Three Walking Meditations

Abstract

WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 45 top photo : mikael miettinen Walk with Wood Smoke If it’s a house burning, still, it scents the sky. If a pile of leaves, more rightly, seasonal. Not plastic, not chemical. If a pyre, still, it scents the sky. If a house, let no one be in it, just house the idea, half-built or abandoned, no loss, no grief, just smoke so good on a cold day, and quickening. Sharp. Not animal. Animal’s damp, fur-blood, bone-dirt, fat-greasy musk—so good in its way. Burning unbuilds. If a house, back to beams, metal to scrap, hinges and nails. Piles of glass. In time, ivy softens all ruin. Shade grows a moss blanket. Ditch weed fills a gash. Burning’s one kind of end. Not the end, that’s the hope. I’m on my way home. I breathe in deeply. The sky’s purple, the air cold, the scent good, so good, so originless. Walk with Early Light The light’s gathering in a space above the street, a hovering so fresh and alert I believe for a moment in a center-from-which, gentler than a detonation, a space with its very own bright exhalation so everything glows, all the snowed-upon branches are tapped and what’s sealed up comes forth, that’s what it must be, the within pushing out, a season suspended, warmth-the-idea thinking louder this morning, its light untraceable, light from who-knows-where, this peace made with clouds, partly sunny it’s called, that’s its immigrant name, how it’s known in this country, which demands the pronounceable. Walk with Cloud It’s ancient, feather-boned, crossing my path, the path of my gaze cast up and along the ruffle of back, eye (an absence), long beak (dispersing its wisdom, fleece, radiance ), the whole of it tacking, then sheering in wind, spine and fins cresting, a ribcomb , a tail-fan, then a gust, a push, and it’s letting more light in, more sky, and the body’s more perfectly gone from its bones. Baltimore, Maryland Lia Purpura’s most recent collection of essays is Rough Likeness. Her awards include a Guggenheim, NEA and Fulbright fellowships, and three Pushcart prizes. On Looking (essays) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Baltimore and is Writer in Residence at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Three Walking Meditations with Lia Purpura and pour some water also over my head, and as he drinks deeply my head falls back as far as it can on its pole of a neck, and the wind, thirstier than my dog, rages and pushes until every drop of water it can find on me is in its possession. The wind is a thief. But I understand from the law of the People that even thieves have their uses. There are no absolutes. I think of my father in Malaysia, a British -educated man whose life consisted of absolutes—absolute successes or failures, and absolute rights and wrongs. I think of my mother, a traditional overseas Chinese woman so deliberate that by the time she thought everything through in her mind the moment for comment on that thing was long over. She would say, “How can you speak so fast on important things? How can anyone be certain so quickly?” The sun hovers on the horizon, and a magic orange-golden light descends on the Bisti. As the sun falls below the horizon, the desert seems to be dressing itself in ashes. Orso begins leading us out of the Bisti. There are a few other cars parked now near mine, and an RV pulling a horse trailer at which two women are standing with their horse as if preparing for a twilight ride. I’ve learned that nowhere is completely dark in the desert. The white sand will shine. The darker rocks against the brilliant moonlit sky provide markers. Farmington, New Mexico Josey Foo has worked for almost fifteen years as a lawyer on the Navajo Nation and presently is involved in raising funds for tribal arts, education, and economic development. She has received an NEA fellowship...