TEMENOS*

i. down the eaves of the world

what, _you ask
the first crow knew cawing
what later birds will at last mean.

above, the rooftop snow— melting
singing_____ tap tapping down the eaves

anything that would.     listen to
the drip        of rain_______ of faucet

into the steel ear of a midnight sink
and the silence between

not awkward, but a small prayer
two palms confiding
to each other when they touch:

a dome more holy under your clasp
temenos____

ii. what smolders

be it the syllables of thunder, small enough
clapped in a flamenco of measured flurries

or the ghost of an autumn leaf
that bled its tannin— a sidewalk tattoo

all one and the same—
what bypasses the word,  not yet meaning.

and you—____ the watershed
place where you forget— underground rivulet.

till not remembering reminds you of who you are.
still, you ask:

what is stomped under the dancer's feet?
what seasons us on the sidewalk one boot-step at a time?

what thunders open a tree
on the retina of memory?

not the rhythm we can transcribe
nor the emotion we hammer—  

spikes into the ground ____for the railroad
through haphazard biographies.

but fire the earth won't willingly yield

what smoulders in the soul more surely
than under ashes**

(still, isn't this to explain poetry by poetry
metaphor by more metaphor?

obscurum per obscurius.***      the only way
to the morpheme of the world.

~

TEMENOS*
*From the classical Greek meaning a piece of land set aside for an official function. It has come to mean a holy space. (I have in mind the high dome of a cathedral, the sense of 'divine' presence you get when you look up at the high ceiling. And how this holy dome is formed by your hands when you clasp them together).

what smoulders in the soul more surely
than under ashes**
** a thought borrowed from Gaston Bachelard

obscurum per obscurius.***   
***An alchemical formula: "To explain the obscure by the more obscure"

~

Robin Susanto
Daniela Elza

notes on the process