Our third reading response will be Dictee by Theresa Hak Chung Ka. She was a UC Berkeley Art Practice graduate and is famous for her work with hybridity.

20200916001520dictee_by_theresa_chung_hak_ka__1_1.pdf

Home >Business & Finance homework help >Management homework help >Our third reading response will be Dictee by Theresa Hak Chung Ka. She was a UC Berkeley Art Practice graduate and is famous for her work with hybridity.

DICTEE

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley . Las Angeles . Landan

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cha, Theresa Hak Kyung. Dictee I Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.-1st California paperback ed.

p. cm. Portions of text in English and French. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-520-23112-0 (alk. paper) 1. Women-Poetry. 2. Loss (Psychology)-Poetry.

3. Suffering-Poetry. 4. Exiles-Poetry. L Title.

PS3553.H13 D5 2001 811' .54-dc21

Originally published in 1982 by Tanam Presso

First Third Woman Press printing 1995.

First California paperback edition 2001.

Printed in the United States of America

08 07 06

9 8 7 6 5

2001027342

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI! NISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permal1el1ce oJ Paper). e

TO MY MOTHER TO MY FATHER

May I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve.

Sappho

CLIO HISTORY

CALLIOPE EPICPOETRY

URANIA ASTRONOMY

MELPOMENE TRAGEDY

ERATO LOVEPOETRY

ELITERE L YRIC POETRY

THALIA COMEDY

TERPSICHORE CHORAL DANCE

POLYMNIA SACRED POETRY

Aller à la ligne C'était le premier jour point Elle venait de loin point ce soir au diner virgule les familles demanderaient virgule ouvre les guil- lemets ça c'est bien passé le premier jour point d'interrogation ferme les guillemets au moins virgule dire le moins possible virgule la réponse serait virgule ouvre les guillemets Il n'y a q'une chose point ferme les guillemets ouvre les guille- mets Il y a quelqu'une point loin point ferme les guillemets

Open paragraph It was the first day peri od She had come from a far period tonight at dinner comma the families would ask comma open quotation marks How was the first day interroga- tion mark dose quotation marks at least to say the least of it possible comma the answer would be open quotation marks there is but one thing period There is someone period From a far period dose quotation marks

DISEUSE

She mimicks the speaking. That might resembie speech. (Anything at alI.) Bared noise, groan, bits torn from words. Since she hesitates to measure the accuracy, she resorts to mimicking gestures with the mouth. The entire lower lip wouId lift upwards then sink back to its originaI pIace. She wouId then gather both lips and protrude them in a pout taking in the breath that might utter some thing. (One thing. Just one.) But the breath falls away. With a slight tilting of her head backwards, she would gather the strength in her shouIders and remain in this position.

It murmurs inside. It murmurs. Inside is the pain of speech the pain to say. Larger stilI. Greater than is the pain not to say. To not say. Says nothing against the pain to speak. It festers in- side. The wound, liquid, dust. Must break. Must void.

From the back of her neck she releases her shoulders free. She swallows once more. (Once more. One more time wouId do.) In preparation. It augments. To such a pitch. Endiess drone, refueling itself. Au- tonomous. Self-generating. Swallows with Iast efforts last wills against the pain that wishes it to speak.

She allows others. In pIace of her. Admits others to make full. Make swarm. AlI barren cavities to make swollen. The others each occupying her. Tumorous

layers, expel alI excesses until in alI cavities she IS flesh.

She alIows herself caught in their threading, anony- mously in their thick motion in the weight of their utterance. When the amplification stops there might be an echo. She might make the attempt then. The echo part. At the pause. When the pause has already soon begun and has rested there stilI. She waits in- side the pause. Inside her. Now. This very moment. Now. She takes rapidly the air, in gulfs, in prepara- tion for the distances to come. The pause ends. The voice wraps another layer. Thicker now even. From the waiting. The wait from pain to say. To not to. Say.

She would take on their punctuation. She waits to service this. Theirs. Punctuation. She would become, herself, demarcations. Absorb it. Spill it. Seize upon the punctuation. Last air. Give her. Her. The relay. Voice. Assign. Hand it. De- liver it. Deliver.

She relays the others. Recitation. Evocation. Offer- ing. Provocation. The begging. Before her. Before them.

Now the weight begins from the uppermost back of her head, pressing downward. It stretches evenly, the entire skulI expanding tightly all sides toward the front of her head. She gasps from its pressure, its contracting motion.

Inside her voids. It does not contain further. Ris- irig from the empty below, pebble lumps of gas. Moisture. Begin to flood her. Dissolving her. Slow, slowed to deliberation. Slow and thick.

The above traces from her head moving downward closing her eyes, in the same motion, slower parting her mouth open together with her jaw and throat which the above falls falling just to the end not stop- ping there but turning her inside out in the same motion, shifting complete the whole weight to elevate upward.

Begins imperceptibly, near-perceptible. (Just once. Just one time and it will take.) She takes. She takes the pause. Slowly. From the thick. The thickness. From weighted motion upwards. Slowed. To deliber- ation even when it passed upward through her mouth again. The delivery. She takes it. Slow. The invok- ing. AlI the time now. All the time there is. Always. And alI times. The pause. Uttering. Hers now. Hers bare. The utter.

o Muse, tell me the story Of all these things, O Goddess, daughter of Zeus Beginning wherever you wish, tell even uso

Ecrivez en francais: 1. If you like this better, tell me so at once. 2. The generaI remained only a little while in this

pIace. 3. If you did not speak so, quickly, they would un-

derstand you better. 4. The leaves have not fallen yet nor will they fall

for some days. 5. I t will fi t you pretty well. 6. The people of this country are less happy than the

people 6r yours. 7. Come back on the fifteenth of next month, no

sooner and no later. 8. I met him downstairs by chance. 9. Be industrious: the more one works, the better

one succeeds. lO. The harder the task, the more honorable the

labor. 11. The more a man praises himself, the less inclined

are others to praise him. 12. Go away more quietly next time.

Traduire en francais: 1. I want you to speak. 2. I wanted him to speak. 3. I shall want you to speak. 4. Are you afra id he will speak? 5. Were you afraid they would speak? 6. It will be better for him to speak to uso 7. Was it necessary for you to write? 8. Wait till I write.

9. Why didn't you wait so that I could write you?

Complétez les phrases suivantes: 1. Le lac est (geler) ce matin. 2. Je (se lever) quand ma mère m'appeler. 3. Elle (essuyer) la table avec une éponge. 4. Il (mener) son enfant à l'ecole. 5. Au marché on (acheter) des oeufs, de la viande

et des legumes. 6. Il (jeter) les coquilles des noix qu'il (manger). 7. Ils (se promener) tous les soirs dans le rue. 8. Elle (préférer) le chapeau vert. 9. Je (espérer) que vous m' (appeler) de bonne heure.

lO. Ils (envoyer) des cadeaux à leurs amis.

T ell me the story Of all these things. Beginning wherever you wish, tell even uso

Black ash from the Palm Hosannah. Ash. Kneel down on the marble the cold beneath rising through the bent knees. Close eyes and as the lids flutter, push out the tongue.

The Host Wafer (His Body. His Blood.) His. Dis- solving in the mouth to the liquid tongue saliva (Wine to Blood. Bread to Flesh.) His. Open the eyes to the women kneeling on the left side. The right side. Only visible on their bleached countenances are the unevenly lit circles of rouge and their elongated tongues. In waiting. To receive. Him.

Waiting. Nearing, nearer and nearer to the altar of God. Infusion of the surplus perfumes, bee' s wax, in- cense, flowers.

PIace back the tongue. Now to the forehead, between the two brows or just above. Hands folded fingers laced to expel all extraneous space. One ges- ture. Solido For Him.

By then he is aga in at the other end. He the one who deciphers he the one who invokes in the Name. He the one who becomes He. Man-God. Places bles- sed leaves blessed ashes from the blessed palms in the left hand. Black dot of ash on the forehead. Through Hosannah Hosannah in the Highest. Through the Mea Culpa Mea Culpa through my most grievous sin. Crucifixion to follow. Of Him. Of His son.

Stand not too quickly the stations looking down at the red of the carpet hand placed on triangle white fake lace scarf not to slip fall from the head, the head of hair the sin covered. The nails of the shoes snag on the carpet down the aisle to the water bowl the finger

reach to make the cross from the same forehead side by side not to erase the dark ash to the chest once to the Ieft shoulder once then to the right in the Name of the Three in One, the mystery of all Three being One. At the same time. Nine steps down from the main gate is dusk now, evening, nightfall.

Translate into French:

1. T oday would be the Feast day of the Immaculate Conception. She would have been voted to crown the Blessed Virgin. She herself would be sinless would be pure would be chaste in her heart. She would be silent. Often. Most of the time. Most of- ten than noto Far too often.

2. "O my God, I am heartily sorry for having of- fended Thee, and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all, because they offend Thee my God, who art alI good and deserving of alI my love. I firmly resolve the help of Thy grace to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin, Amen."

3. Near Occasion 4. France was formerly divided into thirty-two pro-

vinces, such as Brittany, Provence, Franche- Comte, etc., but since the Revolution of seventeen eighty-nine, it is divided into eighty-six depart- ments. The names given to the departments come almost all from the rivers that traverse them, such as the Loire, the Seine, etc.; some are borrowed from the names of the mountains, and a small

number from the situation, such as the Depart- ment of the North, or from the nature of the soiI. Each department is administered by a prefect. Paris is not only the capitaI of France, it is the cap- itaI of the world. Do you know that there are about ten thousand Americans in Paris, who would quit to go to heaven?

5. She calI she believe she calling to she has calling because there no response she believe she calling and the other end must hear. The other end must see the other end feel she accept pages sent care of never to be seen never to be read never to be known if name if name be known if name only seen heard spoken read cannot be never she hide all essential words words link subject verb she writes hidden the essential words must be pretended invented she try on different images essential invisible

6. We left London at half past seven and arrived at Dover after a journey of two hours. At ten o'dock the boat left the harbour. The trip across the chan- nel took only an hour and a half. The sea was calm, we did not feel the slightest of motion. We made a stop of an hour at Calais, where we had luncheon. It was rather dear but well served. At six o' clock in the evening we were in Paris. The entire trip was only a matter of a little more than ten hours and an expenditure of fifty francs.

7. Forget and would be forgotten dose eyes and would be forgotten not say and they are forgotten not admit and they are forgotten like sins say

them they are forgiven forgotten and they are for- gotten

8. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the HoIy Spirit, Amen. Bless me father, for I have sinned, my Iast confession was... I can't re- member. Name how many; one. two. three. weeks months years. Name all the sins. Name all the mortaI sins if any, how many. Name all the venia l sins, how many. Get the penance. Say thank you Father. Say all the penance.

9. The young poet who composed the Marseillaise was called Rouget de Lisle. He wrote it when he was in Strassburg in March or April, seventeen ninety-two. He spent a whole night composing this beautifui song; however, he wrote nothing before the next morning. After writing what he had composed, he went to the house of his friend Dietrich to show it to him. He sang his new song before his friends. The mayor's wife accompanied him at the piano. Everyone applauded. Soon it was sung everywhere in France.

"Bless me father, for I have sinned. My Iast confes- sion was ... I can't remember when ... These are my sins ."

I am making up the sins. For the guarantee of ab- solution. In the beginning again, at zero. Before Heaven even. Before the Fall. AlI previous

wrongs erased. Reduced to spotless. Pure. When I receive God, alI pure. TotalIy. For the Dwelling of God Housed in my body and souI must be clean. Free of sin. Any sin. MortaI sin. The greater the sin, greater the forgiveness, greater t/w GIory of God in His forgiveness. I have none. Venial sin. 5mall sins. HardIy worth the mention. 5ins, alI the same. Thoughts even. No matter how invisible. Everything is visible to God. Thought as visible as word as act. Act of Contrition. I am making the confession. To make words. To make a speech in such tongues. Q: WHO MADE THEE? A: God made me. To conspire in God's Tongue. Q: WHERE 15 GOD? A: God is everywhere. Accomplice in His Texts, the fabrication in His Own Image, the pleasure the desire of giving Image to the word in the mind of the confessor. Q: GOD WHO HA5 MADE YOU IN HI5 OWN LIKENE55. A: God who has made me in His own likeness. In His Own Image in His Own Resemblance, in His Own Copy, In His Own Counterfeit Present- ment, in His Duplicate, in His Own Reproduc- tion, in His Cast, in His Carbon, His Image and His Mirror. Pleasure in the image pleasure in the copy pleasure in the projection of likeness pleasure in the repetition. Acquiesce, to the cor-

respondance. Acquiesce, to the messenger. Acquiesce, to and for the complot in the Hieratic tongue. Theirs. Into Their tongue, the counter- script, my confession in Theirs. Into Theirs. To scribe to make hear the words, to make sound the words, the words, the words made flesh.

