N a p a
l m H e a
l t h
S p a
: R e
p o r
t 2 0
0 9
PROSPERO SAIZ
Proem To Southern Athabascan Chant
1. The Singing Rock
wind traveling at dawn
drooping cones slowly swaying
wind-light whisperings:
she is so soft
and as she bows she towers
her womb seems empty now
(the canyon empties itself into red torrents)
it can’t be said how she’s used up
and yet and yet is fresh and new
forth shines she in her yield
while in the misty valley of the wolf
far to the north
blind pups yip and nip in simple suckle
the blue kindles emptiness
and in an empty riverbed
her face takes the shape of the open sky
it is a natural thing for her
to listen to the silence
and spare the word
*****
the drums and flutes are ready
the voice in the ear–silently intones the music:
of the solitary fly buzzing in amber
of the morbid secretions in the whale’s gut
of the bear changing shape
of falling snowflakes without past or future
music suspended over Siberian colors
vanishing terse echoes of ancient chant
wisdom fluttering about........................
without form
menacing all ideas
of the beginning and the end...
listen
the shoulder bone of the blood-red ox
breaks and crackles in the cold air
while the tortuga shell gathers music elsewhere
midst the cackling of the world
the hollow at the center of the shell
without desire for the deadly ways of man
sounding echoes of the lapping waters
and the poisoned wolves fall to the ground
while we scatter the shame of being human
in the deadly whirl of our immanence
the breath of
the tiniest pebble moves the greatest boulder
water penetrates the toughest rock
smoothing it down
nothing is closed everything seeps
quietly in the coldest waters
oil and ambergris float on the surface
*****
cycles of subtle breath
expansion-destruction
destruction-expansion
world-eons
persecutions
scientific expeditions
waters rising
cruise ships gawking in northern waters:
strong wind and lashing water
whip the ankles of the white she-bear
she can’t go on forever
(neither can you and yours)
the wind will die and come again
and ankle bones will be themselves
*****
the empty cosmos... in emptiness...
thought-creating breath
is the universe in You
and You in it
do You enter it
does it enter You
Your words create a border
in the wind-soul
Pronouns are ice melting in the moment
water turns to questions
without answer
dust comes over the waters
and slowly becomes mud
yielding no reflection
the bones of the great
dust
the bones of the poor
dust
dust upon the waters
the river brings itself
that’s all
yet there is breath
over and over
again and again
beyond all wisdom
beyond all skill
the spider web wafting
in the subtle breath in-formed by the holy wind
timeless reality inseparable
all is breathing softly
in the curve of emptiness
*****
the wind in the rock is calling you...
the music that you are
shall vanish when the hot rock vapor once again
raises new beings from the eternal now
2. Leather-Ear-Woman
The origin of the origin is now
All is still present
Now... energy teems on all paths
Now... holds all time together
Now... the many directions of time
take unknown ways...
My thought destined for scorn
Rests in the hollow of the cosmos
Where an infinite cough echos
Heard by the Leather Ear only
I see with one ear
there where my mind was lost
in the mastery of the moment
*****
Her body could not hold the power of the cough
And she could not pretend to be a priestess
And she did not pretend to be a curing-woman
And she claimed no gifts of prophecy
And she did not call the spirits to dance before the charm
Nobody says the spirits danced before her iron circle
But she saw the shaman dress his hair in woman-way
With long black braids dangling on either side
Spiraling everywhere at the stroke of ecstasy
His eyes closed tight in his high held head
His girl’s dress of soft foal skin draped round his torso
In the instant of the beating drum and dancing spirits
The snow was melting and the earth was black
And animal spirits were fighting all around her
The bull gored the mongol stallion’s flank
The black bear clawed the shoulder of the elk
And the insatiable dog sniffed her trembling legs
She felt the white teeth of the needy dog gnawing at her heart
She felt her body being torn to pieces and the crow watched
The spirits gamboled in her ear at the infinite speed of chaos
And could not be captured by the two iron circles of the breast
Hammered out by the smith with birds of crooked claws
Birds with tearing beaks over the glow of fire and the hammer’s noise
There the mother-animal spirit came upon her and calmed the black call...
