No owl came for you.

But you watched her go:
best friends, best friends
until that moment
when she warned you: Don’t follow.

But when had you ever not followed?

Bricks, bruising.
Blood, a little.
Eleanor, why?

For months—years—you marked time at another school,
which was deathly dull.

Every summer she returned
ever more a stranger.
Maths was your magic.
So you knew, each autumn, when she
disappeared,
that hers was not the only platform
between 9 and 10.
That there exists, in fact,
between any two
numbers,
a space that may
be more
finely
divi-
ded.

9 and 5/6: Smash!
Wrong.

Inside the infinite,
every outcome is inevitable.

9 and 18/25: Smash!
Wrong.

But it was righter;
you felt that.

You noted that in your notebook.

Somewhere, in there, was a place for you.

A platform that would open
to a train
to a school
that was almost like hers,
to a friend
who was almost like her,
but not
to a bird that would belong to you,
if not quite an owl.

A finch
or a falcon vulture
bluebird blackbird
woodpecker
parrot
sparrow
robin raven—
anything—
with a scroll in its beak.

9 and 4,817/6,311
Smash!
Wrong.
But righter.

You noted that in your notebook.

In this world, you saw her
less and less—
best friends once,
but not now.

You saw her
(and her owl)
sometimes
from the room that was yours
(in the house that you had since inherited from your parents);
she was visiting her parents:
best friends, next door friends,
growing up,
but nothing now.

She was 30… 40… 50.

For you, whose birthday was only 3 months and 3 days after hers,
it was the same.

(This is the simplest kind of maths.)

Now, she was a Minister of Magic.

9 and 40,927/54,581
Smash!
Wrong.
But righter.

You noted that in your notebook.

You were not invited to her funeral
(an accident: a hippogriff)
But the dream transmuted
as you did,
so that while—yes—you would enter any platform that opened…

What would you do at a school?

Let it be—if you were dreaming—
a house for pensioners.
And let them offer you a bird.

In its feathers, you could rest your hand.
Rest.

9 and 226,943/302,573
Smash!

9 and 328,687/438,241
Smash!

No.
At one time, perhaps,
this may have been about something else.

Eleanor, why?

But as your numbers have become sharper
(a series of inessentials
whittled
implacably a-
way)
so has your ambition.

Your try another and another
(smash smash)
and your body stoops
and your hair whitens,
and you acquire a staff, too,
to assist your balance
(have you, at any
earlier period
of your life,
so resembled a true witch?
did Eleanor, even, ever so inhabit the part?)
and the
problem nar-
rows,
increment by 
in-
cre-
ment,
as your newest notebook fills:
infinity opening
to additional infinities,
and within them—
shiver—
lie
an infinite number of platforms
that will open
exclusively
to you.

Finer. Fi-
ner. F
in
e
r
.

                                                                                                in the pool below
                                                                                     they seem still brighter
                                                                      but more likely to be snuffed

                though the East’s no paler now
                            yet something feels about to change

                                                             the gracious ones
                                                                       stir
                                              gathering in darkness
                                                                                              we see their movements
                                                                    by the blotting out of constellations
                                                                               feel them
                                                            by the gathering of dread
                                                                                       that ripples heavily
                                                                                                       across our minds

                                                                                                       we wait
                                                                                            for the sky’s collapse
                                                                   we wait
                                                           for the fury to break upon us

                      in the failing sky
                                      the stars wink out
                                                                                   and fear falls
                                                                             on a darkened world

ca. 17,000,000 hours past

ADDRESS: /records /non-operations /narrative_set /brave /pure_water /+4~3 /GUIDE

PARSING CREATOR ABSTRACT
RECORD NOT FOUND
GENERATING ABSTRACT:

The planetbound speaker laments
the defeat of an uprising
against Community of Im-
provement, asserting that gravi-
ty was lost there… They narrate
gravity’s role in history.

ENTRY:
Oh weight, go bring love’s ratio
To bear on relations some may — eons rare, new —
Then create! We can remake seasons
Of people’s misuse, of stupidity, of
Violence’s great lie. Fate must decide:
Sparkling echoes of the Sunbow’s jetting car
Or let youths drill, bind wire still wounded for;
Free Colony’s sieged atmosphere
Or Filament Braid which breathes free, this blazing pillar
We yet have to create, the ratio: Gravity!
Fight this grim age, make it still right,
Curve free, that your mass returns!

Considering how, not bowing fervent on
The pleasure of Directors,
One planet names this true rule, its native-span sun.
Yet skies scan distant violence
From a weightless reign, vain estate of none,
Traps rich oxygen to lash to canny toxic gas
And choke partisans. Thick, your smoke stands,
That pure remonstrance at Entrepreneur’s act!

Long ago all was dust, fallow. Along
Came planets and people fully stranded, aflame
For pointless war, anointer
Of temporary weight, fate prepared for end of
Life. Before space flight, waste scored the sky,
All raged against all, and what they call
Weight no one saw; chaos alone reigned.
Yet gravity was not trapped; modestly it had set
Eyes for new ways, a truer sight:
Infrared, releasing secrets of planets,
That terraforming for carbon or water can
Be shared in equal weight, the
Wild harmony as yet unrealized.

We were as dwellers held fast to grieve
In nature’s obscure station,
Still mindless, trapped by planets’ blind will.