First Friday. One hour before masso Mass every First Friday. Dictée first. Every Friday. Before masso Dictée before. Back in the study hall. It is time. Snaps once. One step right from the desk. Single file. Snaps twice. Follow single line. Move alI the way to the right hand side of the wall. Single file. The sound in- strument is made from two pieces of flat box-shaped wood, with a hinge at the center. It rests inside the palm and is snapped with a defined closing of the thumb. Framed inside is an image of the Holy Virgin Mary robed in blue with white drape or white robe with a blue drape over her head, her eyes towards Heaven, two hands to Heaven, shrouded in clouds, the invisible feet. Framed inside next to her is the sacred heart of Jesus, a pierced heart enflamed single threaded thorn across above emanating silver light. Image of Jesus Christ pointing his left index finger to chest wounded mark on right hand reaching reaching perhaps ever so gently. Single file silence gliding steps one at a time the organ has started already Les enfants de Mon Sacré Coeur. (All capitaI letters) The organ plays over again Vous l'avez dit Votre Promesse ... nos espoir notre

bonheure (or was it votre) dans la tendresse ... (or was it ma tendresse) les enfants de Mon Sacre Coeur over and over the single file waits at the door of the chapel. The seniors first. The line divides in two. Waiting in two lines with space between. The singing has begun. The words are in the blue books in case you have for- gotten them. The chosen ones to crown Mary the Immaculate Conception enter in the center. The white uniforms. The ribbon of satin, today, blue draped across from the right shoulder down to the left si de of the waist. Banner. Of blue and white satin. The image of Mary seated. In the center. White lilies. One in the center to carry the banner. The eight others, 4 by 4 in single file behind the one with the banner. 9 in alI. Each pew holds nine. One monitor to count the nine then to the next pew. The next verse. And then back to the first. Over and over. Until it begins. The novena of the Immaculate Conception.

NOVENA: NINE EACH. THE RECITA TION OF PRA YER AND PRACTICING OF DE- VOTIONS DURING A NINE DA Y PERIOD

And it begins.

From A Far What nationaIity or what kindred and reIa tion what bIood reIation what bIood ties of bIood what ancestry what race generation what house clan tribe stock strain what Iineage extraction what breed sect gender denomination caste what stray ejection mispIaced Tertium Quid neither one thing nor the other Tombe des nues de naturaIized what transpIant to dispeI upon

IN NOMINE

LENOM

NOMINE

CLIO HISTORY

YU GUAN SOON

BIRTH: By Lunar Calendar, 15, March 1903 DEATH: 12, October, 1920. 8:20 A.M.

She is born of one mother and one father.

She makes complete her duration. As others have made complete theirs: rendered incessant, obsessive myth, rendered immortal their acts without the leisure to examine whether the parts false the parts real according to History' s revisiono

Truth embraces with it all other abstentions other than itself. Outside Time. Outside Space. Parallels other durations, oblivious to the delib- erate brilliance of its own time, mortaI, deliberate marking. Oblivious to itself. But to sing. To sing to. Very softly.

She calIs the name Jeanne d'Are three tirnes. She calIs the name Ahn Joong Kun five tirnes.

There is no people without a natio n, no people without ancestry. There are other nations no matter how small their land, who have their independence. But our country, even with 5,000 years of history, has lost it to the Japanese.

"Japan at once created an assembly, in the name of the King, for the 'discussion of every- thing, great and smalI, that happened within the realm.' This assembly at first met daily, and af- terwards at longer intervals. There were soon no less than fifty Japanese advisers at work in SeouI. They were men of little experience and less re- sponsibility, and they apparently thought that they were going to transform the land between the rising and setting of the suno They produced endless ordinances, and scarce a day went by save that a number of new regulations were

issued, some trivial, some striking at the oldest and most cherished institutions in the country. The Government was changed from an absolute monarchy to one where the king governed only by the advice of the Ministers. The power of di- rect address to the throne was denied to anyone under the rank of Governor. One ordinance created a constitution, and the next dealt with the status of the ladies of the royal seraglio. At one hour a proclamation went forth that alI men were to cut their hair, and the wearied runners on their return were again dispatched in hot haste with an edict altering the officiallanguage. Noth- ing was too smalI' nothing too great, an? n?th- ing too contradictory for these constltutlOn- mongers. Their doings were the laugh and the amazement of every foreigner in the pIace.

"Acting on the Japanese love of order and o~ de- fined rank, exact titles of honour were provlded far the wives of officials. These were divided into nine grades: 'Pure and Reverent Lady,' 'Pure Lady,' 'Chaste Lady,' 'Chaste Darne,' 'Worthy Darne,' 'Courteous Darne,' 'Just Darne,' 'Peaceful Darne,' and 'Upright Darne.' At the same time the King' s concubines were equally divided, but here eight divisions were sufficient: 'Mistress,' 'Noble Lady,' 'Resplendent Exemplar,' 'Chaste Exem- plar,' 'Resplendent Demeanor,' 'Chaste Demean- or,' 'Resplendent Beauty,' and 'Chaste Beauty.' The Japanese advisers instituted a number of sumptuary laws that stirred the country to its depths, relating to the length of pipes, style of dress, and the attiring of the hair of the peQple. Pipes were to be short, in pIace of the long bam- boo churchwarden beloved by the Koreans.

Sleeves were to be clipped. The top-knot, worn by all Korean men, was at once to be cut oH. Soldiers at the city gates proceeded to enforce this last regulation rigorously."

Guan Soon is the only daughter born of four chil- dren to her patrio t father and mother. From an early age her actions are marked exceptional. History re- cords the biography of her short and intensely-lived existence. Actions prescribed separate her path from the others. The identity of such a path is exchange- able with any other heroine in history, their names, dates, actions which require not definition in their devotion to generosity and self-sacrifice.

In Guan Soon' s 16th year, 1919, the conspiracy by the Japanese to overthrow the Korean Government is achieved with the assassination of the ruling Queen Min and her royal family. In the aftermath of this incident, Guan Soon forms a resistant group with fellow students and actively begins her revolutionary work. There is already a nationally organized move- ment, who do not accept her seriousness, her pIace as a young woman, and they attempt to dissuade her. She is not discouraged and demonstrates to them her conviction and dedication in the cause. She is ap- pointed messenger and she travels on foot to 40 towns, organizing the nation's mass demonstration to be held on March 1, 1919. This date marks the turn- ing point, it is the Iargest collective outcry against the Japanese occupation of the Korean people who will- ingly gave their lives for independence.

The only daughter of four children she makes complete her life as others have made complete. Her mother her father her brothers.

Il 'I saw four places where engagements had been fought. At one pIace it had been a drawn battle, the Japanese retiring with five killed. The other three were Japanese victories, owing to the long range of their rifles and their superi or am- munition; and only one of their victories was obtained without casualties to themselves. I saw enough to realise that it was no picnic for the Japanese.

Il 'One is forced to ask who is in charge of these men who are nothing more than brigands. Their mode of warfare seems to be purposely designed to stir every honest man into a frenzy. Is this their object? If not, why do they practice so wicked, so mad a policy? Let the authorities either police the whole disaHected districts effec- tually and properIy, or else confess their incapa- city for controlling Korea.' "

SUPPRESSION OF FOREIGN CRITICISM September 26, 1907

"We are informed that a bad fight took pIace about eight miles from Su-won on Sunday, Sep- tember 12th. Thirty volunteers were surrounded by Japanese troops, and although no resistance was offered, they were shot down in the most cold-blooded fashion. This not being quite enough to satisfy the conquerors, two other vol- unteers who had been captured were brought out

and were decapitated by one of the officers. We may mention that this news does not come from native sources; it comes from European."

The "enemy." One's enemy. Enemy nation. Entire nation against the other entire nation. One people exulting the suffering institutionalized on another. The enemy becomes abstract. The relationship be- comes abstract. The nation the enemy the name becomes larger than its own identity. Larger than its own measure. Larger than its own properties. Larger than its own signification. For this people. For the people who is their enemy. For the people who is their ruler's subject and their ruler's victory.

Japan has become the sign. The alphabet. The vo- cabulary. To this enemy people. The meaning is the instrument, memory that pricks the skin, stabs the flesh, the volume of blood, the physical substance blood as measure, that rests as record, as document. Of this enemy people.

To the other nations who are not witnesses, who are not subject to the same oppressions, they cannot know. Unfathomable the words, the terminology: enemy, atrocities, conquest, betrayal, invasion, des- struction. They exist only in the larger perception of History' s recording, that affirmed, admittedly and unmistakably, one enemy natio n has disregarded the humanity of another. Not physical enough. Not to the very flesh and bone, to the core, to the mark, to the point where it is necessary to intervene, even if to invent anew, expressions, for this experience, for this outcome, that does not cease to continue.

To the others, these accounts are about (one more) distant land, like (any other) distant land, without any discernable features in the narrative, (all the same) distant like any other.

This document is transmitted through, by the same means, the same channel without distinction the con- tent is delivered in the same style: the word. The image. T o appeal to the masses to congeal the infor- mation to make bland, mundane, no longer able to transcend their own conspirator method, no matter how alluring their presentation. The response is pre- coded to perform predictably however passively possible. Neutralized to achieve the no-response, to make absorb, to submit to the uni-directional corres- pondance.

Why resurrect it all now. From the Past. History, the old wound. The past emotions all over again. To confess to relive the same folly. T o name it now so as not to repeat history in oblivion. To extract each fragment by each fragment from the word from the image another word another image the reply that will not repeat history in oblivion.

PETITION FROM THE KOREANS OF HAWAII TO PRESIDENT ROOSEVEL T

HonoIuIu, T .H.

T o His Excellency, July 12, 1905

The President of the United States Y our Excellencv, - The undersigned haye. be~n

authorised by the 8,000 Koreans now resIdmg m the territory of Hawaii at a special mass meet- ing heId in the city of HonoIuIu, on JuIy 1~, 1905, to present to your Excellency the followmg ap- peal:-

We the Koreans of the Hawaiian IsIands, voici~g the sentiments of tweIve millions of our countrymen, humbly lay before your Excellency the following facts:-

Soon after the commencement of the war be- tween Russia and Japan, our Government made a treaty of alliance with J~pan for o.ffensive and defensive purposes. By vIrtue of thlS treaty the whole of Korea was opened to the Japanese, and both the Government and the people have been assisting the Japanese authorities in their military operations in and about Korea.

The contents of this treaty are undoubtedly known to your Excellency, therefore we ne ed not embody them in this appeal. Suffice it to state, however, the object of the treaty was to preserve the independence of Korea a~~ Japan a~d to pro- tect Eastern Asia from RussIa s aggresslOn.

Korea in return for Japan's friendship and protecti~n against Russia, has rendered services to the Japanese by permitting them to ~se the country as a base of their military operatlOns.

When this treaty was concluded, the Koreans fully expected that Japan would int~o?uce .re- forms into the governmental admmlstratlOn along the line of the modern civilization ?f Eur- ope and America, and that she would advIse and counsel our people in a friendly manner, but to our disappointment and regret the Japanese Gov- ernment has not done a single thing in the way of improving the condition of the Korean people. On the contrary, she turned loose several thou- sand rough and disorderly men of her nationals in Korea, who are treating the inoffensive Kor- eans in a most outrageous manner. The Koreans are by nature not a quarrelsome or aggressive people, but deeply resent the high-handed action of the Japanese towards them. We can scarcely believe that the Japanese Government approves the outrages committed by its people in Korea, but it has done nothing to prevent this state of affairs. They have been, during the Iast eighteen months, forcibIy obtaining alI the special privi- Ieges and concessions from our Government, so that to-day they practically own everything that is worth having in Korea.

We, the common people of Korea, have lost confidence in the promises J apan made at the time of concluding the treaty of alIiance, and we doubt seriousIy the good intentions which she professes to have towards our people. For geo- graphical, raciaI, and commerciaI reasons we want to be friendIy to Japan, and we are even willing to have her as our guide and exampI.e in the matters of internaI reforms and educatlOn, but the continuous policy of seIf-expIoitation at the expense of the Koreans has shaken our con-

fidence in her, and we are now afraid that she will not keep her promise of preserving our in de- pendence as a nation, nor assisting us in reform- ing internaI administration. In other words, her policy in Korea seems to be exactly the same as that of Russia prior to the war.

The United States has many interests in our country. The industriaI, commerciaI, and reli- gious enterprises under American management, have attained such proportions that we believe the Government and people of the Unites States ought to know the true conditions of Korea and the result of the Japanese becoming paramount in our country. We know that the people of Ameri- ca love fair play and advocate justice towards alI meno We also know that your Excellency is the ardent exponent of a square deal between indi- viduals as welI as nations, therefore we come to you with this memorial with the hope that Y our Excellency may help our country at this criticaI period of our nationallife.

We fully appreciate the fact that during the conference between the Russian and Japanese peace envoys, Your ExcelIency may not care to make any suggestion to either party as to the conditions of their settlement, but we earnestly hope that Your ExcelIency will see to it that Korea may preserve her autonomous Govern- ment and that other Powers shall not oppress or maltreat our people. The clause in the treaty be- tween the United States and Korea gives us a claim upon the United States for assistance, and this is the time when we need it most.

Very respectfully, Your obedient servants, (Sgd.) p .K. Yoon

Syngman Rhee

March 1, 1919. Everyone knows to carry inside themselves, the national flag. Everyone knows equal- ly the punishment that folIows this gesture. The march begins, the flags are taken out, made visible, waved, every individuaI crying out the independence the freedom to the people of this nation. Knowing equally the punishment. Her parents leading the pro- cession fell. Her brothers. Countless others were fired at and stabbed indiscriminately by the enemy sol- diers. Guan Soon is arrested as a leader of the revolu- tion, with punishment deserving of such a rank. She is stabbed in the chest, and subjected to questioning to which she reveals no names. She is given seven years prison sentence to which her repIy is that the nation itself is imprisoned. Child revolutionary child patriot woman soldier deliverer of nation. The eternity of one act. Is the completion of one existence. One martyrdom. For the history of one nation. Of one people.

