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.