rite - Anne Waldman

[Larry Robinson]

rite


working with willow rods that’s the method, bring great bundles of them,
put on the ground scatter them pronounce them, saying:

“here’s one”
“here’s another one”
“here’s one, there . . . over there . . .”

willow rods, very consoling we’ll clear the ground you don’t have to be a Scythian . . .
and then the ones behaving more like women use a different method they take a piece of the inner bark of a lime tree
cut it into many pieces
which they keep twisting and untwisting around their fingers as they make effigies of themselves, willow rods of women saying:

“there’s a turn” “there’s a turning” “there’s a rowdy one” “there’s a moist one”

“there’s one we lost to negligent wind” “another one burned up”
“one folded down a sparrow’s cheek” “how many turnings in a twisty one?”

a million, more than you can ever hold makes the pronouncers happy surveyors of tractor and sage
and when all goes out

remember eclipse telling you this could all go out women too? women go out?

but for love & mystery willows rods, willows rods you know this, women
to fool the hearts of men

staying up all night, notice the moon and its macabre signal and hemp vapor tents on the horizon
walk upside down in the footprints of the living

	- Anne Waldman