Some will not know age. Some not age. Time stops. Time will stop for some. For them especially. EternaI time. No age. Time fixes for some. Their image, the memory of them is not given to deterioration, unlike the captured image that extracts from the souI pre- ciseIy by reproducing, multipIying itself. Their coun- tenance evokes not the hallowed beauty, beauty from seasonal decay, evokes not the inevitable, not death, but the dy-ing.

Face to face with the memory, it misses. It's missing. Stillo What of time. Does not move. Remains there.

Misses nothing. Time, that is. AlI else. All things else. AlI other, subject to time. Must answer to time, ex- cept. Still born. Aborted. BareI)'. Infant. Seed, germ, sprout, less even. Dormant. Stagnant. Missing.

The decapitated forms. Worn. Marred, recording a past, of previous forms. The present form face to face reveals the missing, the absent. Would-be-said remnant, memory. But the remnant is the whole.

The memory is the entire. The longing in the face of the lost. Maintains the missing. Fixed between the wax and wane indefinite not a sign of progresso AlI else age, in time. Except. Some are without.

l i I

CALLIOPE EPICPOETRY

Mother, you are eighteen years old. You were born in Yong Jung, Manchuria and this is where you now live. Y ou are not Chinese. Y ou are Korean. But your family moved here to escape the Japanese occupation. China is large. Larger than large. You tell me that the hearts of the people are measured by the size of the land. As large and as silent. You live in a village where the other Koreans live. Same as you. Refugees. Immigrants. Exiles. Farther away from the land that is not your own. Not your own any longer.

You did not want to see. You cannot see anymore. What they do. To the land and to the people. As long as the land is not your own. Until it will be again. Your father left and your mother left as the others. You suffer the knowledge of having to leave. Of having left. But your MAH-UHM, spirit has not left. Never shall ha ve and never shall will. Not now. Not even now. It is burned into your ever-present memory. Memory lesso Because it is not in the past. It cannot be. Not in the least of all pasts. It burns. Fire alight enflame.

Mother, you are a child stilI. At eighteen. More of a child since you are always ilI. They have sheltered you from life. Still, you speak the tongue the manda- tory language like the others. It is not your own. Even if it is not you know you must. Y ou are Bi- lingua l. You are Tri-lingual. The tongue that is for- bidden is your own mother tongue. You speak in the dark. In the secret. The one that is yours. Your own. Y ou speak very softly, you speak in a whisper. In the dark, in secret. Mother tongue is your refuge. It is

being home. Being who you are. Truly. To speak makes you sad. Yearning. To utter each word is a privilege you risk by death. Not only for you but for alI. Ali of you who are one, who by law tongue tied forbidden of tongue. You carry at center the mark of the red above and the mark of blue below, heaven and earth, tai-geuk; t'ai-chi. It is the mark. The mark of belonging. Mark of cause. Mark of retreival. By birth. By death. By blood. You carry the mark in your chest, in your MAH-UHM, in your MAH- UHM, in your spirit-heart.

You sing.

Standing in a shadow, Bong Sun flower Your form is destitute Long and long inside the summer day When beautifully flowers bloom The lovely young virgins will Have played in your honor.

In truth this would be the anthem. The national song forbidden to be sung. Birth lesso And orphan. They take from you your tongue. They take from you the choral hymn. But you say not for long not for al- ways. Not forever. You wait. You know ~ow. ~ou know how to wait. Inside MAH-UHM fIre ahght enflame.

Fro/n the Misere to Gloria to Magnificat and Sal1ctus. To the Antiphonal song. Because surely. Soon. The answer would come. The respOl1se. Like echo. After the oblations. The offering. The sacrifice, the votive, the devotions,

the novenas, the matins, the lauds, the vespers, tlle vigils, the evensong, the nightsong, the atten- dance, the adoration, the veneration, the honor, the il1vocations, the supplications, the petitions, the recitations, the vows, the immolations. Surely, al! these and more. Ceaseless. Again. Over al1d over.

You know to wait. Wait in the Misere. Wait in the Gloria. Wait in the Magnificat. Wait in the Sanctus. For the Antiphonal song. Antiphonal hymn. The choral answer. In the ebb and tide of echo.

They ha ve not forbidden sight to your eyes. You see. Y ou are made to see. Y ou see and you know. For yourself. The eyes have not been condemned. You see inspite of. Y our sight. Let that be a lesso n to yOU. You see farther. Farther and farther. Beyond what you are made to see and made to see only. Y ou pass the mark, even though you say nothing. Everyone who has seen, sees farther. Even farther than al- lowed. And you wait. You keep silent. You bide time. Time. Single stone laid indicating the day from sunrise to sundown. Filling up times belly. Stone by stone. Three hundred sixty five days multiplied thirty six years. Some have been born into it. And some would die into it.

The days before the reclamation. Your father. Your mother. Dying while uttering the words. Their only regret. Not having seen with their very eyes, the overthrow. The repelling. The expulsion of the peo- pie who have taken you by force. Not to have wit- nessed the purging by sulphur and fire. Of the house. Of the na tion.

You write. You write you speak voices hidden maskedyou pIan t words to the moon you send word through the wind. Through the passing of seasons. By sky and by water the words are given birth given discretion. From one mouth to another, from one reading to the next the words are realized in their full meaning. The wind. The dawn or dusk the day earth and traveling birds south bound birds are mouth pieces wear the ghost veil for the seed of message. Correspondence. To scatter the words.

Mother you are eighteen. It is 1940. You have just graduated from a teacher's college. You are going to your first teaching post in a small village in the coun- try. Y our are required by the government of Man- churia to teach for three years in an assigned post, to repay the .loan they provided for you to attend the teacher' s schooI. Y ou are hardly an adul t. Y ou have never left your mother's, father's home. You who are born the youngest of four children. Always ailing. Y ou have been sheltered from the harshness of daily life. Always the youngest of the family, the child.

Y ou traveled to this village on the train with your father. Y ou are dressed in western dothes. At the sta- tion the villagers innocently stare at you and some follow you, especially the children. It is Sunday.

Y ou are the first woman teacher to come to this village in six years. A male teacher greets you, he addresses you in Japanese. Japan had already occu- pied Korea and is attempting the occupation of China. Even in the small village the signs of their

presence is felt by the Japanese language that is being spoken. The Japanese flag is hanging at the entry of the office. And below it, the educational message of the Meiji emperor framed in purple doth. It is re ad at special functions by the principal of the school to all the students.

The teachers speak in J apanese to each other. Y ou are Korean. AlI the teachers are Korean. You are as- signed to teach the first grade. Fifty children to your class. They must speak their name in Korean as well as how they should be called in Japanese. You speak to them in Korean since they are too young yet to speak Japanese.

It is February. In Manchuria. In this village you are alone and your hardships are immense. You are timid and unaccustomed to the daily existence of these vil- lage people. Outside the room and board that you pay, you send the rest of your pay home. You cannot ask for more than millet and barley to eat. You take what is given to you. Always do. Always have. You. Your people.

Y ou take the train home. Mother ... you call her already, from the gate. Mother, you cannot wait. She leaves everything to greet you, she comes and takes you indoors and brings you food to eat. Y ou are home now your mother your home. Mother insepar- able from which is her identity, her presence. Long- ing to breathe the same air her hand no more a hand than instrument broken weathered no death takes them. No death will take them, Mother, I dream you just to be able to see you. Heaven falls nearer in

sleep. Mother, my first sound. The first utter. The first concept.

It is Sunday afternoon. You must return to the schooI. Y our students are at the station waiting for you. They see you home and bring you food. It is May, i t is still cold in Manchuria. Y ou work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday passes. On Friday morning you do not feel well. Fever and chilI possess the body at the same time. Y ou are standing in the sunlight against the tepid wall to warm yourself. Y ou are giving in. T o the fall to the Iure behind you before you alI around yOu beneath your skin the sharp air begins to blow the winds of the body, dark fires rising to battle for victory, the summoning the coaxing the irresistable draw replac- ing sleep dense with images condensing them without space in between. No drought to the extentions of spells, words, noise. Music equally out of propor- tion. You are yielding to them. They are too quick to arrive. You do not know them, never ha ve seen them but they seek you, inhabit you whole, suspend you airless, spaceless. They force their speech upon you and direct your speech onIy to them.

You are going somewhere. You are somewhere. This stillness. Y ou cannot imagine how. StilI. So still alI around. Such stillness. It is endless. Spacious without the need for verification of space. Nothing moves. So stillo There is no struggle. Its own all its own. No where other. No time other conceivable. Total duration without need for verification of time.

You are moving inside. Inside the stillness. Its sIowness makes almost imperceptible the movement. Pauses. Pauses hardly rest. New movement, ending onIy to extend into the next movement. Stops as elongation into the new movement. You say this is how Heaven should be. Y ou say this is how it must be death. (MemoryIess. Dreamless.) Afterwards. The thick the weight of stillness. Y ou are moving accord- ingIy never ahead of the movement never behind the movement you are carrying the weight from outside being the weight inside. You move. You are being moved. Y ou are movement. In~eparabIy. Indefin- abIy. Not isolatable terms. None. Nothing.

You come to a house. Enormous in size. There are women standing before the house dressed in cos- tumes made of a strange and beautiful cloth. They are carried in a light breeze faint1y lifting above ground as if their bodies wore wings. From the dis- tance their movements are reduced to make almost clearer the movement.

To one side of the house you see a very wide flower bed. There is no end in sight. You pass along it when you come upon a very Iarge hall where an orchestra is pIaying music. On the other side, some women draped in long silk cloths are dancing. They entrance you. Numb you. You watch in awe for what seems to be a very long time. Such calm, you cannot imagine an expression that would describe it. Curiosity pulls you further and you move towards what looks like a restaurant. There are people very well dressed in not our native costumes and not foreign costumes. You

pass them and walk for a long time. From the oppo- site direction, three women are approaching you. Their strange beauty increases with their slow pro- gression towards you. Y ou notice that they each carry a large dish of food. You cannot identify its origin, but it captivates you completely.

Their spirit takes your own. You are immobilized they hold you to their sight and approach even nearer. They smile to you they say to you they have prepared this food especially for you. The first one stands facing you and asks you to eat from H. You shake your head in refusal inspite of Hs aroma and the beautifui arrangement.

Then was Jesus Ied up of the Spirit into the wil- derness to be tempted of the deviI.

2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward ahungered.

3 And when the tempter carne to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

4 But he answered and said, it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

The second one offers you from her dish and you refuse again. Y ou cannot speak you onIy shake your head in disagreement.

5 Then the deviI taketh him up into the hoIy city, and setteth him on a pinnade of the tempIe,

6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angeis charge concerning thee: and in their hand they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against astone.

7 Jesus said unto him It is written again, Thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God.

T~e t~ird one says to you, "then you must eat from mme.

8 Again, the deviI taketh him up into an exceed- ing high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdo~s of the world, and the glory of them;

9 And s.alth unto.him, All these things will I give thee, lf thou wdt fall down and worship me.

lO Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship th~ Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Il Then the de,:iI.leaveth him, and behold, angels carne and mlTIlstered unto him.

You cannot accept and the third one pushes you down and says, "If you do not eat, you must be- come a cripple!" You fallo You fall deep.

Y our mother holds your hand and your father your right hand your fingers begin to curI you ask them to unfold them. Y ou feel on your hands the warm tears from your mother and father. They say when one is about to die the fingers curI to a dose. She has eaten nothing your father' s voice saying how can she live. Upon hearing this you ask to eat. They say that the dying ask for food as a last wish. They give you to eat.

No more sentence to exile, Mother, no black crows to mourn yOU. Neither takes you neither will take you Heaven nor Hell they fall too near you let them fall to each other you come back you come back to your one mother to your one father.

I write. I write you. Daily. From here. If I am not writing, I am thinking about writing. I am compos- ing. Recording movements. You are here I raise the voice. Particles bits of sound and noise gathered pick up lint, dust. They might scatter and become invis- ible. Speech morsels. Broken chips of stones. Not holIow not empty. They think that you are one and the same direction addressed. The vas t ambiant sound hiss between the invisible line distance that this line connects the void and space surrounding enter- ing and exiting.

They have not questioned. It is all the same to them. It follows directions. Not yet. They have not Iearned the route of instruction. To surpass overtake the hidden even beyond destination. Destination.

I have the documents. Documents, proof, evidence, photograph, signature. One day you raise the right hand and you are American. They give you an American Pass porto The United States of America. Somewhere someone has taken my identity and re- placed it with their photograph. The other one. Their signature their seals. Their own image. And you learn the executive branch the legislative branch and the third. Justice. Judicial branch. It makes the differ- ence. The rest is pasto

You return and you are not one of them, they treat you with indifference. All the time you understand what they are saying. But the papers give you away. Every ten feet. They ask you identity. They comment upon your inability or ability to speak. Whether you are telling the truth or not about your nationality.

