In a country filled with rumored portents I grew a number of odd appendages and studied a kind of zoology that never could be found in the most outlandish academies
I learned that sun devours water water devours earth and sometimes the hyena will eat himself
I tried to become a species that did not live in the mountains or the deserts the jungles or the plains but knew them all well and the spaces in-between
with a general store of proverbs in tow I reached out to pluck the whiskers of baboons I covered myself with transubstantiated honey and a horde of newborn flies
here I discovered that every soul contains its own menagerie and every hand has touched the face of Creation
that history is an imprint on papyrus which grows from spores
in the dark and dies in the heat in order to become the vessels for an everlasting set of symbols waiting in a hothouse for the right moment to become a forest rediscovered and described in the future annals of a charming otherworldly botany
I sat on the shores of Lake Langanno gazing not the mouth of a hippo surrounded by the cries of mammals and while I thought about hunger and nakedness my hair and fingernails and the sun glistening on the surface of the water Africa played her tricks with time
In Harrar I found the footprints of the Poet saw the mountains and the very trees that must have been his final lyrics hanging still in the palpable air sanctified by his long-evaporated stare
one day on the path between a mountain and a lake I encountered Rasselas and Prestor John mounted on mules and flanked by a colorful bouquet of robes and umbrellas
"Ia-h luminous defecation of a star good to eat" I asked "Why are the mountains marching towards a rendezvous with the sea?" "Why does the black leopard hunt the holy ghost in the middle of a moonless night?"
they acknowledged my enthusiasm with Byzantine chuckles and paused upon the road to Habashat long enough to flay my heart with fly whisks and other priestly wonders meant to be considered works of art
once before the sun rose on the Awash River the rock I sat upon floated in the wind and with a troupe of actors I went dancing slowly to the desert
the wings of flamingoes caress my forehead I practice the scales and chords of African lakes a million voyages have left the builders of cities empty-handed a million dead-eyed people have invented the wrong devices
I have seen frogs clinging
to the pink peeling walls of tombs in the noonday sun I have heard the chants of monkeys kneeling in the moonlight on the uncertain graves of aristocratic wildebeests I have know albino rock farmers whose skins were anointed with fermented ghee stirring the gnarled air with stoics frm the shores of lost rivers lepers and skeletons wrapped in shroughds floating across the quivering terrain calling the spirits of birds wit Olympian flutes
trees alone on the velvet savannah grasses exploring with dancelike gestures the undulating rhythms of space hidden caves in eroded cliffs occupied by nandi bears with harems of apes armies of neolithic warriors eating at a place of embarkation guarded by a skyful of harpies trailing an odor of decay that may have existed before life itself electric waves of ichor pulsing through oceans of eyes
I live in your innards
and you in mine with every whistle moan and howl every taste of blog and milk every birth of something seeking light every moment of communal breath I am the object of your digestion and you are the subject of mine.
David Wiley, painter and poet, exhibits throughout California and abroad. To inquire about his paintings, click here. For more of his paintings, poetry and writings, check theArchives.
