{"id":1008,"date":"2016-02-22T08:00:16","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T15:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1008"},"modified":"2016-02-22T18:23:13","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T01:23:13","slug":"1008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1008","title":{"rendered":"What Gulfs Widen, What Seas Call, by Sandi Leibowitz"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"374px-Phalacrocorax_nigrogularis\"<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

O Cormorant Queen,<\/em>
\nlong-necked Lady of black plumage,<\/em>
\ncan you hear me,<\/em>
\nso far from the isle of river reeds<\/em>
\nand cormorant-crowded estuaries?<\/em><\/p>\n

Can prayer ascend without voice,<\/em>
\nrhythm shriven of melody,<\/em>
\non heartbeat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s punctuation?<\/em><\/p>\n

Cobalt-glass lamps swing their twilight
\nbeneath silk-tented ceilings,
\ntransforming the tenants of the room
\ninto dreams.
\nThey are shadows, only shadows.<\/em>
\nI shift upon my satin couch,
\npeering at them with a hawk\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s regard.<\/p>\n

Those puny pink- or brown-skinned men
\nwho visit seeking ecstasy,
\nquake at my height,
\ndeem the blues of my flesh
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u201dlike spillage of tattoos\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ink
\nwithout the blanched page underneath\u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nunholy, alien, animal.<\/p>\n

Some worship me
\nin the way of precious things.
\nThese deposit sapphires at my feet,
\ncarved beads of lapis lazuli,
\nas if to say without the aid of speech
\n(believing I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t comprehend)
\nwe, we are unlike the rest,<\/em>
\nwe know your worth,<\/em>
\nwould chart the rivers, gulfs, the seas<\/em>
\nof your amazing skin.<\/em><\/p>\n

Indigo Mystery,
\nthey call me,
\nthe Blue Odalisque.<\/p>\n

Seven years ago I washed ashore
\nwith all the other jetsam,
\nwreck\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relic wreathed in wrack
\nand my dead captain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arms.<\/p>\n

Loss still tendrils me,<\/em>
\ntender as a lover.<\/em>
\nWhen you give yourself to a man
\nfor the spice of his lips,
\nfor wave-green eyes, sand-gold hair,
\nheaven-blue arms,
\nyou get what you deserve.<\/p>\n

I lie.
\nIt was not just for this that I followed him.
\nHe seduced me with his ship,
\nblue maiden at the prow,
\nred sails, strong timbers
\nthat creaked with the jolt of the sea
\nlike a bed of pleasures.<\/p>\n

Sister of Sorrows,
\nDaughter of Thorns,
\nsome have called me in their tongues,
\nbelieving I still mourn a lover
\ndrowned now seven years.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not his loss that brims my eyes,
\nleaves me shuddering,
\nadrift.<\/p>\n

Nor is it merely homeland I pine for,
\nwho traversed mountains just to heed
\ntheir winds\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 secret dialects.<\/p>\n

Not even freedom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s loss
\ndrags my lips into their purple frown,
\nno matter how I long to trade
\nthe stale stench of gardenias for
\nshores\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 brine or hay-sweet meadowlands.<\/p>\n

No, it is language I mourn.<\/p>\n

Not inarticulate,
\nmerely untranslatable, I\u00e2\u20ac\u201d<\/p>\n

I could sing the song of the smoke,
\nrecite the epics of the moths of the moon,
\nchant the ballad of the wine
\ntill my listeners sweated from the sun
\nthat once fell on the vine.<\/p>\n

How can I tell my tales?
\nHow can I let my heart be known?
\nThese foreigners lack the grace to make
\nthe subtle shifts of note and vowel,
\ngesture\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s aid to naked speech,
\nthat give Jenaharese its eloquence.<\/p>\n

How many secret mornings have I
\ngrunted and stuttered
\nin a hundred un-blue tongues,
\nfinding their words veinless,
\nold parchment rubbed dry and torn,
\nmaps on which the lines of
\nrivers, roads, have vanished.<\/p>\n

So I recline,
\ncloaked in kingfisher feathers
\nand mute misery.<\/p>\n

O Cormorant Queen,<\/em>
\nhear these prayers that flutter<\/em>
\nto you on frayed wings.<\/em>
\nLet my voice dive deep<\/em>
\ninto my listeners\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 hearts.<\/em>
\nSee me home.<\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the waters of Jenahar
\nstill flow in me,
\nblood\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blue currents
\nsing the ancient tales for me alone.
\nI sway, listening inwards.<\/p>\n

Understanding dawns in the eyes
\nof the little sister at the lute.
\nHer sure, swift fingers
\necho the unsung songs
\nthat rise from the prison
\nof my dusty throat,
\nfrom my damp blue body which,
\nclasped daily by a multitude of foreign arms,
\nalso gives itself to no one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  O Cormorant Queen, long-necked Lady of black plumage, can you hear me, so far from the isle of river reeds and cormorant-crowded estuaries? Can prayer ascend without voice, rhythm shriven of melody, on heartbeat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s punctuation? Cobalt-glass lamps swing their twilight beneath silk-tented ceilings, transforming the tenants of the room into dreams. They are shadows, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1008"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1027,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008\/revisions\/1027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}