171. Caliber of Archival Confusion

in a slant and sloping
sunlight slips off the mountainside
copper with the effects of autumn

passing Annandale-not-on-Hudson
and John Ashbery cannot give a word
to set us down into sullen penury of mood
or the curvaceous mode of swinging
out of balance

a rock
would stop us
                       though we glide forward
                       through an overexposed landscape

no-one speaks between their metal capsules
on an incline we accelerate to take off into space
a light blue fading to haziness and we cannot
recall the exact reason for this expedition

domed roof of copper of the protruding silo
out of the feathered woods that do not speak to us

tires on the highway beat but broken out of order
the gentle sound is swishing of the air we knife through
throaty drone of the truck that wanders onto rumble strip

bare and leafless bushes in shades of nudity
remind me of bowties though there is
no reason for them too

                                  and who had taken time to tie
                                  them into those twisted shapes?

with the right crayons I could color this scene
but never draw it out
                                  it stays where it is
                                  humble in its indistinctness
                                  nothing seems much different
                                  from itself or its parts

                                  everything is somehow
                                  the color of sunlight

houses are white
with triangles atop them
and kept at a distance
so as to resemble
models of houses
or the landscape
through which toy trains
run in circles
that rarely cross
into figure-8s

below us upon a green
a flattened oval paddock
gate left open
and horseless

sweep of light of car of sound along the curve
a force pushing us to the outer rim

everything the landscape wants to save is thrown together
in a heap and flurry
                                  light upon sky upon tree upon hill
                                  upon road upon incline heading downward
                                  into recesses of shadow sliced with sunlight

at the outskirts of the beginning
of a place which has a name
but we refuse to believe it

                                       because we are at the top of a hill
                                       in a flat valley decorated
                                       with a cluster of static rollercoasters

a steeple pierces

everything in pieces          but one

we believe that context imbues otherwise random records of the earth
with meaning

even in the muddle of a thought wrote down wrong
archives are representations of actions but not truth
reflection is itself a type of perception

the windows on the car
ahead of me are flat
and perpendicular to
the roadway aligned
so that I can see straight
through them to where
I will be in a few seconds
it is as if I can see
the future through a
small cardboard tube
held tight against
my open left eye

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