desert (n) desert (v)
I am thinking about the lion roaring in the enraging desert:
What is passive, immobile, asleep in the heart creates a desert which can only be cured by roaring.
The desert is not in Egypt; it is anywhere once we desert the heart.
Our way through the desert is the awakening to it as a desert, the awakening of the beast, that vigil of desire.
the desert is where the lion lives our guardian
“The lion roars at the enraging desert” [Wallace Stevens]
The more our desert the more we must rage, which rage is love.
We fear that rage. We dare not roar.
greedy paw, hot and sleepless as the sun, fulminating as sulfur, setting the soul on fire.
Happy Winter Solstice. The days now lengthen.
Live in the leonine passions of the soul.
–The Odalisque
(text excavation from James Hillman. Read unexcavated text here from The Blue Fire.)
figures
[ ] Odalisque.
click to enlarge.
Fig. 1
Fig.2
Fig.2 (Verso)
Fig.13
(ghosts carry blessings & strange dreams around sharp corners through cracks in the sill.)
(moonlight turns the turn of the stair into an ascension.)
(nails loosen.)
(boards creak.)
(ghosts carry blessings and strange dreams in their open palms.)
(breathlessly.)
(careful
they are exquisitely delicate
accumulations.)
(tangles of dust pins string hair.)
conversations with birds: the phoenix favors fire over earth
I do not fear the terrible angels
their voices embroidered cloaks torn across
the sky, their heavily belted bodies,
strong hips, shield-bright eyes.
I do not fear them in the hard city.
Their draperies snag on its remote spires.
They drone in its unnavigable sky
like helicopters.
The angels I fear are mute
their wings waxy as aster petals
their bodies translucent carapace
curled grub-like in flight.
They don’t descend to the deathbed
swords drawn to the rift: death from life.
They hatch, insensate as seeds in
fresh turned earth.
the pure movement of their spirits.
I am not afraid of night.
I am…but I will not be
when the moon rises.
I am the odalisque who lives in an obelisk. I converse with birds.