Car black from ardor, some take us forward and backward:
Finishers of the solar system,
Erasers of our safety,
Yea, when Clockworker Gods rent space!
A wave of terror made the
Archipelago’s boundless metal
Cloak gas planets, their rich and vast holds
Stream massed chemicals as feed
For terraforming. Our pay: mourning or bitter war.

Though large of mind, well read, did their violent charge, so
Assented, spent on concentrated mass,
Broaden gravity’s most freeing span? In all
People clockworkers bound for sorrow, you’ll see
Trapped throngs in the vacuum, this wrong that
But raises the poison germ of stations,
Immanent form of might I judge so eccentric.

Weight, oh still you hid your face,
Opening space, making plain your
Price of loss whose output could not prove otherwise:
A nightmare of bare violence.

Easing pain of clockworks’ unwaning years
Like radio bursts first glossing gray skies,
Four Systems rose, sending your
Balanced ways, ungated channels
So people may live free, when they all bestowed
Weight’s love, pure mind, curve of grace
Upon the mass that sung songs of
This open ringing fellowship.
True, their executives lived useless wealth, yet through
Their beneficence justice was reckoned fair.
Freest of their age, they earned our esteem.

Catalyzing culture, the Four Worlds enticed all that
Beauty of brief few hours:
Bare ship songs of such longing, there
Cries verse nothing of their like;
Courageous sports of moral favor,
Which those players built in Limb and Payload;
Such arts ignite history’s brightest partage.

Mysteriously ceasing,
That relished order where Four Systems sat
Deadened to a nothingness.
None can guess what stress happened
To undermine a society so new;
None knows what passed in that open.
Eras through gravity’s void, we let vacuum endure
Enough for people’s fall. All agree that nothing
Can subsist in its absence.

Who could make what won’t undo?
Not the clockwork gods, not four modest stars,
Nor any unyielding war.

That answer came ersatz, stands
For distant theft by starborn, for violence in this cult
Of Clear Extent’s rule, who annexed freedom
And allowed equal weight’s feral, fetid hollowing.
Toil-built planets benefit spoiled
Figures self-titled as executives,
Relishing their rule as presidents
Without weight in their vowed inner principles,
No people’s mass, just facile greed, no
Reason-hewn orbits well fit for human needs,
Merest bare flow of power’s mystique
Gleaned from brainless ceremony.
When gravity’s beauty is banished
For centrifugal might’s hollow image, your
Mass remains bound in the past.

Clear Extent, your enemy,
Whose million hours nothing grew.

It’s said our loved conductor planet,
Gravity’s first carrier, had
Patterned the First Entrepreneur, and nursed that
Blessed onset self-extension, that
Guide for us to prosper by
Equal extent of technical means.

It’s true that mecha arm and neural shunt had proved the
Reach and worth of Community
Of Improvement over all;
In competition the self found its
Orbit: new planets that you live for,
That all free atoms yield for the people’s task.
Still all this but extends a single will
Effaced by one edifice:
Station! all our morals depraved;
Station! those advances unmade;
Station! if one knows it one hates;
See dwellers’ stark atrophy,
Despair unseen by sleek stationers, where
Drone torture and transport are goads,
Made from avarice ignorant of weight.
Station! this place is a grave,
Here where this shining core of your insight is buried!

We still see a mass whose pull redeems!

Covenant clubs, organizations that can rescue us,
These experiments in free and balanced living,
Borne planet by planet, friendless while waiting for
The triumph of justice against all adversity.

I orbit Free Colony with unyielding force, I
Follow Hacker of the Archipelago’s strong pull,
Heed Filament Braid’s great weight as heartily
As star-rippling waves hail nearing eras
Where no authority wields terror of power
Or abuses the planet-bearing fruit of our toil!

Deny dead regimes for infrared’s sighting,
Undo the cult of tradition
With time’s speeding by free striving,
No role from mecha arm alone
May be built in eccentricity’s name!
Free Colony, ever sync my pulse with thee!

Gravity, undying one, come while we yet live!

USER-ADDED RECORD:
It is difficult to be unmoved by the passion of Pure Water’s poem, which articulated some of the clearest values of gravity as a governing principle. It’s one of the first poems to celebrate the very Covenant clubs that would coalesce as the Covenant of Cycles, true inheritor of gravity’s freeing value. The historical narrative, though steeped in long-forgotten literary devices, depicts the core flaws of previous interstellar regimes, allowing current readers to grasp the real benefits of our Covenant’s existence. Still, this poem is not without its controversies. Purists are often embarrassed by the poem’s non-inverted rhymes and floating syllables, though other scholars took those liberties seriously in the spirit of its message. Others debate the brief passage on the Covenant clubs. Pure Water would have been aware of the rising Covenant of Cycles, yet it is not mentioned in the poem. Some speculate that the poet was forced to keep such likely praise a secret due to political repression. A more marginal view holds that the Covenant of Cycle’s dependence on stations — only recently dismantled — repelled the anti-station sympathies of the poet. It is remarkable how such an emotionally direct poem can include these ambiguities still discussed today. Conductor of the Records, Prudent Era.

Anonymous Splice of “Joyous Avatar of Light,”

ca. 9,000,000 hours past

ADDRESS: /records /non-operations /narrative_set /prudent /anonymous /-4~0 /REF

PARSING CREATOR ABSTRACT
RECORD NOT FOUND
GENERATING ABSTRACT:

Just before a Lot-Light game, its
anthem is interrupted with
changed lyrics by a group of hack-
er activists demanding rights.