They say you look other than you say. As if you didn't know who you were. You say who you are but you begin to doubt. They search you. T~e~,. the anonymous variety of uniforms, each divisIOn, strata, classification, any set of miscellaneous proper- ly uni formed. They have the right, no matter what rank, however low their function they have the auth- ority. Their authority sewn into the stitches of their costume. Every ten feet they demand to know who and what you are, who is represented. The eyes gather towards the appropriate proof. Towards the face then again to the papers, when did you leave the country why did you leave this country why are you returning to the country.

Y ou see the color the hue the same you see the shape the form the same you see the unchangeable and the unchanged the same you smell filtered edited through progress and westernization the same you see the numerals and innumerables bonding overlaid the same, speech, the same. Y ou see the will, you see the breath, you see the out of breath and out of will but you still see the will. Will and will only espouse this land this sky this time this people. You are one same particle. You leave you come back to the shell left empty all this time. To claim to reclaim, the space. Into the mouth the wound the entry is reverse and back each organ artery gland pace element, im- planted, housed skin upon skin, membrane, vessel, waters, dams, ducts, canals, bridges.

Composition of the body, taking into considera- tion from conception, the soiI, seed, amount of light and water necessary, the geneology. Not a single word allowed to utter until the last station, they ask to check the baggage. Y ou open your mouth half way. Near tears, nearly saying, I know you I know you, I have waited to see you for long this long. They check each article, question you on foreign articles, then dismiss you.

URANIA ASTRONOMY

She takes my left arm, tells me to make a fist, then open. Make a fist then open again, make the vein appear through the skin blue-green-purple tint to the translucent surface. Pump them open and dose. She takes the elastic band and ties it tightly around the left armo She taps on the flesh presses against it her thumb. She removes the elastic to the right armo Open and dose the right hand, fist and palmo She takes the cotton and rubs alcohol lengthwise on the arm severa l times. The coolness disappears as the liquid begins to evaporilte. She takes the needle with its empty body to the skin. No sign of flow Sample extract Specimen type

Should it appear should it happen to appear all of a sudden, suddenly, begin to flow begin to collect begin to spill over flow flood should it happen to.

Contents housed in membranes. Stain from within dispel in drops in spills. Contents of other recesses seep outward.

T 00 long. Enough already. One empty body wait- ing to contain. Conceived for a single purpose and for the purpose only. To contain. Made filled. Be full. She pulls out the needle and the skin lifts.

Should it happen that the near-black liquid ink draws the line from point mark gravity follow (inevitably, suddenly) in one Une down the arm

on the table in one long spill, exhale of a spillo

It takes her seconds less to break the needle oH its body in attempt to collect the loss directly from the wound.

Stain begins to absorb the material spilled ono

She pushes hard the cotton square against the mark.

Stain begins to absorb the material spilled ono

Something of the ink that resembles the stain from the interior emptied onto emptied into emptied upon this boundary this surface. More. Others. When pos- sible ever possible to puncture to scratch to imprint. Expel. Ne te cache pas. Révèle toi. Sang. Encre. Of its body' s extention of its containment.

J'écoutais les cygnes. Les cygnes dans la pluie. J'écoutais. J'ai entendu des paroles vrai ou pas vrai impossible à dire.

Là. Des années après Impossible de distinguer la Pluie. Cygnes. Paroles souvenus. Déjà dito Vient de dire. Va dire. Souvenu mal entendu. Pas certain.

La Pluie fait rever de sons. Des Pauses. Exhalation. Des affirmations toutes les affirmations.

Peu à peu

Impossible de distinguer les paroles Exhalées. Affirmées en exhalation exclamées en inhalation Ne plus distinguer la pluie des reves ou des souffles

La langue dedans. La bouche dedans la gorge dedans le poumon l' organe seuI Tout ensemble un. Une.

I heard the swans in the rain I heard I listened to the spoken true or not true not possible to say.

There. Years after no more possible to distinguish the rain. No more. Which was heard. Swans. Speech. Memory. Already said. Will just say. Having just said. Remembered not quite heard. Not certain. Heard, not at allo

Rain dreamed from sounds. The pauses. Exhalation. Affirmations. AlI the affirmations.

Little by little

Not possible to distinguish the speech Exhaled. Affirmed in exhalation. Exclaimed in inhala tion . To distinguish no more the rain from dreams or from breaths.

Tongue inside the mouth inside the throat inside the lung organ alone. The only organo All assembled as one. Just one.

Là. Plus tard, peu certain, si c'était la pluie, la parole, mémoire. Mémoire d'un reve. Comment cela s'éteint. Comment l'etéindre. Alors que cela s'éteint.

Mordre la langue. Avaler profondément. Plus profondément. Avaler. Plus encore. Jusqu'a ce qu'il n'y aurait plus. D'organe. Plus d' organe. Cris.

Peu à peu. Les virgules. Les points. Les pauses. Avant et après. Tous les avants. Tous les après. Phrases. Paragraphs. Silencieux. A peu près despagesetdespages en mouvement lignes après lignes vides à gauche vides à droite, vides de mots. de silences.

J'écoutais les signes. Les signes muets. Jamais pareils. Absents.

There. Later, uncertain, if it was the rain, the speech, memory. Re membered from dream. How it diminishes itself. How to Dim inish itself. As it dims.

To bite the tongue. Swallow. Deep. Deeper. Swallow. Again even more. Just until there would be no more of organo Organ no more. Cries.

Little at a time. The commas. The periods. The pauses. Before and after. Throughout. All advent. All following. Sentences. Paragraphs. Silent. A little nearer. Nearer Pages and pages in movement line after line void to the left void to the right, void the words the silences.

I heard the signs. Remnants. Missing. The mute signs. Never the same. Absent.

Images seulement. Seules. Images. Les signes dans la pluie, j'écoutais. Les paroles ne sont que pluie devenues neige. Vrai ou pas vrai. impossible à dire.

Des années et des années. Dizaines. Centaines. Après. Impossible de distinguer. L'entendu. Signes. Paroles. Mémoire. Déjà dit vient de dire va dire Souvenir mal entendu, incertain. La pluie rève de sons. Des pauses. Exhala tion. Des affirmations toutes les affirmations en exhalation.

Peu à peu

Là, des années après, incertain si la pluie la parole souvenues comment c'était comme c'était comme si c'était.

Mordre la langue. Avaler. Profondément, Plus profondément. Avaler. Plus encore. J'usqu'a ce qu'il n'y aurait plus d'organe.

Images only. Alone. Images. The signs in the rain I listened the speaking no more than rain having become snow. True or not true no longer possible to say.

Years and years. Ten upon ten. One hundred upon one hundred. hundreds years after. No longer possible to distinguish. The audible. Signs. Spoken. Memory. Which was already said to be said just to say will say going to just say memory not all heard, not certain. Rain dreams the sounds. The pauses. Exhalation. Affirmation all affirmations in exhala tion.

Little by little

There. Then. Years after. Uncertain if the rain the speaking remembered how it had been as it had been if it had been.

Bite the tongue. Between the teeth. Swallow deep. Deeper. Swallow. Again, even more. Until there would be no more organo

Plus d'organe. Cris.

Peu à peu. Les virgules. Les points. Les pauses. Avant et après. Après avoir été. Tout. Avant avoir été.

Phrases silencieuses. Paragraphes silencieux des pages et des pages à peu près en mouvement lignes après lignes vider à gauche à droit. Vider les mots. Vider le silence.

No organo Anymore. Cries.

Bit by bit. Commas, periods, the pauses. Before and after. After having been. AlI. Before having been.

Phrases silent Paragraphs silent Pages and pages a little nearer to movement line after line void to the left to the right. Void the words. Void the silence.

EsoptIagus passes be!vtooo lungs lo storno adi below the

diaphragm

FIG. l Si de View oC Air Passages and Lungs

FIG. 2 Position oC the Larynx in the Neck.

FIG. 3 Front Vicw oC thc Larynx FIG. 4 Superior View of Larynx

and Vocal Folds

a. Adduction of vocal folds far phanatìon

Hyold bolle -""':-1"' ...... __ ..;:::;.:.

Thyroid carUiage -ry;' _ Cricoid cartilage~ tk-/~ J .

Trachea ~/' ~u, ~'. , ~, "''\t ,-- .

'#'" -........ I

COllarbo~e4 (clllviciel /'

Top of breastbone (s!ernum)

Tip of Epiglotlis

Hyoid bone

Cricothyroid ligament

Front 01 body I

b. Abduclion of vocallolds for breathlng

One by one. The sounds. The sounds that move at a time stops. Starts again. Exceptions stops and starts again alI but exceptions. Stop. Start. Starts. Contractions. Noise. Semblance of noise. Broken speech. One to one. At a time. Cracked tongue. Broken tongue. Pidgeon. Semblance of speech. Swallows. Inhales. Stutter. Starts. Stops before starts. About to. Then stops. Exhale swalIowed to a sudden arrest. Rest. Without. Can do without rests. Improper to rest before begun even. Probation of rest. Without them alI. Stop start. Where proper pauses were expected. But no more.

MELPOMENE TRAGEOY

PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

SEA OF JAPAN

She could be seen sitting in the first few rows. She would be sitting in the first few rows. Closer the bet- ter. The more. Better to eliminate presences of others surrounding better view away from that which is left behind far away back behind more for closer vie'w more and more face to face unti! nothing else se es only this view singular. AlI dim, gently, slowly unti! in the dark, the absolute darkness the shadows fade.

She is stretched out as far as the seat alIows until her neck rests on the back of the seat. She pulIs her coat just below her chin enveloped in one mass before the moving shades, flickering light through the empty window, length of the gardens the trees in perfect a symmetry.

The correct time beyond the windows the correct season the correct forecast. Beyond the empty the correct setting, immobile. Placido Extreme stillness. Misplaces nothing. Nothing equivalent. Irreplace- able. Not before. Not after.

The submission is complete. Relinquishes even the vision to immobility. Abandons alI protests to that which will appear to the sight. About to appear. Forecast. Break. Break, by alI means. The illusion that the act of viewing is to make alteration of the visible. The expulsion is immediate. Not one second is lost to the replication of the totality. TotaI sever- ance of the seen. Incision.

Dear Mother,

April19 SeouI, Korea

4. 19. Four Nineteen, April 19th, eighteen years later. Nothing has changed, we are at a standstilI. I speak in another tongue now, a second tongue a foreign tongue. All this time we have been away. But nothing has changed. A stand stilI.

It is not 6.25. Six twenty five. June 25th 1950. Not today. Not this day. There are no bombs as you had described them. They do not fall, their shiny brown metallic backs like insects one by one after another.

The population standing before North standing before SoutJ1 for every bird that migrates North for Spring and South for Winter becomes a rnetaphor for the longing of return. Destination. Homeland.

No woman with child lifting sand bags barriers, all during the night for the batties to come.

There is no desination other than towards yet another refuge from yet another war. Many generations pass anq many deceptions in the sequence in the chronology towards the des- tination.

You knew it wouId not be in vain. The thirty six years of exile. Thirty six years multiplied by three hundred and sixty five days. That one day your country wouId be your own. This day did finally

come. The Japanese were defeated in the world war and were making their descent back to their country. As soon as you heard, you followed South. You carried not a singie piece, not a photograph, nothing to evoke your memory, abandoned all to see your nation freed.

From another epic another history. From the missing narrative. From the multitude of narra- tives. Missing. From the chronicles. For another telling for other recitations.

Our destination is fixed on the perpetuaI motion of search. Fixed in its perpetuaI exile. Here at my return in eighteen years, the war is not ended. We fight the same war. We are inside the sa me struggle seeking the same destination. We are severed in Two by an ab- stract enemy an invisible enemy under the title of liberators who have conveniently named the sever- ance, Civil War. Cold War. Stalemate.

I am in the same crowd, the same coup, the sa me revolt, nothing has changed. I am inside the demon- stration I am locked inside the crowd and carried in its movement. The voices ring shout one voice then many voices they are waves they echo I am moving in the direction the onIy one direction with the voices the only direction. The other movement towards us it increases steadily their direction their only direction our mutuaI destination towards the other against the other. Move.

I feel the tightening of the crowd body to body

now the voices nsmg thicker I hear the break the single motion tearing the break left of me right of me the silence of the other direction advance before ... They are breaking now, their sounds, not new, you have heard them, so familiar to you now could you cver forget them not in your dreams, the conse- quences of the sound the breaking. The air is made visible with smoke it grows spreads without control we are hidden inside the whiteness the greyness re- duced to parts, reduced to separation. Inside an arm lifts above the head in deliberate gesture and disap- pears into the thick white from which slowly the legs of another bent at the knee hit the ground the entire body on its left side. The stinging, it slices the air it enters thus I lose direction the sky is a haze running the streets emptied I fell no one saw me I walk. Any- where. In tears the air stagnant continues to sting I am crying the sky remnant the gas smoke absorbed the sky I am crying. The streets covered with chipped bricks and debris. Because. I see the frequent pairs of shoes thrown sometimes a single pair among the rocks they had carried. Because. I cry wail torn shirt lying I step among them. No trace of them. Except for the blood. Because. Step among them the blood that will not erase with the ràin on the pavement that was walked upon like the stones where they fell had fal- len. Because. Remain dark the stains not wash away. Because. I follow the crying crowd their voices among them their singing their voices unceasing the empty street.

