Adamant Deer browse at sunrise in an apple orchard, while honey locust leaves litter the walk. A neighbor hears gunshots in the bosque and wonders who's firing at close range; I spot bear prints near the Pojoaque River but see no sign of the reported mountain lion. As chlorophyll slips into the roots of a cottonwood and the leaves burst into yellow gold, I wonder, where's our mortal flare? You can travel to where the Tigris and Euphrates flow together and admire the inventions of people living on floating islands of reeds; you can travel along an archipelago and hike among volcanic pools steaming with water and sulfuric acid; but you can't change the eventual, adamant body. Though death might not come like a curare-dipped dart blown out of a tube or slam at you like surf breaking over black lava rock, it will come--it will come--and it unites us-- brother, sister, boxer, spinner--in this pact, while you inscribe a letter with trembling hand.Westbourne StreetPorch light illuminating white steps, lightover a garage door, darkness inside windows--and the darkness exposes the tenuous.A glass blower shapes a rearing horse that shifts, on a stand, from glowing orange to glistening crystal; suddenly the horse shatters into legs, head, body, mane. At midnight, "Fucking idiot!" a woman yells, shaking the house; along a hedge, a man sleeps, coat over head, legs sticking out; and, at 8 am, morning glories open on a fence; a backhoe heads up the street.From this window, he views banana leaves, an orange tree with five oranges, house with shingled roofs, and steps leading to an upstairs apartment; farther off, palm trees,and, beyond, a sloping street, ocean, sky;but what line of sight leads to revelation?Black CenterGreen tips of tulips are rising out of the earth--you don't flense a whale or fire at beer cansin an arroyo but catch the budding tips of pear branches and wonder what it's like to live along a purling edge of spring.Jefferson once tried to assemble a mastodonskeleton on the White House floor but, with pieces missing, failed to sequence the bones;when the last speaker of a language dies,a hue vanishes from the spectrum of visible light. Last night, you sped past revolving and flashing red, blue, and white lights along the road--a wildfire in the dark; though no one you knew was taken in the midnight ambulance,an arrow struck a bull's eye and quivered in its shaft: one minute gratitude riseslike water from an underground lake,another dissolution gnaws from a black center. Excerpted from Sightlines by Arthur Sze All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