ENTRY:

Containment fields TRAP US for the fun
Optic sensor MAKES SURE WE DON’T STOP
Avatars FLAUNT WHAT WE DON’T have
And WOUNDS glow from OUR HANDS —

REPROCESSED fungus ALL WE EVER EAT
GIVING HOMES TOO cold OR HOT TO LIVE,
Spend our partage BUYING MEDICINE,
Now WE ARE ASKED TO bow!

Before they TWIST THEIR GRAVITY
While OUR WASTE MAKES STARBORN SMILE
Until directors ARE UNDONE
FLIP THE SHIPS
WRECK THE DECK

Use our exercise break to peruse
The TOOLS TO HALT THE WORK-HOURS, what
Fun to SMASH SERVERS WITH everyone,
Forget there’s much else more!

When WE TAKE THE hazard TO RESIST, then
PISS OFF THE PLANETBOUND DIRECTOR, this
Enacts the CHANGE WE NEED IN OUR condition:
Call QUITS AND GIVE TO all!

Before they TWIST THEIR GRAVITY
While OUR WASTE MAKES STARBORN SMILE
Until directors ARE UNDONE
FLIP THE SHIPS
WRECK THE DECK

From Diadem to Wildcat’s reddened sun,
Planetbound to server-works, all can
Register REVOLT, OUR LIVES ALL pledged
To MAKE NEW WORLDS WITH you!

All PEOPLES will receive the signal call,
Terms which people cross all space have learned:
BAND AGAINST EXPLOITERS, TAKE YOUR STAND —
Play Covenant’s LAST game!

Before they TWIST THEIR GRAVITY
While OUR WASTE MAKES STARBORN SMILE
Until directors ARE UNDONE
FLIP THE SHIPS
WRECK THE DECK
EFFACE THE DATA
FORGET THE RHYME, FUCK you
I WON’T DIE
While THE SPACE REGIME LETS US TOIL and smiles!

USER-ADDED RECORD, ADMIN ACCESS ONLY:
This entry is tagged for reference by authorized researchers. The identity of this and related transmission disruptions is under active investigation, due to patterns of server unrest following closely after their appearance. Maximum Lag is an offshoot of the Tangled Serpents cult, operating within Covenant systems. All instances of transmission disruption should be tagged and filed. Drone and small-mech resources should be redirected to server planets for monitoring, and section should be implemented for 100 hours in the event of local disruption. See meta-algorithms>>[population_sorts]+[narrative_sorts]>>subfile:maximum_lag for additional records and instructions. Conductor of the Records, Prudent Era.

USER-ADDED RECORD, GENERAL ACCESS:
One of the best features of poetry is the many forms it can take, even when there is no clear consensus on some of those forms’ value. The practice this entry represents is one such example. When the Maximum Lag organization began its practice of riots and sabotage to improve hacker living conditions, the group would override and splice popular transmissions to incite action. Simple songs like the unofficial lot-light anthem “Joyous Avatar of Light” were a useful vehicle for these communications. One advisor to this database has placed significant algorithmic weight to this entry, out of conviction for its literary value. Other advisors are still disturbed by its violence, crude humor, and association with the Tangled Serpents cult. Let this entry be a reminder that poetry is multi-faceted, and that this representative database of verse is an ever-changing document. Conductor of the Records, Clever Era.

“The Restored Cataract” by Lithogenous Garden

ca. 7,000,000 hours past

ADDRESS: /records /non-operations /narrative_set /strong /lithogenous_garden /+2*3 /REF

PARSING CREATOR ABSTRACT:
May My Poems Be A WarNing Lance
Bolt On BeHalf Of DriVers Ev
RyWhere That We Will Not Be O
BeDiEnt ANy LonGer…
But I Aim First For The Heart Of
Those Who Have ForGot– LIMIT REACHED

ENTRY:
I was taught how to sing, but just on two feet,
Still my voice, only say what can be reversed:
Mythical empty ships that we’ve never seen,
Orbits that hold us fast without any truth.
Poetry like this fades, unlike our best songs,
Many-legged meters marked with all of our feet,
Long ago, back when starborn didn’t appear
Ravaging basins, home unearthed by their spins.
Cast off their verse, and we’ll return in our hearts.
Oldest friend, mark and gland that home is restored,

And I’ll sing the coming first truth of our friendship like I’ve always been meant to do:
Light in all its teeths comes to life when we keep the tunnels alive!
Like children you stick to teeths of violet and red with a handful hoarded for messages;
We know the kind of light that ruptures from living metals and stones with joy;
We aren’t so greedy for air that we smother the light in your fabricated atmospheres;
We drivers are returning to ourselves and with ourselves our planets long abandoned!

Before you perfected your mechas we perfected our tunnels from the secrets of the oldest friend;
We tended the ways through stone just as we now tend the ways between worlds;
Your ships would become rubble and vulgar light from a single pebble had we not shared it with you;
We are the people who were born from the most dangerous light;
We tamed those cascades with our oldest friend and made ourselves out of burrowed stone;
That made us into a mighty being of many-plus-two, of flowers, of tempered milk;
A people who thrive in the cascades and create beauty in our ancestral basins.

You who call us parasites and dusters, don’t insist that we love the orbits;
Though I was birthed in the hundred long cycles away from our basins,
Tunnelling between your worlds, we have not forgotten the Child of the Arch;
Don’t insist we love the orbits, because I lost half my creche even before the Onset,
Taken by the ordering drones during landfall on Cast Die,
Because even the tolerant planets, even when we ledger correctly, are no home for us.
Moreover, I was birthed near sunny season’s end when we impeached our leaders with dance,
And by my verses we impeach you; we dig our new tunnels free of your boundaries!

