Illustration, detail: Michelle J Kim, cover art What have you done to our ears to make us hear echoes? ©Milkweed Editions

What name would be found there singed into my/ light-stamped veins—Just before—would I illuminate, beam & sing/ like a fragile coil of filament -

CHOSEN FROM WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO OUR EARS TO MAKE US HEAR ECHOES? BY THE MAGAZINE OF YOGA STAFF

Website Milkweed Editions

Author’s website quietly bananas

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Wilderness

The wind is the true breath; the horizon, the best line.
xxxxxxxOh, god, how did we get here?
Let us in to where you make things,
into the clearing. We are trying, but it is hard to coax our way
from the yeasty mouth of the thicket,
this embarrassment of crusts.

We find a trail:

wort :: word
wald :: wood
weld :: world
wunde :: wound
warte :: wait

We listen and wait
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxto grow wild again.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWe see the field
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxis not in the word,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxit is in the world.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWe walk deeper
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxinto the paint of night.

Release, Catch

Many lovers sought her, but she spurned them all, ranging the woods . . . Her
father often said to her, “Daughter, you owe me a son-in-law; you owe me
grandchildren.”
—from Bulfinch’s Mythology

Hair slicked back like an animal’s
xxxxxxxDaphne goes riding.
Her whip warns wild things to run
xxxxxxxthough her girl song calls like purring.

Her father propped in hip boots
xxxxxxxwades for a day’s catch
in borrowed waters. He waits. Patience his role
xxxxxxxhis hand on the reel.
She rides deeper into private property uncategorized
xxxxxxxwildlife chasing the crack of her whip.

Her salt skin and artless tread betray
xxxxxxxhuntress as daughterxxxlure
Delphi’s groundsman with his dogs. He swears
xxxxxxxlove then wedlocked bliss with verse
fed on nursery song. Daphne is bound
xxxxxxxto refuse the trade of whip for ring, wood for cradle.

At bayxxshe must run
xxxxxxxbut herxxxfriendlessxxxdress
catchesxxslows.xxHer
xxxxxxxhairxxnowxxxloosed
knots tamed fingersxxin thexxxstrung leaves
xxxxxxxin the bramblesxxxxhangs her
like bait
xxxxxxxon her father’s line—
a fine catch he wrestles from river
xxxxxxxto forest bed,
beneath the lush and many laurels.

When Thunder, Then What

Running across that open field, I jammed fingers in my ears, my eyes
a kid squint. All that light in one blink, that white white light. Was
it like dying? I worried the coins I clutched in my hand would call
the lightning down like Charon’s ferry. How naked I was in that pool
of grass. Every tree threatened my name. I wondered what it would
be like, to be struck with all that Frankensteinian force, those heated
amperes. A morsel forked by electricity. If in that moment before, my
brain would catch fire, flame with memories, beading, bolting—and
what of my heart? What name would be found there singed into my
light-stamped veins—Just before—would I illuminate, beam & sing
like a fragile coil of filament—throat strings caught in glass?

“Did you hear that? They answered:

There. . . . Voices . . .

It is the wind, the child of the sky.”

“Wilderness,” “Release, Catch,” and “When Thunder, Then What” from What have you done to our ears to make us hear echoes? by Arlene Kim (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2011). Copyright © 2011 by Arlene Kim. Reprinted with permission from Milkweed Editions. www.milkweed.org.

© 2011, The Magazine of Yoga, LLC.