Long Poem for late November

The Woman from Burial XXII

I am looking at an artist’s hypothesis of how she looked,

This woman of some seven thousand years ago,

Probably a shamaness buried with her ceremonial bones,

Animal tooth necklace and feathery necklace.

She stares at me, offers me a bowl, as though

I were her client seeking answers to my doubts:

Is there really a power greater than my pains

Who can let me sleep again after years of fear?

Do the beasts we hunt in the mountains hate us

And stir the clouds and thunder, the wild lights

That set the trees on fire, the winds that warn

Away our prey? Does what I dream come out

Of me or does it crawl out of the earth

Like the creatures that are born of darkness?

I know this image of her face is not the truth.

She lies there in a tangled skeleton, her skull

Barely propped, and all her paraphernalia,

Unrecognizable over centuries of darkness,

Until an artist gave her life and made

Her speak in imagination, without syllables

Or images, only sensations, patterns

In the dust of stars, designs in waves

Across the centuries of longing: Come to me,

Drink my pulsating blood, feel my cold breath,

Taste the wisdom of my dreams, and most

Of all come into my eyes and see my soul.

My soul swims in the empty space between

Your dreams and mine, the border-realm of fear

And wild confusions, and you may sleep the way

An infant sleeps always sucking, always cooing,

Always longing for the otherness of itself.

My dreams create your dreams and give you words

And images, feelings for the light,

Yet as the oceanic tides express their grief

And long to follow other seas beneath

The shadows of the sun, you cannot sing

Or dance with me; and only memories

Lie softly in the sand where waters sleep,

Caressing arms and silent drifting life.

This is what she seems to say out of her photograph,

Her manifestation into our imagined dialogue.

She could not have understood me in a conversation,

Her mind and mine so different in every way,

Let alone in possession of words or concepts, or feelings

Since the world has shifted off its axis many times

And sea changes manifest in the ways we think.

But if a scientist and artist can reproduce her face

And recreate the appearance she would have had back then,

Why not my own creative ways of meditation,

The intensity of longing to be close to her for just

A moment, to slip into that gap of difference where

Our shared humanity could exist, that moment

Of closeness before there was culture and reason,

This magical, miraculous instant out of time?

This is my reply, translated out of the terms that man

Claims no one today can comprehend; but he forgets

That when my face was reconstructed by computer,

The very essence of my being was transformed, so that

I now can see and feel and think and even remember

In the manner of your present and I am no longer some

Pile of bones or an archaic woman beyond language

And modern empathy. Call me what you will,

So long as there is space for me to be more than what

You expect or think you see reflected in these

Artificial eyes. I am your mystery,

An enigma, the riddle of yourself—yourself

And not yourself, neither him in his own time

Nor someone else you all thought you found, down there

In the site you call Burial XXII.

If there are three of us now, the shamaness,

The poet, and the reader of these verses, less

Than any of us could have predicted or foreseen,

Yet more beyond our common sense, as green

As shadows on the surface of a country rill

Or as purple as a fading wound where will,

Desire and annoyance met, we all are self created

In this momentary place of mystery, not dead

Or living as ordinary minds believe, but out

Of all imaginings, like a never-ending echo

That hovers above the seas, beyond the stars,

And waits impatiently—like a fire that never chars.

That is all I have to say and now must part.

Her friends who buried her, who knew her well,

Felt a sorrow mixed with pride, as they set her up

Like a guardian of the cave, someone to welcome

In new generations, confident of her power’s survival.

Each acolyte laid a flower next to her

And breathed on her face, while nearby chanters murmured

Prayers in her honour, while someone dipped his fingers

In the wet red clay to make the marks across the wall

That showed the deep reflections of her mind.

Then from the darkness way beyond the night

Inside the hollow-sounding mountain, a light

Refracted on the stones came closer still,

Like a dancing spirit, and spread a song

Over her body, whose shadows now could rest,

As infants lie contented on their mother’s breast.

Deep night and empty silence for seven

Thousand years embraced her corpse

Which slowly fell apart, undisturbed

By bears and bats, forgotten by the world.

Outside, the oceans heaved, the hands

Of men and women entangled themselves in love

And hate, built villages and harvested

The living produce of new ideas, disturbed

The balance of the heavy weight of doubtful hopes,

And longed, undreaming, of a deeper endless sleep.

This evening, as we stare numbly at the woman’s eyes,

We cannot fathom who she really was or dare

To speculate what she would think we are,

Or even what unproblematic humanity we might share.