it's always hard this time of year, he is thinking, whenever this time of year comes around again. last year was one thing and this year is another one entirely, & he is starting to feel a little too hurried, having already poked his face through with a barrier between this skin and the skin of another, & it's no time to grow morose or nostalgic over anniversaries that should have been one thing and turned into another. he is wondering about the moments when, having fallen in between a running stream and a wall of dirt (some would call it a ditch), the narrations in his head start to fall down the face and run out his tongue, like his face were a place that could be like a fountain, or a kachina when the maker is possessed.
but this is no time to be speaking of tongues, not here, not now, not like this. the tongue is silent, the tongue has to be silent about itself, because if he starts to talk about the tongue, he knows, he's going to start saying all sorts of things about her.
it's becoming well known that he simply can't keep a secret, except about the things that are not between anyone else but the people the secrets are about. it's becoming known that too many people are talking about him, and he needs to get clean. it's becoming well known that he cleaned himself by alternating between the hot light of the morning and the cool bath of the midnight sky.
and this is when he starts to remember some things that can't possibly come to light, but here they are in the light. things like: this scar here, the one on the edges of the tongue, comes from the nail used to mark the moment when he saw that his words escaped his mouth and spoke of her, and spoke of the way he drew pictures on her body with his tongue, an evening that was a new ceremony of blessing that played out in a very old pattern; and the saliva dried in a picture that he loved because it reminded him of her; and the things he never wanted to forget about her were growing more numerous the further away she got, and that in this way he started to see how she was becoming absorbed into that pool of things that happened in the past, and part of a long series of exceptions; that the patterns he drew that only she could interpret were seen by other eyes, and the other eyes started to reinterpret with their tongues, and spread the news that he was talking about he behind her back.
enough so that in some times these things would be called distortions of the truth, but here, in the ravine or the ditch, the truth is in process, somewhere between birth and death, on the precipice of both or either or neither. and his heart is suddenly moving away from the precipice and toward the firmament. because of this:
the one in the corner, the one who cleans, the one with the broom, the one who is not one, not three, and not tied to the broom, better called they or ones than one, but they/she like to be called the one, because they are attached, because they attach, they, the one who cleans, comes through, she comes through, she who comes through cleaning comes through cleaning, and she comes again to clean. she announces herself without an announcement, she calls attention to herself with the sounds of her cleaning, she makes herself known through the sounds and the rhythms of the dust that turns and turns and escapes through the window when the storm sucks air in two directions. she comes to announce without announcing, and it is always the same. it starts like a request, but there is no request. she comes to announce that it is the time of year when all the plates and all the floors and all the things that stand between the tongue-eye and the firmament have to be swept away. clear the area is what she would say if she came announcing with an announcement, but she doesn't come this way because an annunciation means that no one has ever heard her name, and she wouldn't accept that there is anyone who doesn't know her name. the one in the corner cleans and they say that it's time to clear the area and to get clean in the heat of the sun and the cool of the rain, that the third cycle is about to begin.
this was the saddest part of the story for him so far. because there was a morning, one that began in a most unusual way, with a wet desert floor and the body of a small animal with a very long tail on the floor at the feet of the cat. because there was a morning where he started to wake up and started to have a feeling that his thoughts were not yet clear but were coming clear, and that this would be a day that could be guided by clear thought. and that this was not the first morning like this ever, and that is was coming in a long line of mornings, and that it may have been going on for at least a month. and the clarity was coming from making decisions about how to keep things away, and how to figure out not to want things, and a realization that this not wanting was starting to turn into a wanting of the things that he had, like they were. the ceiling was high enough and the floor was low enough and the air was wet enough and the moment was the perfect length of time to count as a moment, and everything else was just decoration, and that this held the secret of some kind of sorcery, or some kind of witchcraft.