There is no surrendering you are chosen to fai! to be martyred to shed blood to be set an example one w/w has defied one who has chosen to defy and was to be set an example to be martyred an animaI useless betrayer to the cause to the weI- fare to peace to harmony to progresso

It is.1962 eighteen years ago same month same day alI over again. I am eleven years old. Running to the front door, Mother, you are holding my older brother pleading with him not to go out to the dem- onstration. You are threatening him, you are begging to him. He has on his school uniform, as all the other students representing their schools in the demonstra- tion. Y ou are pulling at him you stand before the door. He argues with you he pushes you away. You use all your force, all that you have. He is prepared to join the student demonstration outside. You can hear the gun shots. They are directed at anyone.

Coming home from school there are cries in all the streets. The mounting of shouts from every direction from the crowds arm in armo The students. I saw them, older than us, men and women held to each other. They walk into the others who wait in their uniforms. Their shouts reach a crescendo as they approach nearer to the other side. Cries resisting cri es to move forward. Orders, permission to use force against the students, ha ve been dispatched. To be caught and beaten with sticks, and for others, shot, r~massed, and carted oH. They fall they bleed they dle. They are thrown into gas into the crowd to be

squelched. The poli ce the soldiers anonymous they duplicate themselves, multiply in number invincible they execute their role. Further than their home further than their mother father their brother sister further than their children is the execution of their role their given identity further than their own line of blood.

You do not want to lose him, my brother, to be killed as the many others by now, already, you say you understand, you plead all the same they are kill- ing any every one. You withstand his strength you caB me to run to Unde's house and call the tutor. Run. Run hard. Out the gate. Turn the corner. AlI down hill to reach Unde's house. I know the two German shepherd dogs would be guarding one at each side, chained to their house they drag behind them barking. I must brave them, dose my eyes and run between them. I call the tutor from the yard, above the sounds of the dogs barking. Several students look out of the windows. They are in hiding from the street, from their homes where they are being searched for. We run back to the house the tutor is ahead of me, when I enter the house the tutor is standing in front of him. Y ou cannot go out he says you cannot join the D-e-m-o. De. Ma. A word, two sounds. Are you in sane the tutor tells him they are killing any student in uniform. Anybody. What will you defend yourself with he asks. You, my brother, you pro test your cause, you say you are willing to die. Dying is part of it. If it must be. He hits yOU. The tutor slaps you and your face turns red you stand

silently against the door your head fans. My brother. You are all the rest all the others are yOU. Y ou fell you died you gave your life. That day. It rained. It rained for several days. It rained more and more times. After it was all over. Y ou were heard. Your victory mixed with rain falling from the sky for many days afterwards. I heard that the rain does not erase the blood fallen on the ground. I heard from the adults, the blood stains stillo Year after year it rained. The stone pavement stained where you fell still re- mains dark.

Eighteen years passo I am here for the first time in eighteen years, Mother. We left here in this memory still fresh, still new. I speak ànother tongue, a second tongue. This is how distant I amo From then. From that time. They take me back they have taken me back so precisely now exact to the hour to the day to the season in the smoke mist in the drizzI e I turn the corner and there is no one. No one facing me. The street is rubble. I put my palm on my eyes to rub them, then I let them cry freely. Two school children with their book bags appear from nowhere with their arms around each other. Their white kerchief, their white shirt uniform, into a white residue of gas, crymg.

I pass a second curve on the road. You soldiers appear in green. Always the green uniforms the patches of camouflage. Trees camouflage your green trucks you blend with nature the trees hide you you cannot be seen behind the guns no one sees you they have hidden yOU. You sit you redine on the earth

next to the buses you wait hours days making visible your presence. Waiting for the false move that will conduct you to mobility to action. There is but one move, the only one and it will be false. It will be ab- solute. Their mistake. Your boredom waiting would not have been in vain. They will move they will have to move and you will move on them. Among them. Y ou stand on your tanks your legs spread apart how many degrees exactly your hand on your rifle. Rifle to ground the same angle as your right lego Y ou wear a beret in the 90 degree sun there is no shade at the main gate you are fixed you cannot move you da:e not move. Y ou are your post you are your vow In nomine patris you work your post you are your na- tion defending your country from subversive infiltra- tion from your own countrymen. Your skin scorched as dark as your uniform as you stand you don't hear. You hear nothing. You hear no one. You are hidden you see only the prey they do not see you they can- not. Y ou who are hidden you who move In the crowds as you would in the trees you who move inside them you dose your eyes to the piercing the breaking the flooding pools bath their shadow mem- ory as they fade from yc:u your own blood your own flesh as tides ebb, through you through and through.

You are this close to this much close to it. Extend arms apart just so, that much. Open the thumb and the index finger just so.

the thumb and the index finger just so. That much you want to kill the time that is oppression itself. Time that delivers noto Not you, not fra m its expanse, without dimension, defined not by its limits. Airless, thin, not a thought rising even that there are things to be forgotten. Effortless. It should be effortless. Effort less ly the closer it is the closer to it. Away and against time Ing. A step forward from back. Backing out. Backing off. Off periphery extended. From imaginary to bordering on division. At least somewhere in numerals in relation to the equator, at least all the maps have them at least walls are built between them at least the militia uniforms and guns are in abeyance of them. Inzaginary borders. Un imaginable boundaries.

Suffice more than that. SHE opposes Her. SHE against her. More than that. Refuses to become discard decomposed oblivion. From its memory dust escapes the partides still material still respiration move. Dead air stagnant water still exhales mist. Pure hazard igniting flaming itself with the slightest of friction like firefly. The 10ss that should burn. Not burn, illuminate. Illuminate by losing. Lighten by loss. Yet it loses not.

Her name. First the whole name. Then syllable by syllable counting each inside the mouth. Make them

rise they rise repeatedly without ever making visible lips never open to utter them. Mere names only names without the image not hers hers alone not the whole of her and even the image would not be the entire her fraction her invalid that inhabits that rise voluntarily like flint pure hazard dead substance to fire.

Othersanonymous her detachments take her pIace. Anonymous against her. Suffice that should be nation against nation suffice that should have been divided into two which once was whole. Suffice that should diminish human breaths only too quickly. Suffice Melpomene. Nation against natio n multiplied nations against nations against themselves. Own. Repels h2r rejects her expels her from her own. Her own is, in, of, through, all others, hers. Her own who is offspring and mother, Demeter and Sibyl.

Violation of her by giving name to the betrayal, all possible names, interchangeable names, to remedy, to justify the violation. Of her. Own. Unbegotten. Name. Name only. Name without substance. The everlasting, Forever. Without end.

Deceptions all the while. No devils here. Nor gods. Labyrinth of deceptions. No enduring time. Self- devouring. Devouring itself. Perishing all the while. Insect that eats its own mate.

Suffice Melpomene, arrest the screen en-trance flickering hue from behind cast shadow silhouette from back not visible. Like ice. Metal. Glass. Mirror .

. Receives none admits none.

Arrest the machine that purports to employ de- mocracy but rather causes the successive refraction of her none other than her own. Suffice Melpomene, to exorcize from thismouth the name the words the memory of severance through this act by this very act to utter one, Her once, Her to utter at once, She with- out the separate act of uttering.

ERATO LOVEPOETRY

She is entering now. Between the two white columns. White and stone. Abrasive to the touch. Abrasive. Worn. With the right hand she pulls the two doors, brass bars that open towards her.

The doors dose behind her. She purchases the ticket, a blue one. She stands on line, and waits.

The time is 6:35 p.m. She turns her head exactly to the left. The long hand is on 6 and the short hand on 7. She hands her ticket to the usher and dimbs three steps, into the room. The whiteness of the screen takes her back wards almost half a step. Then she proceeds again to the front. Near front. Close to the screen. She takes the fourth seat from the Ieft. The utmost center of the room. She sees on her left the other woman, the same woman in her pIace as the day before.

She enters the screen from the left, before the tities fading in and fading out. The white subtitles on the black background continue across the bottom of the screen. The titles and names in black appear from the upper right hand corner, each letter moving down- wards on to the whiteness of the screen. She is drawn to the white, then the black. In the whiteness the sha- dows move across, dark shapes and dark light.

Columns. White. Stone. Abrasive and worn.

Whiteness of the screen. Takes her backwards.

Drawn to the white, then the black. The shadows moving across the whiteness, dark shapes and dark light.

Extreme CIose Up shot of her face. Medium Long shot of two out of the five white coIumns from the street. She enters from the Ieft side, and camera begins to pan on movement as she enters between the two coI- umns, the camera stop at the door and she enters. Medium CIose Up shot of her Ieft side as she purchas- es the ticket her full figure from head to foot. Camera hoIds for a tenth of a secondo The camera is now behind her, she is at the end of the queue. Long shot. Cut to Medium CIose Up shot of her from the back. She turns her head sharpIy to her Ieft. cut. The clock in Extreme CIose Up. Same shot of her head turning back. She Ieaves the camera, other faces enter, of the others in line, and camera is stationary for a brief tenth of a secondo CIose Up shot of her feet from the back on the three steps Ieading into the theatre, cam- era following her from the back. She stops. Her Ieft foot lifts back half a step then resumes. Camera is stationary, tilts upward and remains stationary. Pans to the right, while zooming out, the entire theatre in view. The theatre is empty, she is turning right into the aisie and moving forward. She seIects a row near the front, fourth seat from the Ieft and sits. Medium Ciose Up, directIy from behind her head. She turns her head to the Ieft, on her profile. Camera pans Ieft, and remains still at the profile of another woman seated. Camera pans back to the right, she turns her head to the front. The screen fades to vyhite.

Mouth moving. Incessant. Precise. Forms the words heard. Moves from the mouth to the ear. With the hand pIaced across on the other' s lips moving, form-

One expects her to be beautiful. The title which carries her name is not one that would make her anonymous or plain. "The portrait of ... " One seems to be able to see her. One imagines her, already. AI- ready before the title. She is not seen right away. Her image, yet anonymous suspends in one's mind. With the music on the sound track you are prepared for her entrance. More and more. You are shown the house in which she lives, from the outside.

Then you, as a viewer and guest, enter the house. It is you who are entering to see her. Her portrait is seen through her things, that are hers. The arrangement of her house is spare, delicate, subtly accentuating,

ing the words. She forms the words with her mouth as the other utter across from her. She shapes her lips accordingly, gently she blows whos and whys and whats. On verra. O-n. Ver-rah. Verre. Ah. On verra-h. Si. S-i. She hears, we wilI see. H we will have to see if. H. We would wait. Wait to see, We wouId have to wait to see, Wait and see. H. For a second tirne. For another time. For the other overlapping tirne. Too fast. SIow your pace. Please. SIower, rnuch sIower. For me to follow. Doucement. Lente- rnent. SoftIy and sIowIy. For a second tirne. For another time. Two times. Together. Twofold. Again. And again. Separately, together. Different pIace. Same times. Same day. Same Year. Delays, by hours. By night and day. At the sa me time. to the tirne. twice. At the same hour. Same time. All the sarne tirne. At the time. On time. Always. The time.

rather, the space, not the objects that fill the space. Her rnovernents are already punctuated by the rnove- rnent of the camera, her pace, her tirne, her rhythm. You rnove from the same distance as the visitor, with the sarne awe, sarne reticence, the same anticipation. Stationary on the light never still on her bath water, then slowly rnoving from room to room, through the sarne lean and open spaces. Her dress hangs on a door, the cloth is of a light background, revealing the surface with a landscape stained with the slightest of hue. Her portrait is not represented in a still photo- graph, nor in a painting. All along, you see her without actually seeing, actually having seen her. Y ou do not see her yet. For the moment, you see only her traces.

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"Letter of Invitation to the Wedding of Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.

Cod Alrnighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, Sovereign Ruler of the Universe, the Most Clorious Virgin Mary, Queen of the Heavenly Court, an- nounce to you the Spiritual Espousal of Their August Son, Jesus, King of kings, and Lord of lords, with little Therese Martin, now Princess and Lady of His Kingdoms of the Holy Childhood and the Passion, assigned to her in dowry by her Divine Spouse, frorn which kindoms she holds her titles of nobility-of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.

Monsieur Louis Martin, Proprietor and Master of the Domains of Suffering and Humiliation and Mrne Martin, Princess and Lady of Honor of the Heavenly Court, wish to have you take part in the Marriage of

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Until then. The others relay her story. She is married to her husband who is unfaithful to her. No reason is given. No reason is necessary except that he is a mano It is a given.

He is the husband, and she is the wife. He is the mano She is the wife. It is a given. He does as he is the mano She does as she is the woman, and the wife. Stands the distance between the husband and wife the dis- tance of heaven and hell. The husband is seen. En- tering the house shouting her name, calling her name. You find her for the first time as he enters the room calling her. Y ou only hear him taunting and humili- ating her. She kneels beside him, putting on his

. clothes for him. She takes her pIace. It is given. It is the night of her father's wake, she is in mourning.

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their Daughter, Thérèse, with Jesus, the Word of Cod, the Second Person of the Adorable Trinity, who through the operation of the Holy Spiri t was made Man and Son of Mary, Queen of Heaven.

