Brenda Hillman

The spirits sleep

inside the objects.

               A note sizes up

& divides;

a thought precedes the dove’s call.

Formlessness hovers

        under roots

& webs

while  a child

reads & sleeps.

                         Hauling pelagic

clouds, the suburbs push

against space.

In long light sliced

    by the shadow knife,

on a couch between patterns

       & plains, on rough cloth made

by hands & machines,

she touches the back

of a word.

                      Textures of the actual,

               colder gold

         than the reed moon,

violet auras on wood,

pawns on the chessboard

      face the toy stove,  creation

   not caught or made.     

               Hauling strategic

clouds, the suburbs push

               against space.

In the room shrunk by time,

   electrons spin  after now,

               ignoring distance & fame.

The page shakes off

dust & delay,

earth gathers

      in the talking back.   The child

reads & sleeps, touching

                   the front of a word

reading from right to left.

Nearby, the mother

pounds something. Meat

or something.

                              Stones in the fireplace

      called “flagstone.”  The father

will be

home soon now.  Will

the father be home soon now?

       Electrons race in the carbon

before frail joy

creeps in.       They jump

               between shanks of color

               inside western heat.    In the clock,

        in the clock-clock-clock, the 4s talk

back to the 3s.   Death holds

     the zeroes in space.

A fearling, a feeling, a trouble.

The child does not fear death,

she hasn’t read

enough yet.

Limitless forms

     in the fabric,

               in the frame of the couch,

in the kiln-dried

     bowls on the table, in the wood, in

the ash, in

poplar or oak, in webbing

of cushions.   In burlap & muslin made

by unseen hands, springs

& textures,     plush tufted fabrics of

               accent chairs, in plastic

final on earth, in the brain, in the maybe,

      in electrons from workers of matter,

a presence composed of actuals,

in actuals composed of probables,

               a presence arrives for the child.

               It will stay with the child

when the mother goes.

It will stay

with the mother when the child goes.

The child can’t see in the reading

               the brought-to-itself-

               by- itself.  It is felt & it

seems friendly.    Scattered through time,

             from the nothing

before

     frail joy

seeps in.

It is 3 pm

   in the family home. 

Hauling historic

clouds,  the suburbs push

               against space.

Where does the presence come from?

Not from the Lord; he was angry.

               History

    leaks through the nerve net

                to things made

by unknown hands, brought

in full company here,

from the world       to the child

               in the calm,     through strands

                              of paint, clay, straws laid flat,

boxes with beads & figures,

               criss-crossed & dutiful

        auras from far away. The 3

               looks down to the 4 

         in the back

of the eye,

a cheering, a feeling, a double. 

Someday she’ll know what this is,

but she is a vague, shy child,

transfixed by units of time,

brought up, brought in

like a made thing,

almost loved completely.      Was she

               loved completely?

Where does a presence

come from,

                    entering earth & sky,

the undone, done, the re-done,

set in from far away,

the silver straw, the painted spoon,

the light bright bowl,

       the probables leap

between outlines,

               the row of LPs nearby, slightly

slouching against shelves, musicals

               & showy operas, the books

               only two people read.

Someone calls a metaphor,

someday she’ll know what that is,

     for the rest,

for the unseen unseeable

 the vast unseeable yes.

               You try to get

    at a feeling. You tried

     to get at the feeling

 reading before sleep,

    the others played nearby,

one child played manic sonatas,

               one child traded cards

                              by himself —

western light climbing

the trellis, xeric

               plants on iron fixtures,

obscure, obscurely obscure,

a world obscurely felt.

               The auras press over matter,

               tethered to 

       made & unmade

    in emptiness to vault, half in

half out of words.

               Or this is how it seemed.

You read as a child

               feeling sleepy.

                              You lay in the arms

    of a presence.

If presence is

only a metaphor,

you lie in the arms of a metaphor.