radiograph.
Then I touch the bones of my face.
They feel like water.
I see you standing on a far continent
and between us stretches
impenetrable darkness,
as if I must die to reach you.
I think the world
must be a hollow longing
filled with more of itself -
but no, darkness is a substance
that bends. I will oil and burn
my hands for light
before I stop searching.
This entry was originally posted at http://yuuago.dreamwidth.org/3524799.html. You can comment here or at the original entry.
Elegy Surrounded by Water
Out at sea, each night
is long. Each night
has one sound I know:
the moon against the water
like your cheek against mine
in another life.
I am finding a way
to reach where you are.
I am thinking of lighting
the voice on fire.
Of lighting the dark oil
of the sea on fire,
each drop a note
singing the daylight up.
Listen - I am
trying to send you
a human sound,
which is bones
cracking to bend an arrow
back, a long whistle
across the field
of a body you remember
because it remembers
yours. We are built
to live in each other.
This means we are built
to ruin. Each night
I dream back another piece
of you - an eye,
a ligament - and each day
wake on the water
with another hole.
The Dream of Water
Alone on a boat at night
with no wind. A magnetic field
glows inside each object, and each star
above pulls on my body,
and each fish in the sea turns
to ghost-trail, to concaved white.
The sea is a radiograph.
Then I touch the bones of my face.
They feel like water.
I see you standing on a far continent
and between us stretches
impenetrable darkness,
as if I must die to reach you.
I think the world
must be a hollow longing
filled with more of itself -
but no, darkness is a substance
that bends. I will oil and burn
my hands for light
before I stop searching.
This entry was originally posted at http://yuuago.dreamwidth.org/3524799.html. You can comment here or at the original entry.