MICHAEL HEIZER, CITY
I’m going to tell you the story
of my strange life: I am
no prints, no traces
of steps on the playa.
When I strip myself down to this,
I want you to know that I intend
to be permanent, I intend to live
forever, I intend to outlive even
the cockroaches, even the nuclear
winter; even the sand will move
out from under me.
I will bury here,
above ground – no matter
what uranium I am lying
on top of what oil pools up beneath
my feet what natural gas stays cemented
in bedrock what merciless sun licks its lips.
It’s all going to come out,
all going to be exposed,
all going to be hung dry, all going to
rise like Babel from the desert floor,
all going to stay, all going to
stand; you must walk through me,
you must walk about me, you must
walk my arms and legs,
my mind and body.
Do not worship the ground or
the heat, or the mountains, do not
worship at all – lay down,
be water.
TUOLUMNE
I have gone out amongst the gold hills to learn myself again as if I have forgotten, to maybe once more find out why it was I went out there in the first place, why I was placed out amongst the granite and the ponderosa and Earth’s spit, why I kept going to the open spaces, why I saw death time and time again even mine, why I keep bringing everyone I know out here, why I close my eyes and picture this meadow each time, why I fall asleep and only have dreams walking along this path to the Sierra Club shelter, why I crave the thin air and the long wind: the present moment is erasing all my grasp of linearity by telling me it’s worth it to remain here, rooted amongst the hemlock grove, and learn from each breath that I take as the glacier wind moves through my throat again: it’s taking me years to learn how to be present and I’m starting to wonder if it’s even worth it to clear my mind because the pictures that keep coming up are of the mule deer wading through the Tuolumne and it doesn’t seem productive for me to forget that, it’s what I force myself to remember each day when I wake up and each night when I lay awake: each time is just a drive through and it’s a craving to stay put and never leave, to disappear as a smooth pebble on the side of the river and maybe point out each peak above the Cathedral Lakes and like some sort of god declare each one of them good and good and good as if the goodness came from my finger, that same finger I use to brush the hair behind your ear that the long wind licked up: I am nostalgic for each moment I’m living including the one right now because isn’t it goddamn sweet to taste that long, long wind: I wish everyone could be here, especially the ones I haven’t met yet: mostly I just wish that heaven were a real place: I’m wondering what it was like to be born: I am going out amongst the gray and green mountains to learn again why I keep coming back here, to reach down into the duff and sift out some piece of me that I leave behind each time: I can never find the me that I leave behind and I hope it’s because someone else goes home with it: I hope I can bring that stranger a quiet moment: I hope I can be the long wind over Tioga for them: I hope that I too will be a wind someday: I hope that maybe I will come back here again: each time I leave I say I will be back soon and the years go by but I know that I will make it back because I am always there, lodged like a splinter between the slippery rocks.
WHAT OF THIS WORLD IS OURS
The whole world is eternal
but the white spruce on the cliff by the beach
has died of exhaustion/we’ve stopped
counting holes in the ceiling tiles
to fall asleep/the storm drains are
backed up with eucalyptus leaves/
the oceans have risen above the former
fishing pier, the one where men gathered
every Saturday morning to pull lackluster
queenfish from the whitewash/
the whole world is eternal
but a polar bear sloshes
through melted permafrost in search of
bearded seals that aren’t there/yesterday
the Louvre flooded with ocean water/
the Marshall Islands flooded with
ocean water/the Los Angeles basin
flooded with ocean water/Cape Town flooded
with ocean water/Hong Kong flooded with
ocean water/everyone is flooding these days/
even the air gasps for help/even the Amazon
is flooding with fire/today the capitol spontaneously
froze/today I reached in my pockets/there was smoke there
there were my hands/there was smoke there/
walking down the aisles of my legs with
incense/breaking tradition because it’s
an emergency/don’t you think this
is a trial/don’t you think this must be my Job-
moment/the whole world is eternal/still
this is my eternity/my whole world/our whole
eternity.
Brent Shenton is a writer from Southern California, currently living in Portland, Oregon. He is an MFA candidate at Portland State University and his work has appeared in Chinquapin & Matchbox Magazine.
