Lake Vargas

ALT LOVESONG OF THE SQUARE ROOT OF NEGATIVE ONE l am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves tremble but I am invisible, bloom without flower, knot without rope, song without throat in wingless flight, dark boat in the dark night, pure velocity. As the hammer is a hammer when it hits the nail, and the nail is a nail when it meets the wood, and the invisible table begins to appear out of mind, pure mind, out of nothing, pure thinking. Through darkness, through silence, a vector, a violence, I labor, I lumber, I fumble forward through the valley as winter, as water, I mist and frost, flexible and elastic to the task. I am the hand that lifts the rock, I am the mind that strings the worm and throws the line and feels the tug, the flex in the pole, and foot by foot I find the groove, the trace in the thicket, the key in the lock, as root breaks rock, from seed to flower to fruit to rot, a holy pilgrim moving through the stations of the yardstick. I track, I follow, I hinge and turn,