Ryan Kuhn / Poem

from Cairns and Basins

'to set out with'

Word arrow                         released with aim             on the bow of                                       breath, I exhale, release--              obsidian edge              maple straight              feather flight-- the finger should                           do nothing more than get out of                           the way
	Breathing starts with stone                         from up-valley             Jack Pine along                         the Great Road             Rainbow Mountains glass rock pressed             flakes in buckskin                         ink in pulp the craftsman                         the hunt             in silence                         begun
Everything begins                                       in song chest drum beats                         under a blanket of flesh I track and am fast                         hunted, searching and searched for             words allowed into the circle,                         one eye on my tongue
	Breathing starts with the tree                         on river's bank             granite stone                                     sits on edge   of the bed--              water wheel carve round what grows             inside out                         a notch at each end             binds the air
What is the object                         of the goal-- to set out with                                                 out aim             roll the foot                         on its side silent             through alder leaves mist from the mouth                         searching for a trail             of tracks
	Breathing starts with the wind                          that makes the wing--                          a thin star guides the moon             onto the horizon an arrow's path                         of bird's flight
The first song                                                 a dream of my grandmother                         Clearwater Falls             into the Umpqua                         Illahee                         nika moosum nanitch                         Sahalie Tyee             a small bundle of tobacco
	An arrow shot straight into the sky                                      hovers and falls back             hitting the mark-- that is all             the explanation                         that can be offered
It is not the hand it is not the stone it is not the tree it is not the bird--             the kill is none of these the kill is all of these,
	Of these                         the song and name             cannot be                                       sung the name             we cannot call                                       ourselves the kill             ourselves--                         the name

                                            Faint tracks in a clay turned to stone;
                                            it will take awhile

 

 

162, S/SE

Ambling orchards removed I admire upwards granite and scree where snow heights settle in slides-- there alder, fir and willow seem more of me-- my words merely come as echoes-- I walk here easily-- sudden bells of bird song remind me of Jason's letter: "orientation of sentience that has extinguished desire and strives for clarity in perception seems at times too clear . . . but what is felt in the one who has to say the words--" stride comes merely as a proportion of terrain as out here feet could clamor on and I am trying not to be precise-- yet apple trees still seem as real

Intuition as itself,                                         not even                             a word                                                     but             some       thing the first strawberry of summer, mmm!

 

 

`brush-point'

Late spring snow             anonymous black-hooded             chestnut chickadees gather and flee             among cedars--                         cars leave to town             the hollow                         space where daily             tracks of ritual                         ice scraping circumambulated                         remains
	Recollection rehash                     yesterday how one measures out             eyes of the Sun--             Moon     face             mirror of:     -'how do you do it?'     -'that is my art'
East winds hold                         still the lakes, move             weather to sea and the affects of trees--             how thoughts send seeds into                         this flow             as if they were even something             less actual
	Painting the hunter's silhouette                     arms outstretched like an eagle                             prays                     through himself--                 wolf below raven above                 him-- negative space, a                             universe                 all the more or less:
In town down                         by Bentick Arm             to the Pacific                                         delta widens blows open             boats rocking in their slips                                         across from hollow cannery                                         once was             little China Town                                         over there opium pipes                     among the cinders             under white
	It is a quality             of the past how             to paint snow alone it is to be                         and poor             as ancestors came and went quickly             like a season             overland-- what stays in me     empty as a brush stroke withheld                         and gives             a fullness to be here, as always
This estuary             throughout                         pilings stand somethings             remain--                         the pattern in which             a fingernail                         grows             after death
	'It is your center,             your chi '             he says-- precision is not                         a compromise             of inspiration:                         whatever comes or to which you arrive             like R.G.'s `All we saw was Where there was to go Not where we'd never get'

Lu Tzu said `The country which is nowhere is the real home'             no                      where             now                   here             on the edge of this                                     sea and stone language lapping                     to its thinnest                                     brush-point

 

54, NE

Liquored up loose lipped the rattling pundits over every dart pool room Legion hazy late afternoon teachers and officials of government gratuity rabble rouse the windowless existence of the work week release-- country time juke box the lonely lox of her laugh roll in the swaying heads of over-alled over-hauled loggers and noose-tied numbed capitalist gentry ventilating over yarns of a weekly throe--

Tin roof banters             on and on             the rain

 

 

'that that does'

	`What's wrong with a title?'             --I saw a man                   march down some avenue his                   sign read             `No Protesting'
'Everything is water if you look                 long enough--' R. Creeley
	'Why the East?'                 --I always dug                         for China playing in my sandbox             as a child
that that does not last closest resembles               life
	'What do they leave?'                  --only the useless
Rainbows follow as much as                 flee
	`What holds it together?'                         -moon plays ocean Harps              Bells                      Drums 'we happen to be little walking seas'             six chords                                     harmonic
a finger on a crystal lip--             every drink higher notes of space,                          bit more tipsy-- Spill                  Over              Edge
	One question good enough                         deserves a book of answers: the ones             that cannot be answered--                         we'll just let them                                     run amuck
A pumice mind stone floats

`So you're one of them--'           no, I'm one of me

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