“She moves with the music, ’cause it never gets old…”

[This is the twelfth and penultimate part of a yearlong poem about moving from the city to the country. Inspired by ancient and medieval calendar poems, it appears here as I write it, in monthly installments. First read the prologue and then September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May, and June. To read later entries in this series after they’re posted, click the “Beallsville Calendar” subject tag.]

THE BEALLSVILLE CALENDAR

JULY

In a dream about mountains, a mouse warned me
That an owl can hear a heart when it flickers
A farm-length away under fallen branches
And freshly mowed grass. The faintest whim
You harbor in secret, they sense and remember,
But the eleventh month tests them. The land is a clamor
Of wheezing moths on milkweed sills,
The crackling of squash vines that creep toward the shade,
A hiss in the dark when the heavens uncover
The Blinded Dragon. He blinks in vain
But he bristles with visions: blackest when feeding,
Golden when writhing, and red when he sleeps.
Though the night makes sure we never uncover
His hooded face, we hear him seethe
His thieving dreams. At dawn, he twitches.
His mirrored hide sheds heat in waves
And the universe wilts as he whets his tongue
For empty remembrance, the morsel he craves.

You squint and stumble, then stand at attention
To mark out the first of your many new worlds:
A moonlit arena, a maze on a plain,
A web of electric on lush, verdant planets
Where weapons rely on a light you can’t see.
You feel like a hero, this first real time
That the world flickers out, and what stays burning
Are furious atoms of infinite choice.
Count three heartbeats for half of each beep
From the ruby medallion that reckons your life.
Prowl through the underbrush; prey on your friends.
You could turn off your kit; you could call them to join you
And trust them with whispers of worlds yet to come,
Your prophecies spoiling their space-cadet glow.
Too fearful of youth on their faces again,
You just stare at their sensors, like stars, burning red,
Trembling like children with tension and promise,
Then someone says “go!”, and the glittering pinpoints
Bobble, and scatter, and bolt toward the dark.

We steer through the bums on the steps of the Garden,
Giddy with rhythm. The ghosts of the moment
Pogo behind us, their hair a blaze
Of sawtooth waves. Their singing beguiles us
“I’m glad in these hard times, there’s hope in your eyes”
To warble and march through midnight vigils
In hot, dusty rooms, no heed for the martyrs
Who fell by the way: the one we predestined
To wander the night with a knife in his back,
Or the girl with the spikes and spotlight eyes
Who brought the orc who ached at the grins
Of imagined deceivers. Unmoved by our rapture
“Do you be-lieve in love, one that lasts for all time?”
He reached in his pocket to pluck a guitar string.
Her throat puckered red where he wrapped it and pulled.
The dawn train home is hot and prickly,
The headrests are sloppy with hair spray and trash
And our necks run wet with wicked failure.

At the peak of the bridge, the breeze is amazing,
It could pick up your bike as you pass through the cones,
They cleared the way, kept cars away,
Now you’re over the Narrows, you need to let go,
You’ll lock up tomorrow, go limp now let go,
Let your hands fly back as you hurdle through space―
(Why didn’t you listen? The lanes were all yours.)

I could fatten you gladly with fifty raw crumbs
Of regret and remembrance. The grit and sweat
Still chafe the same, and on sodden mornings
When to breathe it all in is a burden, the swelter
Overwhelms, we sag, we sit through more sneering
From gnats that insist we’ve gone nowhere at all.
You could choke on the spores of spent vegetation
And underworked mud, make mawkish collages
From tape-flecked photos that fell from the wall,
Or else you could live. You could listen again.
When the first of our peppers have popped into form,
A song blows north through our silent grove,
A trickle of rhythm, rising and thrumming
When sunlight is fading. We follow the pounding
And find something new: a field past the bramble
Where sunflowers rumble in rows without end,
Like booming speakers that blare the truth
As they turn to face nightfall, no less worthy
Than just before noon. Kneeling before them,
Giddy pilgrims peek from trenches
To honor a whim on the wind, and be healed;
They hear their own songs as they hop through the furrows,
Dancing like frogs with a finger thrust skyward
In natural elation, in lightness unceasing.

The sun stands still: something scaly
Appears to be stuck on the steps in a net
Where it fought with a shadow. Its freedom is yours
To make real or deny. The knots are constricting
And ripping its side, but to see it this closely,
This long, and in stillness, no stars in the way,
Is an offer of grace. It asks for nothing,
But whether it’s sated, or weary, or fuming,
It needs to feed elsewhere. Let able strangers
Tear the mesh gently, then take the wyrm
And leave it in peace, letting it bleed
Through the litter and sticks. Laugh at its weakness
And what it takes with it. And welcome what stays.