Being unable to invite you to the Nuptial Blessing which was given on Mount Carmel, September 8, 1890, (the heavenly court alone was admitted), you are nevertheless asked to be present at the Return from the Wedding which will take pIace Tomorrow, the Day of Eternity, on which day Jesus, Son of Cod, will come on the Clouds of Heaven in the splendor of His Majesty, to judge the Living and the Dead.

The hour being as yet uncertain, you are invited to hold yourself in readiness and watch."

Her marriage to him, her husband. Her Iove for him, her husband, her duty to him, her husband.

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Still the apprenticeship of the wife to her husband. He leaves the room. She falls to the fIoor, your eyes move to the garden where water is dripping into the stone well from the bark of a tree. And you need not see her cry.

She moves slowly. Her movements are made grad- uaI, dull, made to extend from inside her, the woman, her, the wife, her walk weighted full to the ground. Stillness that follows when she closes the door. She cannot disturb the atmosphere. The space where she might sito When she might. She moves in its pauses. She yields space and in her speech, the same. Hardly speaks. Hardly at allo The slowness of her speech when she does. Her tears her speech.

She climbs the steps slowly. While she climbs, the lake changes from the lake at dawn the lake at day the lake at dusk the lake at moonlight. The time pass- ing over the lake. The time it takes her to climb the steps.

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"I still ca~not u~derstand why women are so easily excommumcated In Italy, for every minute someone w~s saying: "Don't enter herel Don't enter there, you wIlI be excommunicatedl" Ah poor women, how they are misunderstoodl And yet they love Cod in much larger numbers than men do and during the Passion of Our Lord, women had more courage than the apostles since they braved the insults of the sol- diers and dared to dry the adorable Face of Jesus." He allows misunderstanding to be their lot on earth since, He chose it for Himself. In heaven, He will show that His thoughts are not men's thoughts, for then the last will be first."

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Upon seeing her you know how it was for her. Y ou know how it might have been. You redine, you Iapse, you fall, you see before you what you have seen before. Repeated, without your even knowing it. It is you standing there. It is you waiting outside in the summer day. It is you waiting and knowing to wait. How to. Wait. It is you waIking a few steps be- fore the man who waIks behind you. It is you in the silence through the pines, the hills, who walks exactly three steps behind her. It is you in the silence. His si- Ience alI around the unspoken the unheard, the ap- prenticeship to silence. Observed for so long and not ending. Not immediately. Not soon. Continuing. Contained. Muteness. Speech less nesso

It is you who know to hear it in the mtlsic so late in the night. Then it becomes you, the man, her corn- panion, the live-in student accompanying her to school how many times as a young girI. It is you who hears his music for her while she sleeps. It is you sitting behind him looking at the moon the clouds the lake shimmering. Y ou are she, she speaks you, you speak her, she cannot speak. She goes to the piano while he plays. You know that he cannot speak either. The muteness. The void muteness. Void after uttering. Of. Each phrase. Of each word. All but. Punctua- tion, pauses. Void after uttering of each phrase. Of each word. All but. Punctuations. Pauses.

They do not touch. It is not like that. The touch- ing rnade so easy the space filled full with touch. The

. entire screen. To make the sequences move. In dose up. To fabricate the response. So soon. Too

106

immediate. To make fully evident the object. The touch. Making void the reticence of space the inner residence of space. Not this one. It's not like that.

He plays the piano, his own composition as he would on the ancient string instrument. Abstract, but fa- miliar to yOU. Ancient and familiar. Y ou think you have seen this before. Somewhere else. In Gertrude. It is her, with her elbows on the piano. It is you see- ing her suspended, in a white mist, in white layers of memory. In layers of forgetting, increasing the de n- sity of mist, the opaque light fading it to absence, the object of memory. Y ou look through the window and the music fills and breaks the entire screen from somewhere. Else. From else where.

Y ou know how it was. Same. For her. She would do the same. She would sit at the piano as her sadness grew in her breath without any destination. She would set before each note unti! the music would induce her and she would acquiesce.

From the other room you knew as she would begin playing. You walk inside the room, you sit behind her you knew the music, which ones.

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Mother you who take the child from your back to your breast you who unbare your breast to the child her hunger is your own the child takes away your pain with her nourishment

Mother you you who take the husband from your back to your breast you who unbare your breast to the husband his hunger your own the husband takes away your pain with his nourishment

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She asks if you want to sing a song and you move next to her on the bench and you sing for her as she plays for you.

Perhaps she loved him. Her husband. Perhaps after all she did. Perhaps in the beginning it was not this way. In the beginning it was different. Perhaps she loved him inspite of. Inspite of the arrangement that she was to be come his wife. A stranger. Stranger to her. The one that she should espouse. Decided for her. Now she would be long to him. Perhaps she learned to love him. Perhaps it was never a questiono It was given. She took whatever he would give her because he gave her so little. She takes she took them without previous knowledge of how it was supposed to be how it is supposed to be. She deserved so little. Being wife. How it was. How it had been. Being

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"I am only a child, powerless and weak, and yet it is my weakness that gives me the boldness of offering myself as VICTIM af yaur lave, O Jesus! In times past, victims, pure and spotless, were the only ones accepted by the Strong and Powerful God. To satisfy Divine Justice, perfect victims were necessary, but the Law af Lave has succeeded to the law of fear, and Love has chosen me as a holocaust, me, a weak and imperfect creature. Is not this choice worthy of Lave? Yes, in order that T ove be fully satisfied, it is neces- sary that It lower itself, and that It lower Itself to nothingness and transform this nothingness into fire.

O Jesus, I know it, love is repaid by love alone, and so I searched and I found the way to solace my heart by giving you Love for Love."

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woman. Never to questiono Never to expect but the given. Only the given. She was his wife his posses- sion she belonged to him her husband the man who claimed her and she could not refuse. Perhaps that was how it was. That was how it was then. Perhaps now.

It is the husband who touches. Not as husband. He touches her as he touches all the others. But he touches her with his rank. By his knowledge of his own rank. By the claim of his rank. Gratuity is her body her spirito Her non-body her non-entity. His privilege possession his claim. Infallible is his owner- ship. Imbues with mockery at her refusal of him, but her very being that dares to name herself as if she possesses a will. Her own.

One morning. The next morning. It does not matter. So many mornings have passed this way. But this one. Especially. The white mist rising everywhere, constant gathering and dispersing. This is how it fills the screen.

Already there are folds remnant from the previous foldings now leaving a permanent mark. This cloth

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She forgets. She tries to forget. For the momento For the duration of these moments.

She open~ the cloth again. White. Whitest of beige. In the whlteness, subtle hues outlining phoenix from below phoenix from above facing each other in the weave barely appearing. Disappearing into the whiteness.

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once in certain mind to prepare a quil t now left un- attended to some future time. Its purpose having been expended she opens it, spreads it again as if fol- lowing a habitual gesture. She looks at it once more with a vague uneasiness as though she was missing a part to this very gesture that she could not remember.

It stings her inside. AlI sudden. Summons. Move. To simply move. Her body. Renounce no more the will inhabiting her. Complete. She changes her dress, shed to the ground, left as it fell.

She moves now. Quickly. Y ou trace her steps just after, as soon as, she leaves the frame. She leaves them empty. Y ou are following her. Inside the misto Close. She is buried there. You lo se her. It occurs to you, her name. Suddenly. Snow. The mist envelops her she appears from it. Far. On top of the hill. You have seen her there many times. The lake she has visited often. The lake behind her on her steps. The waiter comes out to greet her he says how early she is this morning she says she carne to see the lake he says he will bring her tea. Everything is seen from above. Very far above. The two figures inside the mist mass shifting in constant motion. Y ou are made to follow the waiter inside while he prepares tea made to wait with him and when you return with him you find her gone. The white table the two white chairs the waiter in his white jacket the mist thick and rising. Very far. Above. Again from above the waiter inside the large white corners running back and forth calling her name. Hardly visiblé. The corners.

'The smallest act of PURE LOVE is of more value to her than all other works together."

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"Martyrdom was the dream of my youth and this dream has grown with me within Carme}' s cloisters. But here again, I feel that my dream is a folly, for I cannot confine myself to desiring one kind of mar- tyrdom. To satisfy me I need allo Like You, my Adorable Spouse, I would be scourged and crucified. I would die flayed like St. Bartholomew. I would be plunged into boiling oillike St. John; I would under- go all the tortures inflicted upon the martyrs. With St. Agnes and St. Cecilia, I would present my neck to the sword, and like Joan of Arc, my dear sister, I would whisper at the stake Your Name, O JESUS."

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It had been snowing. During the while. Interval. Recess. Pause. It snowed. The name. The term. The noun. It had snowed. The verbo The predicate. The act of. Fel!. Luminescent substance more so in black night. Inwardly luscent. More. So much so that its entry closes the eyes Interim. Briefly. In the enclosed darkness memory is fugitive. Of white. Mist offers to snow self In the weightless slow all the time it takes long ages precedes tirne pronounces it alone on its own while. In the whiteness no distinction her body invariable no dissonance synonymous her body all the time de composes eclipses to be come yours.

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ELITERE L YRIC POETRY

Dead time. Hollow depression interred invalid to resurgence, resistant to memory. Waits. Apel. Apellation. Excavation. Let the one who is diseuse. Diseuse de bonne aventure. Let her cali forth. Let her break open the speli cast upon time upon time again and again. With her voice, penetrate earth's floor, the walIs of Tartaurus to circle and scratch the bowl's surface. Let the sound enter from without, the bowl's holIow its sleep. Unti!.

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ALLER/RETOUR

Day recedes to darkness Day seen through the veil of night Translucent grey film cast between daylight and dark dissolving sky to lavender to mauve to white until night overcomes. Hardly a murmur Between dark and night Suspend return of those who part with rooms While shadows ascent then equally fa de Suspension of the secret in abandoned rooms Passing of secret unknown to those who part Day receding to dark Remove light Re move sounds to far. To farther. Absence full. Absence glow. Bowls. Left as they are. Fruit as they are. Water in glass as beads rise to the rimo Radiant in its immobility of silence. As night re veils the day.

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Qu'est ce qu'on a vu Cette vue qu'est ce qu' on a vu enfin. Vu E. Cette vue. Qu'est ce que c'est enfin. Enfin. Vu. Tout vu, finalement. Encore. Immediat. Vu, tout. Tout ce temps. Over and over. Again and again. Vu et vidé. Vidé de vue. Dedans dehors. Comme si c'était jamais. Comme si c'est vu pour la première fois. C'était. C'était le passé. On est deçu. On était deçu la vue du dehors du dedans vitrail. Opaque. Ne reflète jamais. Conséquemment en suivant la vue absente which had ceased to appear already it has been has been has been without ever occuring to itself that it should remember. Sustain a view. Upon itself. Recurring upon itself without the knowledge of its absent view. The other side. Must have. Must be. Must have been a side. Aside from What has one seen This view what has one viewed

125

Finally. View. This view. What is it finally. Finally. Seen. AlI. Seen. Finally. Again. Immediate. Seen. AlI. All the time. Over and over. Again and again. Seen and void. Void of view. Inside outside. As if never. As if it was seen for the first time. It was. It was the past. One is deceived. One was deceived of the view outside inside stain glasso Opaque. Reflects never. Consequently following the absent view which had ceased to appear already it has been has been. Has been without ever

126

that. AlI aside. From then. Point by pvint. Up to date. Updated. The view. Absent all the same. Hidden. Forbidden. Either si de of the view. Side upon side. That which indicates the interi or and exterior. Inside. Outside. Glass. Drape. Lace. Curtain. Blinds. Gauze. VeiI. Voile. Voile de mariée. Voile de religieuse Shade shelter shield shadow mist covert screen screen door screen gate smoke screen concealment eye shade eye shield opaque silk gauze filter frost to void to drain to exhaust to eviscerate to gut glazing stam glass glassy vitrification. what has one seen, this view this which is seen housed thus behind the veil. Behind the veil of secrecy. Under the rose ala derobee beyond the veil voce velata veiled voice under breath murmuration render mute strike dumb voiceless tongueless

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ALLER

Discard. Every memory. Of. Even before they could. Surge themselves. Forgotten so, easily, not even as associations, signatures in passage. Pull by the very root, the very possible vagueness they may evoke. Colors faintly dust against your vision. Erase them. Make them again white. You Re dust. You fade. Even before they start to take hue Until transparent into the white they vanish white where they might impress <1 different hue. A shadow. T ouch into shadow slight then re turn a new shape enter again into deeper shadow becoming full in its mould. Release the excess air, release the space between the shape and the mould. Now formless, no more a mould. Make numb some vision some word some part resembling part something else pretend not to see pretend not having seen the parto That part the only part too clear was alI of it was the first to be seen but pretend it wasn't. Nothing at alI. It seemed to resemble but it wasn't.

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Start the next line. Might have been. Wanted to see it Might have been. Wanted to have seen it to have it happen to have it happen before. AlI of it. Unexpected and then there all over. Each parto Every parto One at a time one by one and missing none. N othing. Forgetting nothing Leaving out nothing. But pretend go to the next line Resurrect it alI over again. Bit by bit. Reconstructing step by step step within limits enclosed absolutely shut tight, black, without leaks. Within those limits, resurrect, as much as possible, possibly could hold possibly ever ho Id a segment of it segment by segment segmented sequence, narrative, variation on make believe secrete saliva the words saliva secrete the words secretion of words flow liquid form salivate the words give light. Fue!. Enflame.

