Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World

by Kathryn Cowles

  five birds on the wooden beam

  black and shaking their luck

  no six I missed one

  it was there anyway

  PROOF

  Sue has put bird houses

  in big colors

  on top of posts

  and if god, god has put a sky here

  for a roof

  and if red,

  red has made itself a wagon for dirt

  and if dirt, the tree has

  planted itself in ingenuity

  also the sage

  as Sue has planted

  a whole small garden plot

  PHOTOGRAPH OF A FRIEND TAKEN AFTER HE HAS DISAPPEARED

  I take a photograph.

  A telephone wire, a pole.

  Nothing to see.

  I write: I can picture you here.

  I write: Walk out of the woods, Craig.

  I write: Those woods, there. And now.

  I write: Walk out of the woods I have taken

  a photograph with an empty spot the empty spot is yours.

  I write: Take it.

  I write: I can almost picture you.

  I AM WEARING A PINKISH SHIRT

  and lo and behold you are wearing

  a very pink shirt

  life is short or so they say

  there is a beautiful girl with a baby

  her baby is not here

  moths fly against the window uninjured

  every single thing

  with every single right thing

  HYMN

  A song. Praise be. And the whole congregation joined in. A song I sing to know where I am. Copied word for word from the old hymnal. #30 All Is Well. #92 For the Beauty of the Earth. A transcription. For the organ. For the choir. These lines correspond to the keys correspond to the bird sound. A printed version of the bird sound. An arrangement with an entirely other instrument. For use with the choir. For use with the congregation. A printed version of an audio version of a person singing. A record. A set of instructions. Notes rendered simultaneously, and in this order, and in this way.

  THREE HOURS IN A ROCKING CHAIR OUTSIDE THE BLUE-ROOFED BUNKHOUSE IN THE WIND

  Four dogs and me all of us looking at the sage and how the wind blew at it calmly but determinedly. Violet was in front. Kili looked like a still photograph of a dog and Violet looked like a home film recording.

  Addie tried to eat the deer leg so Kili snapped at her although Kili had not been herself trying to eat the deer leg and in fact did not want to eat the deer leg and in fact did not try to eat it even after she snapped Addie away. Addie stopped trying to eat the deer leg.

  The wind stopped then started. Addie sat at my foot. Violet had rot holes in her teeth. Violet wanted only for me to scratch her head.

  The wind blew at the grasses like a time-lapse recording of grass growing so that everything seemed sped up. Addie ran 100 feet away and Violet sat at my feet. Rita had been sitting this whole time in the grasses looking like a real dog in real time not a recorded or photographed dog. Addie found another bone.

  Now I’ve caught you up.

  The clouds are huge. They move quickly respective of clouds but slowly in visual comparison to the grasses and that is part of why the grasses seem so fast motion, so sped up. The mountains don’t move at all but sometimes the clouds moving make the mountains look like they’re also moving, an effect similar to what happens when a person lies on the ground in a snowstorm and looks up.

  I am always on this porch wrapped in a blanket. There is always at least some wind. Picture this. The invisible wind. Its evidences. The wind can blow so hard that whole dogs blow over. I am always looking. I have tried to write it down. The ordinary world. When I did, and when I didn’t, it was always still there.

  A RECORD OF WATER YOU CAN’T SEE

  The evening lights are a map lifting the city

  above itself, its yellow face stretched,

  the lit city visible from the moon but

  missing key particulars, dark parts.

  And the long lights from the port

  bend like legs into the water

  left, left, right, kick,

  and the water disappears in the dark, turns to

  black blank space between moored boats, black hole,

  the port’s yellow lights

  dragged across the gape,

  long live sparklers, falling candlesticks,

  which are not in the water at all,

  are all that’s left of its shape.

  METAPHOR: DESCRIPTION, USES THEREOF, SIDE EFFECTS, INTERACTIONS, ETC.

  A figure of speech. A shift. To mean in a new way. Mathematical. As in, equal sign. Or mystical. As in, I see myself there but I feel myself here. Words possessed. Or a consolation prize. As in, if I can’t have ---------at least I can have ---------. A transference. From the Greek, to carry over. Crossing the bar. A name that means something quite other than what it says. Some substitutions must be made. If I can’t have you, at least I can have the desert. If I can’t have the desert, at least I can have a dog. Using the closest corresponding letters of an entirely different alphabet. A bird sound rendered in hyphenated lettering. A word with a picture on the other side. A flash card. A pointing back. To William Blake, as in, the --------- is a --------- because both are holy, holy, holy. A rose is a rose. If I can’t have my dead dog, at least I can bite my own arm. Can grow the basil plant. Praise be. Holy arm. Holy basil plant. Holy blue roof. Holy photograph. Holy actual world. Equal sign equal sign equal sign. Holy equal sign. To point not to me but up and out.

