issue 6 FEATURE
HIBERNACULUM
G.C. Waldrep
Aghabog churchyard: as study for:
peat dissemblance: reparatory:
we want someone to repay the ghosts:
of childhood: with a blue star:
*
dissent, in majuscule: Latin
dissentire, to differ: as in sentiment:
as in, are you happy here: a view
or opinion: as tenderness, or
*
sap-knot of a plant that dies
so that the plant may
propagate: reproduce: as language
does: innoculent: not ignoring
*
the emetic survivals: Irish, Gaelic,
Welsh offscourings of loch
& parallax: as in, We were born
here: as in, They are coming:
*
into a figure for silence that is
unlike night: or if so, only partially:
more like water: that is, fluid:
fricative: expletive: a thin smoke
*
veils the body & we call it
embassy, or: something wilder:
ragged spell to motion, to the pelfry
motion seeks: earth rattles
*
in its cage of basalt & cold fire:
the body lies down, gets up,
lies down again: these little faiths:
govern the ineffable: we say
*
it’s a coinage, of sorts: calibration
of specie to scale: the crozier
flashes once, twice, yes, & Yes, we say:
lake, we say, &: stepping back,
*
by way of art, landscape: crural
reckoning: soldiers march in some
formation, we can’t discern what
patterns faiths inscribe: melismas
*
in the dust: only, we’ve been here
before: shiver the ghosts in their
green gowns, threadbare: not, or not
quite, naked: in this hapless way
*
the land adjusts & we: to subsidence:
emolument: in earnest of some
firmer body: the smallest pronouns
do their work, unknitting sex
*
from spectacle: glum video
of what keeps happening: regardless
of ability to pay: attention:
affinity: we agree, else perception
*
cavitates: call it park or field but
sculpt it: ratty hectare: as if it were
your perfect right, as art is
man’s one perfect right: to aspect
*
outside time, & time’s enclosures:
our ancient hill-forts egg the eye:
the sun no less a predator,
if insensate: parabolic overture:
*
light strikes through the most
devoted photosynthesis:
a dog sees you, in the track, it barks:
you want something to happen:
*
it to bite you: or go with you:
someone else to come: dog-drawn,
or by the bark’s thin string:
the puppets take their places now
*
in black light: they murmur,
a bit, within their hollow limbs:
they don’t know when the lights
will dazzle, the curtain drift
*
lazily upwards: out of sight:
which is, of course, itself a veil
the mind drops on the body: ghost-
gown of perception, & of will:
*
sometimes we set stones in patterns
widdershins, intercalate: in space:
so that they interrupt what light
is trying to say, so that the puppets
*
notice: we are not all celebrants:
the shovel makes its mark,
illiterate, in earth’s parched vellum:
the body: the mower, pressing
*
clod from substrate: dampened:
even the dog that follows: if it
follows: brief machines, & hocked:
vectors of action via will: I want:
*
as pedicel: a sine moves through:
& in thrall to gravity, beloved:
by the slick grasses, & that on which
the grasses feed: mucus, mulch,
*
mineral: arising into the vascular
net as iron, & the puppets clap:
they like this show: the weathering
of the stones, the stalky flowers:
*
& slower flowers placed
on hummocks: at roadside junctions:
latticed recompense: we turn aside
for negligence: as if unpurchased:
*
what Inhument becomes:
carbon footprint: spectroscopic
smear: atomic vernier: radar
divines the nature of our number:
*
aimed: at variance, we think,
but light knows better: carapace
of faith, the active body
of dog upon which predicates:
*
not friendship, but an idea
of friendship: mammalian warmth
you want to crawl inside: as
a hunter might, inside a corpse:
*
vanquished, yet: sustaining:
so you tell the dog Go home, &
not unkindly: you suppose:
the dog looks puzzled, it enjoys
*
the privileges of confidence:
wrote Auden, for Britten, who
knew a thing or two about
light, & music: viscous sonogram:
*
what integument conceals:
the organs in their jumble: pericarp,
husk: supple cladding shucked
as ashes: in winter, flocked
*
with snow: a thought we “see”
because light tells us
we can: white on black, & black
on white: thaumatropic: or, a film
*
the body shows itself, late at night:
a place for pilgrimage: not
“to kneel, where prayer has been
valid,” rather: let the dead bury
*
their marvelous dead: in linen:
in the napery of our estate:
philanthropy: keeps the very rich
occupied, in ways less harmful:
*
someone must pay for the puppets,
their scuffs & indiscretions:
we applaud: & little parts of being
snap: break off: are damaged:
*
rebuild themselves, or don’t:
we exercise a crude control, which
in our better moments we return
as “civilization”: quoin & buttress,
*
interferon: water brought directly
to the hive: as from some
eminence: trees grow there: we can’t
quite make them out from here
*
although we see them well enough
in dreams: as flecks of paint:
on canvas: whirled by sunlight: a child’s
toy, this dog, this grassy hillock:
*
black on white & white on black:
where flesh touched: stain or
(gravid) strain: in fabric: we like
to think, or rather, some of us:
*
preclude the mystery: man/dog/
grass/light/churchyard:
with summer storm pending: dashing
about, in our different directions:
*
who owns the body: is, ultimately,
a statement, not a question:
minuscule vs. majuscule: a script even
some puppets follow: like ghosts
*
growing insubstantial now:
among the oaks & automobiles:
the fencerows & the satellite dishes:
among which we are gathered:
*
in time, as from time: collared:
you tell the dog, Go home, knowing
eventually it will: one way or
another: what you want, chiefly,
*
is not to feel bad about it: not
to feel inconvenienced: in any way:
whisper the greeters in the big-
box emporia, the examination proctors:
*
if it’s a test, then pass it, an old
friend said: then shrugged: stiff braid
of teasel & betony: late in season,
blowzy: disseminule, the part
*
that serves to propagate, as seed
or fruit: some are wingèd: &
not unkindly, you suspect: your friend:
as herdsman: within reason,
*
a quiet place: call this worship,
what the body does: with other
bodies: the living & the dead:
attenuous affection: bred at most
*
by proximity: are you happy here:
ghost inside puppet: puppet
inside star: dog & nothing but a dog,
wrote the immunologist: in Czech:
*
I read him now in English: drypoint
incendiary: the puppets cover
their breasts, their private precincts:
emmantle: or, divest, the marriage
*
vow: of ministry: steeped in salts
they cower: on cue, as if
their strings had begun to burn
them: we applaud: such artistry:
*
Abide with me: in bright Mittel-
heim of chemistry: sing the ghosts:
we wear the skins of animals:
slick chine of dusk, now choose
*
in turn: orifice: imperium:
the valence of our tenured
occupation: precise topographies,
the farmsteads & pear orchards:
*
drawn, as though by dignities:
from lithosphere: to pergament:
clutter hasp & rack, inflamed:
at best, recombinant: shall rise,
*
tradition specifies: tendrilled:
helixed: circumspect: free
to walk: in this garden: reach down:
to cist, to dog: to sistrum:
*
chrism: mantilla: crwth:
such music when the wind blows:
conjoint in vessel, any blind dime:
oval obol: terrestrial: assessed:
*
decumbent: what I have seen,
have in fact tasted: O boon companion:
unshard me: language dwells
within the body: for a little while:
G.C.Waldrep's most recent books are a long poem, Testament (BOA Editions, 2015), and a chapbook, Susquehanna (Omnidawn, 2013). With Joshua Corey he edited The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta, 2012). Waldrep lives in Lewisburg, Pa., where he teaches at Bucknell University, edits the journal West Branch, and serves as Editor-at-Large for The Kenyon Review.