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Dimly, dimly at first then increase just a little more volume then a little more take it take it no further, shut it oH. To the limit before too late before too soon to be taken away.

Something all along a germ. All along anew, sprouting hair of a root. Something takes only one to start. Say, say so. and it would be the word. Induce it to speak to take to take it takes.

Secrete saliva the words Saliva secrete the words Secretion of words flow liquid form Salivate the words.

Dead gods. Forgotten. Obsolete. Past Dust the exposed layer and reveal the unfathomable well beneath. Dead time. Dead gods. Sediment. Turned stone. Let the one who is diseuse dust breathe away the distance of the well. Let the one WllO is diseuse again sit upon the stone nine days and nine nights. Thus. Making stand again, Eleusis.

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RETOUR

What of the partition. Fine grain sanded velvet wood and between the frames the pale sheet of paper. Dipped by hand over and over from the immobile water seemingly stagnant. By the swaying motion of two hands by two enter it back and forth the layers of film at the motion of a hundred strokes.

Stands the partition absorbing the light illuminating it then filtering it through. Caught in its light, you would be cast. Inside. Depending on the time. Of day. Darkness glows inside it. More as dusk comes. A single atmosphere breaks within it. Takes from this moment the details that call themselves the present. Breaking loose all associations, to the very memory, that had remained. The memory stain attaches itself and darkens on the pale formless sheet, a hole in- creasing its size larger and larger until it assimilates the boundaries and becomes itself formless.All mem- ory. Occupies the entire.

Further and further inside, the certitude of absence. EIsewhere. Other than. Succession of occurrences be- fore the partition. Away. A way for the brief unac- countable minutes in its clouding in its erasing of the present to yield and yield wholly to abandon without realizing even the depth of abandon.

Y ou read you mouth the transformed object across from you in its new state, other than what it had been. The screen absorbs and filters the light dimming

131

dimming all the while without resistance at the ob- vious transformation before the very sight. The white turns. Transparent. Immaterial.

If words are to be uttered, they would be from be- hind the partition. Unaccountable is distance, time to transport from this present minute.

If words are to be sounded, impress through the par- tition in ever slight measure to the other side the other signature the other hearing the other speech the other grasp.

Ever since the whiteness. It retains itself, white, unsurpassing, absent of hue, absolute, utmost pure, unattainabIy pure. If within its white shadow-shroud, all stain shouId vanish, all past all memory of having been cast, Ieft, through the absolution and power of these words. Covering. Draping. CIothing. Sheathe. Shroud. Superimpose. Overlay. Screen. Conceal. Ambush. Disguise. Cache. Mask. Veil. Obscure. CIoud. Shade. Eclipse. Covert.

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Dead words. Dead tongue. From disuse. Buried in Time's memory. Unemployed. Unspoken. History. Pasto Let the one who is diseuse, one who is mother who waits nine days and nine nights be found. Restore memory. Let the one who is diseuse, one who is daughter restore spring with her each ap- pearance from beneath the earth. The ink spills thickest before it runs dry before it stops writing at alI.

133

THALIA COMEDY

She decides to take the calI. Takes it at once. Her voice is as if she holds this receiver for the very first time. This foreign instrument that carries the very sounds to the words. The very words.

From when the call is announced to her to the moment she picks up the receiver she does not think. She hears the ringing and the call is announced. She walks to it, picks it up but she has not had the time to think. All had been prepared. All had been rehearsed beforehand. To the pause, over and over in her mind. The brief pause in the beginning before she would say yes. Each phrase according to its physical impact, its notable effect once pronounced to the accentuation of certain articles. To highlight the very objects that followed them. The voice would reach a crescendo, pause, begin again in a barely audible whisper with either coughing or choking at the throat. Rarely audible. Inaudible. Hardly audible at alI. Reduced to a moan, a hum, staccato inhalation, and finally, a wail. She cannot contain any longer. Muffled through her door upstairs through another door.

She is the first to announce her arrivaI. Voice of anticipation. She wishes that it would metamorphose the other. The voice alone, by its Force by its pleading by some inexplicable power. Of wishing. Wishing hard enough. She wishes that this person would be metamorphosed back into the person that was pre- viously, she prays, invents, if it is necessary.

It took less time for her to realize that there would be no magical shifting. It did not matter anymore. She wanted to abolish it quickly, the formula, the

139

ritual. AlI too quickly the form and the skin that re- sembles a pasto Any pasto With this, there would be no more rehearsals. No more memorization.

No end in sight. No ending and not a satisfactory one. One that might appease. If to appease was too much to ask for, then, sooth. Painless, at least numb. To keep the pain from translating itself into memory. She begins each time by charting every moment, the date, the time of day, the weather, a brief notation on the events that have occurred or that are to come. She begins each time with this ablution as if this act would release her from the very antiphony to follow. She begins the search the words of equivalence to that of her feeling. Or the absence of it. Synonym, simile, metaphor, byword, byname, ghostword, phantomnation. In documenting the map of her journey.

The extended journey, horizontal in form, in con-o cept. From which a portion has been severed without the evidence of a mark even, except that now it was necessary to comply to the preface, "extension" to "journey."

There is no future, only the onslaught of time. Unaccountable, vacuous, amorphous time, towards which she is expected to move. Forward. Ahead. And somehow bypassing the present. The present redeem- ing itself through the grace of oblivion. How could she justify it. Without the visibility of the presento

She says to herself she could dispIace real time. She says to herself she could display it before and become

. its voyeur. She say.s to herself that death would never

140

come, could not possibly. She knowing too that there was no displacing death, there was no overcoming without the actual dying.

She says to herself if she were able to write she could continue to !ive. Says to herself if she would write without ceasing. To herself if by writing she could abolish real time. She would !ive. If she could display it before her and be- come its voyeur.

141

Holyoke, Apr. 22, 1915.

Mrs. Laura Claxton,

53 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Dear 1!adam:--

Noticing a rostal card addressed to Mr. Reardon with your

name s1gned to same and having been llving in the same apartment wlth

I thought I would let you know that Mr. Reardon has not been living here

s1nce Iast July.

The Iast time I heard from hlm he was in Chicago, doing and

Cabaret work aD shortly after was taken sick.

Of late I have not heard anything from hlm and cannot adv1se

you of his present address. I mlght also state that I!r. Reardon's

mother removed to Hartford about three months ago.

I shall keep your address in case I hear from him and wl11 be

pleased to adv1se you lf you so desire.

Trustlng th1s wlll be acceptabIe and hoping to hear from you

I rer:;a1n,

Very s1ncereIy,

,~d~ /7 J /?7~-<A--

memory

The line could be longer. Enough to observe the woman. One might say that she was crazy that in her eyes, either once doomed or more. Her pupils floating upward in the vast white. Her eyes fixed without a single blink on the profile next to hers, younger than a child more helpless than a child with- out the pride of a child even, they speak the truth of fol1y. Folly' s truth. Her hand. Barely. Her forefinger. Barely dimbs down from her hair to her lips. Her lips chafed by the cold. Parted slight. The forefinger touches the lip skin, as her eyes now dose she might have sighed she might have moaned she takes the forefinger on her hand and barely reaches over to the shoulder the jacket where the pen is placed inside the pocket. She rests her finger there, just barely her mouth moves her eyes lift her smile her begging. If it was begging she might not have known it. The folly of innocence. The height turned away from her, against her, pays her no mind, is di stra et ed takes his arm away. From her touch she must let go her hand clings to her chest where it's bare, unprotected from the layers of dothing, she moans inutterable lang- guage she cries the folly her pleading shame less in public take me open me take me now. The child. Less than child. She is standing at the doorway. Now she is left to wait at the gate entry outside, the man has disap- peared, she caresses the door she leans against the door as she would, her back against the day, the folly.

143

second memory

From under clothing. Cotton briefs stockings brassiere slip over progressively outward to external garments adjoining days before appearances and finale the bride of white three consecutive with each appearance before the more white whiter marking virginity in waiting to leap in a single day's time to bride hood to wife once woman in waiting bride to be at once powder dusted skin scent upon scent the bathing the dusting the layering of bottled perfumes gardenia odorless gladiolas white chrysanthemums white scents against white sheets to bleed upon entwined cloth white heat white mist haze drizzle own thickness white liquids to mingle foam retiring against pulls prolonging the climax too long prepared against the descent too soon to follow. Virginity that misses virginity consecrated. Already. EIsewhere. It would not be unforgettable. It would be most memorable. Of alI. From any thing that is past to any thing ever to follow. It would be reconciled in this. Compensation for the absolute unattainable: she memory of own birth and own death. At the fulcrum. At which point in one's own time flashbacks are possible and anticipation. Of the event that occurs once and only once. Imagination harbors the desire of the object to

144

unlimited répétition at each point from the beginning to the middle to the end. Rehearses the desire repeatedly, In preparation. Of the final performance. Narrative shifts, discovers variation. Each obser- vance prisoner of yet another observance, the illusion of variation hidden in yet another odor yet another shrouding, disguised, superimposed upon. Upon the nakedness. Nakedness as ordinary as common with all nakedness of all others before and all others to come. Like birth like death. Unlike birth, unlike death, this redeemed through a future and a past through own memory and presumes a separate con- clusion.

145

Memory

It is an empty theatre. The immediate familiarity upon entering the theatre, of that which has passed in shadow and darkness. It is between seances. The light from the street reflects on the screen briefly while the door opens and closes at a deliberate speed. The steps are carefully measured when darkness resumes, moving closer to the screen to the width of the screen, the depth.

She is the same. Sitting in the same seat four rows from the front and second seat from the left. It ca n- not be deciphered from her position and stillness whether she is waiting through the intermission from the previous seance or if she had just arrived. Her body is stilI. Her mouth slightly parted as before. Her eyes Iook ahead at no particular object or direction. She does not notice the presence of another person in the same row.

Second day in the theatre. Second time. She is sit- ting in the same pIace as the day before. As the first day. Turning left to see her, she is alone, immobile in her body. Her hands are folded on her lap with her other belongings. She hovers in a silent suspension of the simulated night as a flame that gives itself stillness and equally to wind as it rises. Her eyes open to distance as if to linger inside that which has passed in shadow and darkness.

She follows no progression in particular of the nar- rative but submits only to the timelessness created in her body. (Ancient. Refusing banishment. Refusing

149

to die, the already faded image. Its decay and dis- memberment rendering more provocative the ab- sence.) She remains for the effect induced in her, ful- filled in the losing of herself repeatedly to memory and simultaneously its opposition, the arrestation of memory in oblivion. (regardless. Over and over. Again. For the time. For the ti me being.)

Without a doubt she knows. She knows all along. How it is not easily believed. By her. By her even. Without a doubt she knows what she must say. All along. Even though. Not easily believed. Without a doubt the uncertainty of having said them bordering on regret without a doubt the wish to retreive them if she had regretted them afterwards alI along. Now they retain their obligation as their own mass identity released to no individuaI being. Housed in their own. Scratch. Marking. Uncontainable. She knows dur- ing. While she says to herself she does not account for the sake of history. Simulated pasts resurrected in memoriam. She hears herself uttering again re- uttering to re-vive. The forgotten. To survive the forgotten supercede the forgotten. From stone. Layers. Of stone upon stone her self stone between the layers, dormant. No more. She says to herself she would return time to itself. To time itself. To time before time. To the very first death. From all deaths. To the one death. One and only remaining. Frorn which takes pIace annunciation. A second coming.

Befare Heaven. Befare birth and befare that. Heaven which in its ultimate unity includes earth

150

within itself. Heaven in its ultimate generasity includes within itself, Earth. Heaven which is nat Heaven withaut Earth (inside itself).

Both times hollowing. Cavity. And germination. Both times. From death from sleep the appel. Both times appellant. T oward the movement. The move- ment itself. She returns to word. She returns to word its silence. If only once. Once inside. Moving. '

151

TERPSICHORE CHORAL DANCE

You remain dismembered with the belief that magnolia blooms white even on seemingly dead branches and you wait. You remain apart fram the congregation.

155

You wait when you think it is conceiving you wait it to seed you think you can see through the dark earth the beginning of a root, the air entering with the water being poured dark earth harbouring dark taken for granted the silence and the dark the conception seedling. Chaste the silence and the dark the concep- tion seedling. Chaste you wait you are supposed to you are to wait for the silence to break you wait for the implanting of some dark silence same constant as a field distant and elose at the same time all around sound far and near at the sa me time you shiver some pIace in between one of the dandelion seedling vague air shivering just before the entire flower to burst and scatter without designated time, even before its own realization of the act, no premonition not prepara- tion. All of a sudden. All of a sudden without warning. No holding back, no retreat, no second thought forward. Backward. There and not there. Remass and disperse. Convene and scatter.

Does not move. Not a sound. None. No sound. Do not move.

Inside the atmosphere. No access is given to sight. In- visible and hueless. Even. StilI. The thickness of the air weighs. Weight upon weight. Stillo Heavy, inert is duration without the knowledge of its enduring.

Docs not wait. No wait. It has not the knowl- cdge of wait. Knows not how. How to.