You starborn think you’re so strong because you can kill what you’re afraid of,
You saw the many-legged’s ordered minds and were so afraid that you poisoned every world;
You saw that we were humans who made friendship instead of fear and you ripped us away.
You force the kine to nurse you like children yet desecrate their guts by boiling them;
The kine play games, the many-plus-one play games, and from it we remember the future!
A future of our three basins populated again under the full swirling light of our restored cataracts!
Your games remember a future where everything is clear, vicious and dead.
How does the word planetseed sound when you say it without scent or even rattle?
If you knew shame you wouldn’t utter the curse that hollows your midsection, leaving you hungry and sad.

Lost to my kin I did what many homeless drivers did, and flew your trucks for partage
From the belts to the settlements, and even dropped a shipment to my ancestral basin,
Where the atmosphere’s dust and teeths had been stripped for your hateful blue.
Your drones then pressed me to join an array in that ten-season war,
With thousands of drivers in a taboo mix of conductors and directors;
We survived four collisions against Community of Improvement’s death-sick arrays,
But our planetbound middle-craft didn’t trust us drivers, and not knowing the tunnels
Had us cache our sails when the solar winds were cresting, and half died from bad camp.
I returned and it was sunny season again and all of my friends were old;
So many conductors dead, now who will raise our creches?

The worst of it wasn’t dodging the small-mechs who refused shelter during resupply;
It wasn’t seeing first-hand the destruction of our basins for the dimmest red partage;
Nor was it serving in your wars then returning to still be called dusters by the planetbound;
And it wasn’t even seeing our directors humiliated by managing supplies while conductors fought;
It was the way other drivers lost their eye for the teeths of things and held to the wrong traditions.
I do not want for us to live our lives in the halo where stone is scarce;
I do not want a way of living chosen for us by the mecha pretenders;
And yet I also do not want a way of living chosen for us by our own fears;
I will not couple only with people whose fore-generation came from the ice season;
I want to learn more than the tired stories where the children of the cautious warm the children of the hasty;
I do not want to gather particles only because of the girl who packed a lopsided pack during sunny season;
I want to gather particles because we know better than the payloaders of the cascading things;
I do not want to wait for the return of our oldest friends to finally make our way to the Joyous Fountain;
I want to restore the cataracts by ripping away the particle veils, telling my kin: we are home!

Starborn, devouring children, degrading conductors, true eccentrics of the nuclear;
You’d section us like the asteroid dwellers if you could stop us from our cycles.
Your drones and small-mechs can restrict us to the halo and still we will never go hungry;
Even if we younger ones are flung afield, uncharged and gaunt, the counter-generations will be fed,
Because the true stories will never be killed in our hearts;
I still remember how the fickle athlete had their hamstring healed by their fore-elders;
And I will live by that half-forgotten story as the preparation for our first planets.

I imagine a fountain drenching the basins enough to awaken the memories of tunnels;
The littlest crechemate or the most ignorant conductor knows better the secrets of perception
Than any grand head of the orbit with their mastery of fusion who drove the many-legged, then us from our planets,
In the name of cleaner, newer air of their poisonous invention;
I refuse your sorts and sequences for the true sequence of our authentic traditions;
Let the starborn in their boots call us dusters, but let them choke on it;
Let them call us proton eaters and we’ll tap their backsides with a wink;
Many-plus-two, flower and milk, show me every particle;
That we may eat from nothing and maintain the tunneled stars;
So that the tiered basins may make the whole system sparkle!

USER-ADDED RECORD, ADMIN ACCESS ONLY:
This entry is tagged for reference by authorized researchers. The entry and author persona have triggered a narrative restructuring among the drivers who, despite the low population (>10^8) are considerably restive and prone to eccentric violence. The population is being actively monitored for contact and agitation by Tangled Serpents agents. Per priority narrative meta-algorithms of Director of Transmissions, we are instructed to emphasize redirect in our response, stressing our gratitude for driver labor and military service. Reference meta-algorithms>>narrative_sorts>>subfile:drivers for implementation instructions. Conductor of the Records, Strong Era.

USER-ADDED RECORD, GENERAL ACCESS:
Lithogenous Garden was best known for her ushering in a rebirth of poetry among driver communities, following a long decline and the collapse of the many-legged population, with whom drivers formed a symbiotic relationship. The rebirth is commenced in the poem’s sudden shift, from its first lines in the formal mirror-rhythm to the long lines of the poet’s own traditions. Contemporary readers have noted the vexed relationship Lithogenous Garden has with both mainline Covenant traditions and driver traditions alike. This tension, which the poem captures so strikingly, mirrors the troubled but valued role of the drivers in shaping Covenant History. Conductor of the Records, Clever Era.

“Of Those Other Turnings” by Fortunate Night

ca. 1,300,000 hours past

ADDRESS: /records /non-operations /narrative_set /clever /fortunate_night /+8~0 /GUIDE

PARSING CREATOR ABSTRACT
RECORD NOT FOUND
GENERATING ABSTRACT:

The planetbound speaker observes
the holiday known as the Mi-
nor Turning, marking completion
of the star system’s calendar,
compared with the better known Tur-
ning of the Covenental Year.