There others sacrificed animals and sprinkled blood over themselves
Many ate the animal flesh during the consecration and waited
For the lost wisdom of dead shamans to come to this one
And the ancestor spirits leaped on him and strangled out his old life
And he now heard the lost names of ancient guiding spirits
The arctic-sickness left his body and his eyes brightened in the call
And the drumbeat took him to the spirit world and back again
He now sang the spirit of the mountain and sounded the spirit of the sea
He now said the spirit of the sky and heard the rumble of the earth below...
She searched for song-words surrounded by the fullness of emptiness
The traces of silence lingered in each solitary word she softly chanted
(A nomadic silence which still pierces the other silence)
And time became a nomad yet time itself was not tied to movement
Time was itself and nothing else
Time took its time becoming
*****
cold ice
cry of the dying crow...
arctic hysteria
the spirit gamboling before the light
yakut moving north
gilyak moving south
chanting to the rhythms of the mongol drum
melody trapped in the inner room at night
malady ignored in the outer room in full daylight
the face twitching
jerking movement of the owl eating its prey
woman in manly garb
husking dreams without a drum
uttering rapid incantations
*****
who can accept the terrible arctic call
the bone knife cutting in the womb
yielding strange brightness in the eyes
intense staring cunning coy
taking on the call to cure the illness
yet her sign remains unknown
she did not fall swiftly from the sky
she did not leap from birch to birch
when very young
a passed down sickness became her best
all came to her without her will
she slept for years
the wolf
the bear
the raven
gull
and eagle
struggled with her in long sleep
she awakened in the middle of the winter night
her temples and her forehead sweating blood
so she was called and answered
and learned to chant and dance
yet could not beat the drum
a quiet wind blew on her eyes and mouth
an old one stabbed himself four times
and she felt the moving of the mountain
the coldness of the churning sea
the endless blueness of the sky
and the movement of the rock
beneath earth’s crust
and in the eddy of her open thighs
the calling power whirled
*****
There was no power to stop the persecutions: dress and drum burned
Sound fell into a dark muteness... without the calling need for song
*****
I was killed and secretly placed in my tomb of mastodon bone
death did not take me elsewhere and as the sun set
my tomb gathered things there in a quiet union of pure time
now eager grave diggers have uncovered me
the grasses are dying
machines tear over the tender tundra
birds thrash in agony on the coastlines of oil
furious mining
gold tungsten mercury coal
mad search for oil and gas in the deep waters
flames licking the sky
old grandmother fire
your fire for people only
sun peeping
hard frost this morning
warm glow over my empty tomb
where I once rested under arched tusks
MASTODON
sacred breast-tooth nipple
under my black hair
the sun kissed my wooden death- mask
oil of whale lights up old bering sea
pain in mammary glands
my leather ear sounds icy waters
where whales sing their sacred songs
and water spirits couple in their path
now far from the path of heaven
who would relocate my spirit...
who rules
sun flames let things go by
the other silence rules
it can never long be broken
its force holds us together
people seethe round the exhibition
noises of the city surround my bones
I grieve for those around me
on the border of life and death
I am out of sight
on the edges of the street
my cries cannot awaken the dead trees
their spirits have moved on
wandering in lovely currents elsewhere
here the seasons have forgotten how to perch
and my shoulders seem terribly empty
midst the traces of wired bodies
where all consent to numbness
the spirits of the winds and snows are gone
my sighs would follow them into oblivion
here sadness is beyond expression
my words thrash about in ozone hues
concrete and solid tar
I see ears filled to the brim with crystals
heads bent down followed by nervous dogs
eyes touching millions of fading feet
have their spirits gone away?
