by Derick Burleson
The Kinyarwandan word which means both yesterday and tomorrow
World resolves itself in crowded crane's liquid eye， in the cry of ibis，
eye that's gazed on anyone who's ever walked this path beneath
acacias，through coffee fields to the river and back again carrying water or
fish.
Cry that cries the morning news.
Come， let's walk this path together， empty handed， carrying nothing back
but a few words of a language powerful enough to turn the river back on itself，
to fill the river with bloated corpses.
One day I swam far into Lake Kivu， a thousand feet of clear water below and
nothing above except sun.
My body suspended on surface tension， the line between air and thicker
air， sun the point from which the water swung.
Yesterday I swam. Now I'm back home. Tomorrow Remera will swim out into
that same lake， almost across the border， gut shot， gasping， almost there，
almost. . . .
Crowned crane wears a slash of crimson at the throat. Beneath its golden
crest， beneath its liquid eye， the path winds through coffee fields to the river
and back again.
Fathom yourself in exile.
In every gurgle of each morning's pot of coffee you hear your brother's
last breath. You wake in a forest. You've been shot. Get up， stagger down the
path to the river full of corpses.
In its ancient terrible cry (fling your body in) ibis pronounces
how beginning becomes the end.
发表于 2016-7-10 11:41:12