  MAP LEGEND

  Rd: road

  (Posts): lined w/posts

  Wood: hand-hewn, Wire: hand-tied

  The white dot: Violet the dog

  Three black dots: the other three

  Jerry: I love how you’ve planted the sage

  Jerry: how random the pattern

  (Ha): laughs

  Sage: random pattern

  Rain: rain on sage: rubbing a leaf in wet fingers

  New configuration: see how the dogs have changed places

  Car: see how the moving car changes the configuration of the dogs

  Blue area: the bunkhouse roof

  Blue area: sky, with missing parts

  White: missing parts, clouds

  White: still snow in the mountains

  Rain: changes the configuration of the sage

  Sprinklers: rotating, sourced from well water

  Rain: turns the sprinklers up, but makes them seem less substantial

  Rain: reconfigures

  POSTCARD

  A picture on the other side. A pointing back. A copy. With space for a small message. With space for a mailing address. No return. A pointing forward. A blank. An explanation. Roping calves at branding on Flathead Creek. Montana. Ohio. Livre d’Heures, mois de septembre. The color of the sea around Sifnos. The size of the mountain. The type of bird that was common. Looking ahead. A copy of the painting. For use with a stamp. A printed version. A copy of the castle. Of the page from—. A photograph of the dish with fish and tomatoes. Anchois de Collioure. Sans envelope. Out in the open. Word and picture as rivals. At odds. And I was there. And while I was there I spent a half an hour. A record. Thinking of you. And this is the size of the Blanchard River flood that year. Taken from above. And this is the size of the whole island. You can tell by the relative size of the small fishing boats. By the trunks of trees under water. By the people standing under the arch. Looking up. A scope. A miniature. And I was there. And I breathed the original air.

  DIRECTIONS

  Start here. Walk to here.

  From here, go to here.

  Stay here for a time.

  Then, go here.

  These things will be all around you.

  Look around.

  You’ll like it here.

  But you really must push on

  until you get here.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Grateful acknowledgment to
the editors of the following publications, in which poems from this book have appeared, sometimes under different names and in different forms: The Best American Experimental Writing 2014 (Omnidawn), Bombay Gin, Clade Song, Colorado Review, Drunken Boat, Flatmancrooked’s Slim Volume of Contemporary Poetics, Forklift: Ohio, Free Verse, Interim, Kingfisher, The Offending Adam, Versal, Verse, Western Humanities Review, Witness, and Word for/Word. Thank you to Cole Swensen, who selected “Map,” “Fieldguide,” and “Transcript” for the Academy of American Poets Larry Levis Poetry Prize for 2009. Many of these poems were made possible through the Snow-Neff Fellowship at the University of Utah; a pivotal travel grant from the Reza Ali Khazeni Memorial Scholarship for Graduate Study Abroad; a faculty development grant from Ohio Northern University; and faculty research grants and a Fisher Center Fellowship from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

  The support of a lot of good people made this book possible, so a lot of thanking is in order. First and foremost, thank you to Geoffrey Babbitt, my prime reader and friend and partner and coconspirator in life. And to my girls, the dearest best pieces of my whole world: Remi Blake, Calder Rae, Sobin Elizabeth, and Adeline Cloudpants too.

  Thank you to Louise Glück, who spent hour after hour and visit after visit helping a perfect stranger rearrange her chronology until it finally made sense. I will never get over this gift you gave me, asking nothing in return. You are a wonder.

  Thank you to everyone at Milkweed—to Daniel Slager for believing in this book in the first place, and to Jordan Bascom, Shannon Blackmer, Joanna Demkiewicz, Bailey Hutchinson, Joey McGarvey, Kathryn Nuernberger, Lee Oglesby, and Mary Austin Speaker for their dedication, enthusiasm, acumen, and heart. Thank you to Heather Brown and Mind the Bird Media for teaching me to aim high and then giving me the tools, support, and encouragement to get there.

  Thank you to my teachers and mentors, most especially Karen Brennan, Kate Coles, Craig Dworkin, Kathryn Stockton (from whom I borrowed “I see myself there but I feel myself here”), Susan Howe, Paisley Rekdal, and Jackie Osherow, and all the way back to Laurie Payne and Michael Rutter, who fired the first shots.