Affords no penetration. Hence no depth, No disrup- tinn. Hence, no time. No wait. Hence, no distance.

156

Full. Utter most full. Can contain no longer. Fore shadows the fullness. Stillo Silence. Within moments nf. The eelipse. Inside the eelipse. Both. Fulmination and concealment of light. Imminent crossing, face to face, moon before the sun pronounces. AlI. This. Time. To pronounce without prescribing purpose. It prescribes nothing. The time thought to have fixed, dead, reveals the very rate of the very movement. Velocity. Lentitude. Of its own larger time.

Withholds brilliance as the evanescent light of a dark pearl. Shone internally. As the light of the eelipse, both disparition. Both radiance. Mercurial light, nacrous. No matter, not the eloister of the shell. Luminous all the same. Waits the hour. To break. Then break.

For now, nothing enters. StilI. No addition to the fullness. Grows, without accumulation. Augments, without increase. Abundance, Plenitude, Without gain.

Further, Further inside. Further than. To middle. Deeper. Without measure. Deeper than. Without means of measure. To core. In another tongue. Same word. Slight mutation of the same. Undefinable. Shift. Shift slightly. Into a different sound. The dif- ference. How it diseloses the air. Slight. Another word. Same. Parts of the same atmosphere. Deeper. Center. Without distance. No particular distance from center to periphery. Points of measure effaced. To begin there. There. In Media Res.

157

Do not move. Not a sound. None. No sound.

Carrier, you hold in the palm of your hand the silver white spirit the lustre mass quiver and fall away from the center

one by one. Sound. Give up the sound. Replace the sound. With voice.

At a time. Stops. Returns to rest, again, in the center of your palmo You turn the seasons by the directions South North West East Y our palm a silver pool of liquid then as the seasons choose affix as stone in blue metal ice.

At times, starts again. Noise. Semblance of noise. Speech perhaps. Broken. One by one. At a time. Broken tongue. Pidgeon tongue. Sem- blance of speech.

You seek the night that you may render the air pure. Distillation extending breath to its utmost pure. Its first exhale at dawn to be collected. In the recesses of the leaves is an inlet of dew, clearest tears. Y ou stow them before their fall by their own weight. You stand a column of white lustre, atoned with tears, restored in breath.

158

Maimed. Accident. Stutters. Almost a name. Half a name. Almost a pIace. Starts. About to. Then stops. Exhale swallowed to a sudden arresto Pauses. How vast this page. Stillness, the page. Without. Can do without rests. Pause. Without them. AlI. Stop start.

Earth is dark. Darker. Earth is a blue-black stone upon which moisture settles evenly, flawlessly. Dust the stone with a fine powder. Earth is dark, a blue- black substance, moisture and dust rise in a mist. Veil of dust smoke between sky and earth's boundaries. In black darkness, pale, luminant band of haze. You in- duce the stone by offering exchange of your own. Own flesh. Cry supplication wail resound song to the god to barter you, your sight. For the lenience. Make lenient, the immobility of sediment. Entreat with prayer to the god his eloquence. To conduct to stone. Thawing of the knotted flesh. Your speech as ransom. You crumple and sift by each handful the last enduring particle. Hands buried to earth dis- solved to same dust. And you wait. Stillo Having bartered away your form, now you are formless. Blind. Mute. Given to stillness to whiteness only too stilI. Waiting. Scribe. Diving. In whiteness beyond matter. Sight. Speech.

Cling. Cling more. At the sight of. At last in sight at Iast. Cleared for the sighting. So clear cling so fast cling fast at the site. Clear and clearer.

159

Hours day sheet by sheet one pile. Next pile. Then the next from one pile to the next pile. One sheet below the crack of closed door slide piled up on the other side no overlapping. One at a time. One sheet. End in sight. With accumulation. Without prospero

Earth is made porous. Earth heeds. Inward. Inception in darkness. In the blue-black body commences lu- ment. Like firefly, a slow rhythmic relume to yet another and another opening.

The name. Half a name. Pasto Half passed. Forgotten word leaving out a word Letter. Letter by letter to the letter.

Open to the view. Come forth. Witness bound to no length no width no depth. Witness sees that which contains the witness in its view. Pale light cast inside the thin smoke, blowing. Then all around. No matter how sparse the emission, each subtle ascent is bared before the surrounding black screen. Then extinguish.

Emerge. Look forth. The succession of colors. Filtered beforehand to utmost. Pure. True. Stark. Foreboding. Red as never been. Bled to crimson. Trembling with its entire, the knowledge, of the given time. Given the mark of bloom, its duration. Abiding. Not more. Not lesso The color that already was always was before its exhibition into sight.

160

Being broken. Speaking broken. Saying broken. Talk broken. Say broken. Broken speech. Pidg- on tongue. Broken word. Before speak. As being said. As spoken. To be said. To say. Then speak

Immaterial now, and formless, having surrendered to dissolution limb by limb, all parts that compose a body. Liquid and marrow once swelled the muscle and bone, blood made freely the passages through in- numerable entries, alI give willingly to exile. From the introit, preparation is made for communion when the inhabitation should occur, of this body, by the other body, the larger body.

Stands no w, an empty column of artery, of vein, fixed in stone. Void of wing. Void of hands, feet. It continues. This way. It should, with nothing to alter or break the fullness, nothing exterior to impose upon the plenitude of this void. It remains thus. For a time. Then without a visible mark of transition, it takes the identity of a duration. It stays. All chronol- ogy lost, indecipherable, the passage of time, until it is forgotten. Forgotten how it stays, how it endures.

A new sign of moisture appears in the barren column that had congealed to stone. Floods the stone from within, collects water as to a mere, layering first the very bottom.

From stone, A single stone. Column. Carved on one sto ne, the labor of figures. The labor of tongues. Inscribed to stone. The labor of voices.

161

Water inhabits the stone, conducts absorption of im- plantation from the exterior. In tones, the inscrip- tions resonate the atmosphere of ~he column, repeat- ing over the same sounds, distinct words. Other melodies, whole, suspended between song and speech in sti Il the silence.

Water on the surface of the stone captures the light in motion and appeals for entry. AlI is entreat to stir inside the mass weight of the stone.

Render voices to meet the weight of stone with weight of voices.

Muted colors appear from the transparency of the white and wash the stone's periphery, staining the hue-Iess stone. wall. For the next phase. Next to last. Before the last. Be- fore completing. Draw from stains the pigment as it spills from within, with in each repetition, extràct even darker, the stain, until it falIs in a single stroke of color, crimson, red, as a flame caught in air for its sustenance.

Stone to pigmento Stone. Wall. Page. To stone, water, teinture, bIo od.

AlI rise. At once. One by one. Voices absorbed into the bowl of sound. Rise voices shifting upwards circ- ling the bowl' s hollow. In deep metal voice spiraling up wards to pools no visible light lighter no audible higher quicken shiver the air in pool's waves to raise all else where alI memory all echo

POLYMNIA SACRED POETRY

She remembered that she had once dranI< from this well. A young woman was dipping into the well all alone and filling two large jars that stood beside her. She remembered that she had walked very far. It had been a good distance to the village well. It was summer. The sun became brighter at an earlier hour, the temperature soaring quickly, almost at once.

Her mother had given her a white kerchief to wear on her head to avoid the strong rays and a lightly woven smoçk which was also white.

The heat rises from the earth, diminishing the clear delineations of the road. The dust haze lingers be- tween earth and sky and forms an opaque screen. The landscape exists inside the screen. On the other side of it and beyond.

From a distance the figure outlines the movement, its economy, without extraneous motion from the well to the jar. The repetition of lowering the bucket into the well, an adept gesture that comes to her with- out a thought given to it, she performs it with preci- sion and speed.

She too was wearing a white kerchief around her thick black hair braided in a single knot down to her back, which swung forward when she leaned against the well. She wore an apron over the skirt which she had gathered and tied to keep it from the water.

Approaching the well, the sound becomes audible. The wooden bucket hitting the sides echoes inside the well before it falls into the water. Earth is hol1ow. Beneath.

167

She did not look up at the young girl standing stilI before her. She saw her walking towards the weIl in slow paces, holding in her left hand, a small white bundle. Upon reaching the weIl she stopped still, no longer forced to pursue her pace. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then without a word, searched for a shaded area and sat down.

The proximity of the weIl seemed to cool her. She exhaled a long sigh. She closed her eyes briefly. The dust and heat had sweIled inside them and she could not clearly focus her vision. When she opened her eyes, she could see the tiny pools of spilled water on the rocks surrounding the well and the light reflecting in them.

The second jar was almost full. She heard faintly the young girl uttering a sequence of words, and in- terspersed between them, equal duration of pauses. Her mouth is left open at the last word. She does not seem to realize that she had spoken.

She looked at the stone well, as the woman drew in the bucket. She followed each movement with her eyes. The woman rested the bucket on the rim of the well and reached inside her apron bringing out a small porcelain bowl. The chipped marks on it were stained with age, and there ran a vein towards the foot of the bowl where it was beginning to crack. She dipped the bowl into the bucket and filled it to the brim. She handed it to the child to drink.

She drinks quickly the liquido Earth is cooler as it descends beneath. She looked up at the woman. Her

168

eyes became clearer. She saw that the woman was smiling. Her brow fell softly into an arc on each side of her temples. Her eyes were dark and they seemed to glow from inside the darkness.

The child smiled back to her timidly from her seat. Her arms hugged her knees and her small palms wrapped perfectly the roundness of the bowl. The young woman asked her what she was doing so far away from home. The child answered simply that she was one her way home from the neighboring vilIage to take back remedies for her mother who was very ilI. She had been walking from daybreak and al- though she did not want to stop, she was very tired and thirsty, so she had come to the well.

The woman listened and when the child finished her story, she nodded and gently patted the child's head. She then brought over a basket and sat down beside her. The basket was filled with many pockets and she began to bring out one by one each pocket drawn with a black stringo She said that these were special remedies for her mother and that she was to take them to her. She gave her instructions on how to prepare them.

She took oH the kerchief that she wore and placed it on her lap. She took the bowl and said she must serve the medicines inside the bowl. After she had completed her instructions, she was to keep the tenth pocket and the bowl for herself as a gift from her. She placed the white bowl in the center of the white cloth. The light renders each whiteness irridescent, encirc- ling the bowl a purple hue. She laid all the pockets

169

inside the bowl, then, taking the two diagonal corners of the cloth, tied two knots at the center and ma de a small bundle.

She gives the bundle to the child to hold in her right hand and says for her to go home quickly, make no stops and remember all she had told her. The child thanks her and stands. She gives her a deep bow.

She began walking very rapidly. Her steps seemed to move lighter than before. After a while she turned around to wave to the young woman at the well. She had already left the well. She turned and looked in all directions but she was not anywhere to be seen. She remembered her words about stopping on her way and she started to run.

Already the sun was in the west and she saw her village coming into view. As she carne nearer to the house she became aware of the weight of the bundles and the warmth in her palms where she had held them. Through the paper screen door, dusk had en- tered and the shadow of a small candI e was flickering.

170

Tai-Chi First, the universe.

Leung Yee Second, Ying and Vango

Sarn Choy Third, Heaven, Earth and Hurnans.

Say Cheung Fourth, the Cardinals, North, South, East, West.

Ng Hang Fifth, the five elernents, Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth.

Lok Hop Sixth, Four cardinals and the Zenith and Nadir.

Chut Sing Seventh, seven stars, the Big Dipper.

Bat Cwa Eight, the Eight Diagrarns.

Cow Cee Lin Wan Ninth, Unending series of nines, or nine points linked together.

Chung Wai Tenth, a circle within a circle, a a series of concentric circles.

173

Tenth, a circle within a circle, a series of concentric circles.

175

W ords cast each by each to weather avowed indisputably, to time. If it should impress, make fossiI trace of word, residue of word, stand as a ruin stands, simply, as mark having relinquished itself to time to distance

177

Lift me up mom to the window the child looking above too high above her view the glass between some image a blur now darks and greys mere shadows lingering above her vision her head tilted back as far as it can go. Lift me up to the window the white frame and the glass between, early dusk or dawn when light is muted, lines yield to shades, houses cast shadow pools in the passing light. Brief. All briefly towards night. The ruelle is an endless path turning the corner behind the last house. Walls hives of stone by hand each by each harbor the gold and reflect the white of the rays. There is no one inside the pane and the glass between. T rees adhere to silence in attendance to the view to come. If to occur. In vigilence of lifting the immobile silence. Lift me to the window to the picture image unleash the ropes tied to weights of stones first the ropes then its scraping on wood to break stillness as the bells fall peal follow the sound of ropes holding weight scrap- ing on wood to break stillness bells fall a peal to sky.

179

Notes

1. F.A. McKenzie,'The Tragedy af Karea, Yonsei University Press, Seaul, Korea pp. 46, 47, 236, 311, 312.

2. The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, Stary af a SauI, A New Translation from the OriginaI Manuscripts by John Clarke, O.C.D., ICS Publications Institute of Carmelite Studies, Washington, D.C. pp. 140, 168-69, 193, 195, 197.

Biographical material in CALLIOPE EPIC POETRY based on the journals of Hyung Soon Huo. Calligraphy by Hyung Sang Cha.

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