*****
do You see...
a g l o a m is falling
over the evening-land’s cruel time
where claims of truth destroy all things
and there is no need of song
Your thinning-words have conquered all the world
all things are fading... slowly falling into disappearance
ghostliness haunts Your anxious comforts
in the void
dust and light meet
and cannot come to rest
only in song does the world meet the spirit
the beating drum swells our emptiness
anonymous chant
always in exile
yet strangely haunting Your thin ghost-world
song words are nature’s nature
teeming energy of fascination
the tongue stuck to the roof of the mouth
singing the footfall without refuge
adrift in the snows without surface or depth
I sing not out of a dreamworld
I sing not out of a whirlwind
no creation or invention...
only a breath from elsewhere
a nomad song in nomad time
leaving empty camps behind
in the space of my cry
my heart murmurs
mere vibration on all paths
the sound never arriving
over paths of water
on paths of ice
in paths of snow
upon the darkness of earth
light is endlessly sought
does Your science radiate everywhere
do Your equations and forms sparkle and shine
do You want to speak harmony and beauty
as You strive to reveal the nakedness of the cosmos
but I sense that after all You say and do
all remains strange
while the unbearable naked visage of all things is briefly occupied
by the darkness of Your midnight and the brilliance of Your noonday
*****
--why do You hurry so
why do Your bones stride so fast
it is so easy to simply walk
and gently fade into Your track
---there is a mirror
in Your inmost heart
shatter it once beyond all sensing
so You may span the moment
and for once in the untrodden cosmic paths
of ice and fire
be simply natural
and bring Yourself with all
cover all reflection
and fall into quietness
where everything is waiting--
in the quietness of time
the leather-ear lightly
stands still
sits still
i s s t i l l
away from the cliches of Your emotions
*****
i am no shadow of myself
i am what was left behind
dead to haunt my life
yet death itself is never seen
in the meantime action is becoming
in and out of past and future time
i remain in the other silence now
unheard in the yelling of the day
far from the lyrics of the north
the ear attuned that’s all
s c r y
s o n g
...s i l e n c e...
elaborate resemblance of a dying time
in the meantime of all paths
the leather-ear at the capture of the interval
AND
presence circles the poles over and over
again and again without us
all pronouns and names are exhausted
You and I
two strange moments in time...
alien mouths without coincidence
pure passive space
shapeless even in my cry toward You
turning there with open eyes
into the vanishing of a silent name
sunspots eyes
hair solar flares
erupting fire mountains
sun-corona exploding
gas and plasma skies
leaving the pull of the sun
swirling solar winds
sun storm
the light of the north
passing through my womb
stammering bones
blue-green northern arcs
patches of mixed light
red and yellow veils
the red aurora burning
spirits dancing in the
northern
auroral
O V A L
deep exhaustion
calm sleep in the cradle of fading light
long time coming: R E D R E D
and then whiteness and clouds only
*****
did i traveled in star dust
did i talk to Your dreams
did i follow forces unseen
in the trance-world
did i leave my naked body behind in the bitter cold
and walk
endless north-ness left
far to the east
yupigyt
chukchi
eveny
koryaki
itel’meny
yukagiry
evenki
oroki
nivkhi
orochi
ul’chi
udegei
negidal
sakha
nanai
CHUKOTKA
mists of wind
clouds and wind rising
Athabascan chant-ways
heading south
from high
over and below earth’s crust
everything flows is flowing
knowledge leers in shallow halls
the holy herbs slip from the earthen cup
fish swim in nothing
my flesh followed the shape of things
old age brought walrus-head
my ear a wind-blown cone on pine
carefully gathered Athabascan sounds
grass here grass there
----Yeniseian
----Na-dene
----Dene
--energy moving to the four sacred mountains
of the high plateau--
----Ende
----Dine
my northern ear sensed the beauty of the chant-ways
but could not understand...
and the form of my ear dissolved
in the great immensity of the open blue
and nothing happened... obliteration...
my ear--an oracle for fools----the bone-words of illusion?