To roam or rove about; to wander or stray;
to play or to frolic
in a rough manner;
to romp, rampage, to fidget;

of a stream: to flow or to roll;

to render liquid turbid or muddy
by stirring up the sediment;

to vex or to rile.

*

So the sediment
included
the sunlight;
the mind and force,
of a piece
with particulate matter,
dropped down
to the sea bottom
—stirred up again
by tide and by trauma
and the curious rocking motion
initiated by gargantuan bears
that trouble the sea rim

in primal night
when drives and energies and intelligences
had not yet sifted out
or misted off
or coagulated
into independent factors
but all was astir
of automatic vortices
and these of an inchoate complexion, turbid and grim.

And the bears were of the nature
of the roiling waters,
frolicsome but of a nasty mentality
devolving mischief
in the tossings of thuggish intellect
(on the verge of intellect—not yet articulate:
any kind of movement would do
to satisfy blunt urgings)
—they grip the rim of the barrow
that binds the sea
and give it a rocking—
themselves of a piece with the barrow,
the roiling sea of a piece
with their turbid mind.

***

A bird
on the rim
of the barrow
—its feathers
taking hue
from the seventy-seven colors
—teal to vermilion,
white gold and blush crimson—
and the power of the thing to take flight
of a piece with its colors,
all starting up if struck with a glance of sunlight—
leap off from the copper hoops
into the crispest of ethers
new-blown from the waters

And the barrow took flame—the wood slats
dry and rife—and the hungry
teeth of the flame
spiked into the ethers
and the ash became planets—
the solid residue
of the various exudates
that adhered to the walls of the chasm—
and someone took a stick
and scraped the tar
from the walls of the tub
and it made a nice paste
black and shiny
with intricate bumps and cracks
and the flame light made it sparkle
and it gave off a distinct
hot
tarlike pungency
and beastly nostrils flared to it
appetites aroused
and juices streamed out of the organs
that store them up
and a lively activity was stirred in the depths

***

The segmentation
of the natures
that words effect
cannot include
the words themselves.
For if they included the words themselves,
what should effect that segmentation
but other words
and this ad infinitum?

And if to ad infinitum, you say, so be it!
just this
gives the lie
to the segmentation of the natures.
At infinity, excess of division
returns to continuum…


And the bears
wake up in the depths
and trouble the sea.

***

So the word itself was another sort of factor
than a parallel collegium of things
pairwise distributed to the natures.
It was like a wheel or many wheels
with spokes in rapid motion
shooting out of the sockets of an Eye
rose up above the waters
sending wheels that contradicted their own nature
not requiring a road to ride on—Those wheels.

And the wheels had no parts
but were vortical engines that foisted
segmentation onto what spaces
they sliced with their flight:
The elemental types correspond
to somewhat in the wheels,
but to What somewhat
no research will satisfy.

At one end of the tunnel all was openness and promise,
possibility of order and harmonics,
clarity, vital rigor, salutary law;
but down the shoot en route to promised sources
matters diverged
into tiny tubules
and came out anywhere
or nowhere
adrift in a night without a roof,
all nauseous movement, anxious flux.

Yet you did catch a glimpse of the wheels
shooting out from an Eye
like gaudy winged birds—winged globes
hovering
where ancient waters rolled
never having ceased from the roiling
in spite of those wheels…

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