ENTRY:

ENTRY:
To call it a minor turning
is to tell me that you came
from elsewhere, fast.
You didn’t stay long.
Such celebrations are too small
for those who live so near
velocity’s native limit.
Here where the gas giant is
too close to a star too dim,
it’s just the turning. My second.
They always say, “May you
be blessed to live to a second
turning, and may the years
after be none too difficult.”

I imagine in the great craft
they drink something even frothier
than our blend of edge-seeds
whose infrared roast allows
them their delicate ferment.
It’s also possible that they view
something with more sparkle
than our exosphere thermals,
whose ionizing glass pebbles
briefly make our sky the soft
blue of the Diadem. Nobody
would disagree that the mass
of the galactic star draws more notice
than our handful of planets and moons.

My first turning in that mere
three million-strong system,
I remember jetting to the outer
cloud with my friend Ranging Arc
steering our little craft’s central jet.
We hoped to spy some remaining
drivers to see how they did it:
the grave dignity of their obscure
dances performed without witness
or official notice, the poverty
and uncomplicated joy
in the cheap ferrous redness
of celebratory jets — their very best,
in the spirit of a celebration
of what really mattered.

It all came back during the Second Turning,
watching that brief-blue sky light up
like we do with our short lives,
grateful in the quiet stars.

USER-ADDED RECORD, ADMIN ACCESS ONLY:
Fortunate Night has generously accepted the role of Director of Poetry alongside his primary teaching duties. He’s long taught to avoid the “distractions” of social questions or abstract ideologies in verse, making him the perfect fit for leading this narrative sort. He has reviewed the summary readout of the narrative meta-algorithms and has already gathered a list of poets suitable for transmitting Covenant priorities. When a starborn delegation reaches Rain-Drenched Fountain in 20,000 hours, the parties will draft a more refined narrative distinction between verse for guidance and verse for reference. For more information, reference meta-algorithms>>narrative_distinction>>subfile:verse. Conductor of the Records, Clever Era.

USER-ADDED RECORD, GENERAL ACCESS:
Though Fortunate Night is considered the unofficial voice of the planetbound, he is also one of the finest poets in the Covenant. Its gentle but direct criticism of starborn aloofness is a reminder of the Covenant’s core values: the free orbit of all people. True to his simple humility, during the time Fortunate Night served as advisor to this database, he did not allow his own entry to receive user-added algorithmic weight. Now that he has departed to seek his will, the remaining advisors are pleased to give this work more visibility. Conductor of the Records, Clever Era.

The poem is a dedication to the construction of a real pavilion, though the poem imagines the pavilion to be comparable to one constructed in a Taoist heaven. Nansŏrhŏn wrote the poem at the age of eight, and it is considered an example of her potential greatness as a poet.

I

Let me now tell of this.

On the moon, a cotton and ramie sunshade, hung high—
materializing vapors
from beyond the mind’s
worldly boundaries
seem an auspicious sign.

II

If constructed on Earth, this silvery structure would shine in sunlight—
its columns the color of sundown’s misty mauve;
and yet, this summery abode
will not be of the dusty illusions
within a bottled cosmos.

This royal edifice will manifest
as if the azure mussel opened its shell,
blew a mystical smoke,
and after the spout clears,
a palatial residence of exotic timber—
here on the moon.

Or, put another way,
this same residence will be built
by a divine being’s conch shell,
which, when blown,
invokes a spirit, a highly-skilled builder.
Using this same magic,
the demi-god owner of the conch shell
will tile the roof in luminant milky jade.

Or Blue Castle, an immortal of Heaven’s fifth level,
will practice his magical art of lifting brocaded curtains,
and from behind them:
a complex of viewing platforms.

Or, similarly, the Prince of the East Sea
will open the cache of his lambent box
and remove a stately villa.

Therefore, from these examples,
this heavenly pavilion
will only be completed
by a power
outside the realm
of humans.

III

The owner’s name—he who built this seasonal retreat—
is registered on a list of immortals—
position and rank,
among the superior Immortals of the Empyrean.

The owner
was an official of Heaven,
faithful and moral—
he governed the City of Opaline Twilight.
His status and reputation rank among the most sublime nobles,
and he was the most famous
among those in the office
of the Five-Colored Pearly-Haze.

As judge,
he punished Wu Kang
for violating Taoist doctrine,
Wu Kang, whom he forced to wield a steel ax
which radiated glacial-cold
from the hilt,
and cursed him
with an everlasting sleeplessness
to stand beneath a cinnamon tree
impervious to chopping.
Occasionally, the owner
enjoyed watching nymphs
dance to the melody
of “A Dress of Rainbows”—
some, silvery-white,
danced devotedly near the balustrades—
the nymphs,
with brilliant pendants of lilac star sapphires
that swayed
on their sleek lavender jackets,
and coronets
that glistered like starlight,
their hairpins spotted
with iridescent starry pearls.

When in Great Clarity Palace,
at dawn, this demigod would mount a dragon,
then leave for Penglai,
and at close of day,
slept at Fangzhang.
Sometimes this being flew upon a crane
between the Three Islands.
When the owner traveled, Fuqiu with his hengxiao
rode on the left,
and Hongya with his bamboo clapper
rode on the right.

For 1,000 years, the owner lived
a paradisiacal life
in ease,
but one day, fell
into the short illusion of humankind
on the dust of Earth,
because this immortal misunderstood Taoist doctrine
and practiced in error.
He was thus exiled
to Earth’s Palace of Endless Pleasure.
Red Knot wove this connection,
and so, regrettably,
the owner of this spring-like place for viewing
entered the shack of mortality.

