“the abstract poem
that cleaves through the glassy heights like the hump of a great
beast, the rising reification, integration’s grandest, most
roving whale: in this way Enlil became a god and ruled
the sky: in this way earth became our mother: in this way
angels shaped light”
Ammons, A. R. (1995). Sphere: The form of a motion. (pp. 136-137). New York, New York: W.W. Norton.
Note: The god Enlil is prominent in Sumerian religion and his name translates to “Lord of the Storm”. One story describes his origin as the exhausted breath of the god of the heavens and the goddess of the Earth after sexual union.
Sighing, gasping,
Earth and sky consummate to produce the wind; the storm
that scrapes its limpest tentacle upon the crust of continents.
Flaccid and flailing, it makes its way back to the ocean
where waterspouts send humpbacks sailing through the atmosphere
like strange birds.
Once a roving whale,
now you are the sun-bleached trunk of a redwood
decaying on the sand under the eyes of some distorted form.
Now you are an abstract beast,
bending to the mercy of time and insects.
Insects that swarm and cover the sky
in spite of the lord of the storm
who scratches at his mosquito bites
and sighs a relief so massive
that it sets the milky way spinning
like a pinwheel in space.