he woke up enchanted, and not for the first time. and the notion that fall would come after summer seemed like the most extraordinary thing in the world. and everything was about to fall into place. and something that fell into place would be a three in a series of three, and the three would fall into place and take many things with it, because it would fall with the force of a star denser than the ones aligned at his birth, and make holes where time might peek through and lose its place and sense of direction, being turned around madly, mad like a wolf come in fresh and hungry from the rain.
but this is no time to be speaking of tongues, not here, not now, not like this. the tongue is silent, the tongue has to be silent about itself, because if he starts to talk about the tongue, he knows, he's going to start saying all sorts of things about her.
it's becoming well known that he simply can't keep a secret, except about the things that are not between anyone else but the people the secrets are about. it's becoming known that too many people are talking about him, and he needs to get clean. it's becoming well known that he cleaned himself by alternating between the hot light of the morning and the cool bath of the midnight sky.
and this is when he starts to remember some things that can't possibly come to light, but here they are in the light. things like: this scar here, the one on the edges of the tongue, comes from the nail used to mark the moment when he saw that his words escaped his mouth and spoke of her, and spoke of the way he drew pictures on her body with his tongue, an evening that was a new ceremony of blessing that played out in a very old pattern; and the saliva dried in a picture that he loved because it reminded him of her; and the things he never wanted to forget about her were growing more numerous the further away she got, and that in this way he started to see how she was becoming absorbed into that pool of things that happened in the past, and part of a long series of exceptions; that the patterns he drew that only she could interpret were seen by other eyes, and the other eyes started to reinterpret with their tongues, and spread the news that he was talking about he behind her back.
enough so that in some times these things would be called distortions of the truth, but here, in the ravine or the ditch, the truth is in process, somewhere between birth and death, on the precipice of both or either or neither. and his heart is suddenly moving away from the precipice and toward the firmament. because of this:
the one in the corner, the one who cleans, the one with the broom, the one who is not one, not three, and not tied to the broom, better called they or ones than one, but they/she like to be called the one, because they are attached, because they attach, they, the one who cleans, comes through, she comes through, she who comes through cleaning comes through cleaning, and she comes again to clean. she announces herself without an announcement, she calls attention to herself with the sounds of her cleaning, she makes herself known through the sounds and the rhythms of the dust that turns and turns and escapes through the window when the storm sucks air in two directions. she comes to announce without announcing, and it is always the same. it starts like a request, but there is no request. she comes to announce that it is the time of year when all the plates and all the floors and all the things that stand between the tongue-eye and the firmament have to be swept away. clear the area is what she would say if she came announcing with an announcement, but she doesn't come this way because an annunciation means that no one has ever heard her name, and she wouldn't accept that there is anyone who doesn't know her name. the one in the corner cleans and they say that it's time to clear the area and to get clean in the heat of the sun and the cool of the rain, that the third cycle is about to begin.
this was the saddest part of the story for him so far. because there was a morning, one that began in a most unusual way, with a wet desert floor and the body of a small animal with a very long tail on the floor at the feet of the cat. because there was a morning where he started to wake up and started to have a feeling that his thoughts were not yet clear but were coming clear, and that this would be a day that could be guided by clear thought. and that this was not the first morning like this ever, and that is was coming in a long line of mornings, and that it may have been going on for at least a month. and the clarity was coming from making decisions about how to keep things away, and how to figure out not to want things, and a realization that this not wanting was starting to turn into a wanting of the things that he had, like they were. the ceiling was high enough and the floor was low enough and the air was wet enough and the moment was the perfect length of time to count as a moment, and everything else was just decoration, and that this held the secret of some kind of sorcery, or some kind of witchcraft.
he woke up enchanted, and not for the first time. and the notion that fall would come after summer seemed like the most extraordinary thing in the world. and everything was about to fall into place. and something that fell into place would be a three in a series of three, and the three would fall into place and take many things with it, because it would fall with the force of a star denser than the ones aligned at his birth, and make holes where time might peek through and lose its place and sense of direction, being turned around madly, mad like a wolf come in fresh and hungry from the rain.
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