  Thanks to my big beautiful blended family: David and Natalie Cowles, Delys and Phil Snyder, Leon and “Grandma Elizabeth” Cowles, Merwin and June Waite, Cristie and Steven, Rob and Erin, Steve and Brooke, Jack, Marissa and Brett, Liam and Ethan, Gary Babbitt, Cherie and Jim Clayton, Brooke and Chad, Laramie, Travis and Heidi, Kate and Alex, and all my beloved nieces and nephews and beyond.

  Thank you to the dear friends who worked and reworked these poems in writing groups and who taught me how to be a writer and a teacher and a human being: Rebecca Lindenberg and Timothy O’Keefe (best witnesses/friends), Rachel Marston (who once saved me with a camp pad and open arms), David Weiss (a true friend and advocate), summer writing group-ers—Eryn Green (O Pan Fire! member), Nathan Hauke, Cami Nelson, Wendy Scofield, and Brenda Sieczkowski (for their support, inspiration, goading on, and martini sharing)—as well as Chris Abani, Hanna Andrews, Saedra Blow, Khalym Burke-Thomas, Harmony Button, Lara Candland, PJ Carlisle, Jeff Chapman, Jennifer Colville, Traci O Connor, Jackson Connor, Peter Covino, Kelly Craig, Shira Dentz, Danielle Duelen, Trista Emmer, Robert Glick, Susan Goslee, Natalie Green, Maddie Hanley, Derek Henderson (my twin), Matthew Ho, Brooke Johnson, Claudia Keelan, Stacy Kidd, Matt Kirkpatrick, Esther Lee, Julie Gonnering Lein, Alice Letowt, Joel Long, Dawn Lonsinger, Christine Marshall, Susan McCarty, Joshua McKinney, Andrew Merecicky, Jennilyn Merten, Meghan Moore, Emily Motzkus, Deb Moeller, Jens Olavson, Julie Paegle, Michael Palmer, Christopher Patton, Jacob Paul Paul, Derek Pollard, David Ruhlman, Anne Royston, Mary Ruefle, Danny Schonning, Ely Shipley, Eleni Sikelianos, Nick Snow, Beth Spencer (and beautiful Bear Star Press generally), Claire Tranchino, Joshua Unikel, Nicole Walker, Lito Weiss, Mike White, and Khaty Xiong. Thanks also to Lucia Cardone, Carly Petroski, Sarah Taylor, Hanno Webster, Lindsay Webster, and all the other wonderful people who have provided childcare, giving me peace of mind and time to write.

  Thank you to “Grandma Sue” Wicklund. You have changed the very way my eyes work.

  Thanks to the friends and colleagues I’ve picked up along the way for their camaraderie and support, especially Robin Lewis (so glad we refound each other), Sue Gage (who keeps me sane), Tina Smaldone (who stops me from doing stupid things), Cáel Keegan, Melanie Conroy-Hamilton, Anna Creadick, Ingrid Keenan, Sarah Berry and Rod King, Taylor Brorby, James McCorkle, Kirin Makker, Kristine Johanson, and Ben Ristow. Thanks to my Fisher Center cohort—Cadence Whittier, Anthony Cerulli, Jess Hayes-Conroy, Brianne Gallagher, Keoka Grayson, Joe Mink, and Maggie Werner; to the HWS Center for Teaching and Learning, especially Susan Pliner; to the people who’ve supported the music part of all this, especially Rob Carson, Pablo Falbru, Brady Leo, and Mark Olivieri; and to my ONU friends, especially Druann Bauer, Doug Dowland, Eva McManus, and Rob Scott. Thank you all.

  And finally, thank you to Donald Revell, “my teacher, now my friend,” who taught me the shapes of the writing to begin with. Whatever you say, it turns out to be. How lucky I’ve been to get to be near you sometimes. Thank you over and over.

  KATHRYN COWLES is the author of Eleanor, Eleanor, not your real name, winner of the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize. Her poems and poem-photographs have been published in the Best American Experimental Writing, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Diagram, Free Verse, Georgia Review, New American Writing, Verse, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-day, and elsewhere. Her poems were awarded the Academy of American Poets Larry Levis Prize, judged by Cole Swensen. She earned her doctorate from the University of Utah and is an associate professor of English at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the Finger Lakes region of New York.

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  Vendetta was designed in 1999 by John Downer for the Emigre type foundry. The design of Vendetta was influenced by the design of types by Roman punch cutters who traced their aesthetic lineage to Nicolas Jenson’s seminal 1470 text, De Evangelica Praeparatione, a work of Christian apologetics written in the 4th century AD by the historian Eusebius.