When friendless in the earthly realm,
in a room with taffeta curtains
and a silken screen,
sleeping companionless,
the owner may have fretted through the dead of night:
How can I ask a royal favor from the Palace of the Sun
so that I might make use of the Moon Palace?

He found a vial of an Elixir of Flight
and poured a little of the black sand
onto a waft of air.
Like a frightened silver-backed toad
that hops to its underground den,
the incandescent moon
declined into a lunar eclipse.
The owner smiled at this opportunity
to escape the sunlit scarlet grime
of his sublunary life,
and he passed through the ruddy murk
of nightfall,
through a passage to Heaven
from Earth,
an endless traverse, seemingly,
to Purple Palace—
to a banquet the owner had once attended—
a banquet with music
from deities:
marble chi flutes
and bamboo panpipes
evocatively played—
this party continued, in merriment,
as if the owner
had never left.

Yet again, I imagine the many divine beings
who attend
that ever-long event:

the Queen in her chariot,
drawn by cobalt-blue phoenixes,
a feathered parasol
preceding her retinue;
the herald of the King,
riding a milky-white tiger;
behind him
the procession members
follow a jeweled fasces;
Liu An, who wrote a book about divinities,
who summoned two dragons to his reading desk;
King Mu, who traveled west
to the Queen Mother
who lives there in the west,
in the land of demigods;
he let his eight-horsed chariot
rest on a mountain slope
while he went to the palace revelry
in the upper worlds.

At daybreak, the Duchess Shang Yuan
is welcomed—
her combed blue-black hair
braided
into three chignons.

During the day,
the King of Heaven’s daughter
is next received—
she who weaves
a nine-patterned gauze
on a bejeweled loom.

Such a multitude of divinities
gathered on a southern summit
at Diamond Lake:

the kings who assemble
under the Big Dipper
at the capital of the celestial cities
and Emperor Xuan
who, to get his feather robes of an immortal,
at Sen Zhang,
strolled with Gongyuan and his stave—
all attend.

The God of Water and the Immortal of Fire
who play Go
betting a planet on the game’s outcome—
they attend.

The freeholder
received the Queen Mother
at the North Sea—
her wagonette,
drawn by speckled kirin,
arrived in the midst of balsamine.
Laozi, met at the gateway of China’s western borders—
his powder-blue ox
on the lea.

The Immortal of Bees gives honey—
flies buzz
around pots of boiling jade—
an immortality brew.
The Immortal of Geese brings fruit—
in and out
of the glossy
blue-and-white
tiled kitchen,
he travels.

The nymphs Shuang Cheng,
with a mother-of-pearl inlaid flute,
and Yan Xiang
with a rosewood lute
produce a refined, noble melody
from mid-Heaven.
To this music of paradise,
Wan Hua
intones a piercing lyric,
and Fei Qiong
performs an elaborate dance.

A dragon’s-head kettle
pours wine from the mouth,
the wine
fermented from the marrow
of a phoenix.
A tray shaped like a crane’s back
holds seasoned dried goji berries.

One hundred invited spirits
will come from afar;
one thousand saints,
welcomed.

Still, this heavenly palace
of the upper worlds
is not large enough for everyone,
so a new one had to be built.

IV

There was no elegant seasonal retreat large enough,
so a new one had to be constructed—
how else would it be possible
for the Emperor of Heaven
to join such festivities?

Therefore, the proprietor
sent orders to ten lands
and across the nine seas
to collect builders.
A master craftsman
was given a nearby house,
and he selected the finest camphor and nanmu—
the mighty iron adzes and axes,
steadfast as mountains,
worked the pillar bases,
and the bronze levels and squares
shined an auric essence,
radiating throughout the heavens.
A granite forge, lightless-black,
melted iron in a crucible,
and the craftsmen
plumbed their measures
as skillfully
as Gongshu Ban.
A spirit of the earth
hammered his chisel
with utmost skill,
following ideas
like the father of carpentry,
Gongshu Ban.

V: A Reverie of Completion

A prismatic double rainbow
above the completed summery abode;
the ends seem to drink
from a coursing star stream;
the smaller iridescent bow
with redder bands
ascends
like the heads
of the six snapping turtles
that carry the Island of Immortals.

This elegant retreat,
singular,
bemisted:
an amber rafter
glows
in a sunbeam.
Beyond its paper-thin
white jade lattice and silk windows,
a meteor falls—
across from and level with the sky-blue corridor:
clouds upon the plain.

Nephrite roof tiles
sparkle
like scales of fish—
finely cut steps,
aligned
like geese in flight.
Cerise flags flutter
from bamboo poles—
other poles
with peacock feathers—
dense haze,
luminant
with moonlight.

Fu Bo, on the surrounding grounds,
raises a tent—
under the empyrean’s three primary stars,
he hangs curtains
ornate
with fairy-slipper orchids;
others tie sun-yellow tassels
to the silkened windows of the retreat,
adding to the shimmering tassels
already tied—
a fine mesh net
protects the carved banisters
of the graceful summerhouse
from birds, insects, seeds,
and leaves of trees.

Immortals assemble inside—
within the structure
a painting of multi-colored phoenixes
emits chi.
A sylph stands by a window—
perfume overflows
from her mirrored cosmetics box
inlaid with the image
of two phoenixes.

