Risen Rock[1]
There is no other being than being other
-Carry van Bruggen
1. Viewing an errant boulder on the shore at
Dai Kee, Taiwan, I see in it a human face.
Nearing the rock
at last I see
its eyes,
seemingly an
I’s,
more than of
dust that lies,
spray that
scatters.
Marker of the morning
where I see it now
it comes to
light,
joins me in the going.
2. If the stone’s name is ‘errant,’ the stone
is human...
Likeness
nearing mine
above the sea
that never knew
to say
but up and under,
up and ever down
again.
Stone that earth
refused –
earth that gave
no ground,
showed no place
of peace –
stone arising, weight
along with me,
stay me here in
light against the wind.
Be along in
standing
never to
dissolve,
never to resolve
into a wave
among the waves.
Open as mine
your eye,
open as one the other,
skull and stone
one likeness.
Over the
unbespoken and asunder,
out of the lightless
wallowings
and echoings of ends,
out of the
seething settlements
now here:
one seen.
3. ...and obstinate...
Not to save the
stone –
I came to see it
rise
where I arrive,
rising as I rise
against the setting,
the lying of
land’s end.
Leaving the very
sea behind
to stand and
sign and be:
that where we
were denied we rise
in countersign
and coming:
peer and
counterpart.
4. ...and odd.
Stave or stela
staying in this
light,
staying more
than saying,
rather tall than
told,
better with than
worded,
rather along.
Here beyond proscribing
I am seen in
what I see:
over the dumb
and boom and doom
of all the sea
and all that was
surrounding.
5. The stone will never ask me what I am, or if
I am.
Over I stand,
standing ever
over.
Behold the
stone:
housing not on
land,
not in the
word-enwalled stockade
but here in
overstanding,
here in the not
inhering
that is ours,
open that is
own.
Standing out
against the wind:
here against the
setting sun,
here against all
setting.
6. Blessed are they that stand.
So be I ever,
seeming
in a distance
that is near,
apart
and yet a part,
touching on
whatever
is to touch
and now is near,
with in waiting,
waiting in the
wind
for more of wind.
--Lloyd Haft
October 2015
[1] This
is my English version of a poem I originally published in Dutch in De gids 2011: 4.
For the Dutch
version, see http://www.athenaeum.nl/boek-van-de-nacht/gids-2011-4
For Katie Su’s
Chinese version, see http://lhaftblog.blogspot.nl/2015/09/blog-post.html