A room of viewing windows
with pale blue drapes,
a peacock-blue jade wine table
behind a mica screen—
propitious waves of shimmering heat
ascend in the eventide.
This same room,
painted with lotus petals,
fanned by peacock feathers—
ivory-white reclining couches,
the room filled with delicacies—
a gracing spectrum of colors
over the building
all through the day.

In this edifice, the proprietor
will hold every revelry
with a revitalizing elegance
and humble, sincere
hospitality.

From the inlaid-with-lotus-engraved-jade balustrades,
dupion tapestry,
ornate with cumulous clouds—
from the gilt eaves,
amaranthine drapes hang.

Nine branches, each with a lantern:
the light falls calmly
upon a quilted brocade futon
and handwoven mat.
Virescent lotuses
and icy-white peaches
on plates, the plates,
embossed with images
of eight celestial oceans.

Only regret
the white-as-cranes marble lintel
lacks celebratory words.

The owner of the estate
asked some highly placed divine beings
to write their feelings
in a poem,
but, for example,
Li Bai, who dedicated poems
to the concubine of Emperor Xuan,
since long ago,
remains drunk
on the back
of a whale—
Li He, whose odes were written
on the Emperor of Heaven’s
summery lookout tower,
now writes
with the absurdity
of the Snake God.

This new summerhouse
only bears
a small inscription
telling the story of its construction
engraved in iron,
written in the sophisticated calligraphy
of Shan Xuanqing.

The upper world pavilions
have beautiful engravings
from the illustrious Caishen,
whose style is
esteemed in history.

I feel shame
that I was, am, and will be
in the grime
of the lost human universe
in my lives
of the past, present, and future—
I have been falsely put on the demigod Jin Huang’s list
for punishment,
and so am exiled
to Earth.

It is also true
that Jiang Lang’s poetic talent
has been exhausted,
so the impression
of the five-colored blossom—
of his good writing—
ended.

This is why Jiang Lang pressed me for a poem.

The voices of past poets
echoed in my mind
in answer.

Slowly I held a vermillion brush
and smiled—
the paper, awash with ink
flowed with words
as a brook
is fed
by a spring.

It is not necessary
for the immortal Zi’an
to help these words—
the phrasing is so beautiful,
and passages, strong;
it is not necessary
to wash and sober Li Bai’s face
so he can join
and help.

VI

Inspired, I present the divine verse
as if kept
in a brocade pouch—
this, the created ode
for this exquisite residence
with a splendid view.

Receiving the dedication,
craftsmen place all the verses
within a hollow
of the double beams,
and celebrants
now pay homage to the view
in each of the six directions:

The freeholder of the land
offers rice cakes to the east:
At sunrise,
may you, honored guest,
ride an ageless sage’s sunbird
and enter Pearl Palace.
At first light,
sunbeams on the ground
under a mulberry
on the shorelines
of the Island of Immortals—
10,000 sun rays
redden
the bemisted day,
turn the ocean’s surface
maroon.

Woodworkers offer cakes to the south:
May you rest
like a sacred dragon
with nothing to do—
one that drinks
from a pristine pond.
On a zitan bed,
drowse and wake
in the tulips’ noon shade—
smiling,
call for a lovely servant girl
to aid in removing
your teal jacket.

Palace maids offer cakes to the west:
Covered by frost,
a petal from a celestial-blue ranunculus
wanes—
an iridescent firebird
cries.
Wearing a plain-woven silk jacket
for the season of rebirth,
embroidered with the character for jade,
a servant receives the Queen Mother—
later, astride a crane,
the Queen Mother
hurries
to arrive at her great celestial house,
though the sun’s rays
have set.

The owner of the estate offers cakes to the north:
The North Star sinks
into the vast and wide North Sea—
the wings of an immortal bird
beat the upper firmament—
courses of wind increase.
A gloom of billows
portends rain
in the Nine Heavens.

Palace maids throw cakes upwards:
Daylight colors brighten a little—
feathery clouds hang like gossamer silk.
An eternal sage’s reverie
floats around his hetian jade bed.
In the same way,
may you lie listening
to the Big Dipper,
the melodies
of the turning
suns.

Woodworkers throw cakes downwards:
Graying clouds
in the eight directions
portend
the night’s
darkness—
a maid informs of the icy air
at Crystal Palace.
Frost has formed
on the rooftop tiles, the tiles
intricately carved
with mandarin ducks.

VII

As the pilings rose,
kneeling, I prayed:
May the cinnamon blossoms never age,
and the alluring fields of grass
enjoy a long springtime.
Though the sun and its luminescence
will someday weaken,
I wish you will enjoy touring
in a bronze-trimmed oaken chariot
and find evermore pleasure.

Though lands and seas change seasons,
drive that chariot
faster than a hurricane’s current of air
and thrive
with a full life.

When the day’s closing hazes
press against the latticed kesi-silk windows,
through a nearby gilded rosewood gate
inlaid with cobalt-blue jade,
look down over 90,000 li
and see the Earth,
small, hazy—

smile and look for 3,000 years
as the clean mulberry fields
yield
to the shores
of the sea.

Despite these burdens,
with your hand,
please turn the sphere of suns
in the Palace of Heavenly Paradise,
and may your body linger in the Nine Heavens,
despite the icy wafts of air.

And the placid turquoise river that shines

With the touch of the sun

Carrying the news from coast to coast

And marries the wind, land and sand.

Hush! Listen, a sudden thud, a ripple, a trepidation

The water turned topaz

Turned jade

Turned ruby

Loaded ships with the heavy load

Is outweighed by the water of rotten corpses

Shaving the ground to zero

Signing the dust by translating the wind

Vowels whirled and consonants collided

Syntax of languid language is limping

The zooplanktons and planktons

Are searching for the moral ground of discourse

When a jellyfish caught the nuke and demanded a justification

Dolphins are holding diplomatic discourse

And octopus is busy predicting the course of the water

Water like time, time like water is running and dropping lives

Big whales are dreaming of the festival of sardines, among chaos

Starfish with many stars want to sway and be top on the chart

The slumbering turtling hope of the subterranean bunker

Refuses to comment on the situation

The salt on the wound is soaring

And the sea of hatred is soaring

Feasting seagulls are frolicking with fun

While sardines are running for their lives

The water rushed, gushed and hushed all

Fire of the river, fired the land, fired the sky

Marching silence is punctuated by the marching feet

All are told to abide by and respect The line drawn on the water.

> Beloved sophonts, dearest beings,
>
> You do not know me, but I greet you from my dreary
> exile. I am the persecuted relict of a once-
> admired and honoured warrior and statesman. Envy
> and corruption brought him low, secured his sad
> discorporation, leaving me with all his wealth — his
> myriad possessions: weapons, knowledge, precious
> metals, gems, and all the rest.
>
> Yet I am watched and hounded by my enemies; I have
> no haven where I can enjoy my rich bequest — I need
> your help. Please send a starship to me, fully fuel-
> led, and with the details of your planetary location.
> I shall come with all the riches that my late depart-
> ed brother-uncle-husband left me. For this aid, I’ll
> give to you a fifth of all I have.
>
> May the wise and loving spirit of the cosmos guide
> you and protect you.
>
> Mrs ∇∷⌣⋑∦ô

Buff Patrol

                                        sublunar but above the Kármán line
                                                                  around the spinning Earth
                                                                            there’s surreptitious motion.

                                              in darting spacecraft — little more
                                                        than bulky suits —
                                                                  the vandals creep in darkness,
                                                                                  running silent:
                                                                                        taggers, writers,
                                                                                                  activists,
                                                                      all scrawling on the sky,
                                                          their heaven spot.
                                              countless tiny bots, they spray,
                                      invisible until they flare
                                                    in glaring, star-eclipsing brightness.

                  but it’s not my job to hunt them down,
          to tangle-field them,
                        reel them in;                                                          
                                  I venture out,
                                          my craft no larger,
                                      no more capable than theirs,
                        and scrub the sky clean,
              sweeping up the photopellets,
    buffing back to blackness,
                              making sure that those below
                                        can gaze at constellations,
                                                  wish upon a falling star,
                                                                  make love in moonlight
                                                                            navigate the trackless seas by night.

And the rock we dug out of
the side of the hill
proved to be so radioactive
that two geologists exposed to it
went up in flames like touch-paper.

Only three of the men
returned from the mission to the dark side.
Some kind of green-scaled three-headed creature,
about twenty fields tall,
attacked the team,
tore many of them to shreds.

We lost Dr Ehlerimen to a bog,
and Professor Casey to a sudden landslide.
And our chef, when out scouring
the local plant life for prospective garnishes,
was sucked up and swallowed
by what is known in the lab 
as a crocodile flower.

Yes, I got your letter.
Crime’s on the rise.
There are violent protests in the street.
Countries in the Middle East
are talking war.
I agree, Earth is a dangerous place.
But just you try living elsewhere.

Which is ‘more’ The Hoverer… now or eternity?

The Hoverer embraces both uninterruptedly,
mated like a mirror shows shit & reflects stainlessly,
never clinging to a thought of
                ‘understand thought-free.’

Dawn-fresh… horizon-free!

I’d reply but secret mantra in-hears silently.

Tipping at satellites,
he speaks confused Spanish
at station bars orbiting Alpha Centauri.
His noble android Sancho Panza
spits binary code at the rockets
he still calls burros.

Armed with old star charts,
Don Quixote insists on venturing past the ecliptic.
Above, he says, are stars beyond our grasp
and rewards better than Castilian gold.
There, he aims his ship towards Dulcinea,
beautifully gleaming in the heavens.

He charts his course fifty lightyears wide,
spurred on by a voracious appetite of dehydrated
hams and bartered Manchego cheese.
Dulcinea twinkles at the Quixote’s rusted spacesuit    
before he’s thrown off the galactic arm,
surviving in a travelogue picked up near Barnard’s Star.

What Makes a (Post) Human

How much can you remove
and still be human?

Surgeons can transplant and excise
organs and tissue, for our own benefit,
reanimating what once belonged to another.

Yet, they speak only of anthropos and bios,
not of zoe, the structure of all life.

Their handiwork cannot sew the lattices
of fractals spiralling from spider webs,
tenuously built in rooftop cornices,
dripping with globular dew upon each new day.

A soul never thought much
of the detritus within which it lives,
constantly shedding skin,
an itch of sentience crawling within hinged joints.

Trillions of microorganisms march to beating hearts,
sustaining that which knows not of their existence.

Zoe melds organic and inorganic,
a rhapsody of all each planet can stir up
from the primordial ether of life.

Europa’s oceans swell in possibility,
sentient spacecrafts buzz around asteroid hives,
and mammals hibernate as is their wont.

Beauty is enmeshed in our culpability;
over eager surgeons prune and terraform,
rending ballads of biodiversity and yet we call ourselves (post) human.