In the previous post, we talked about Pictura’s move into the FAR Center for Contemporary Arts, which was the start of an on-going effort to create collaborations between various art forms. The third continuation from last week, today is another work from the series of poems that were birthed out of a collaboration between local writers and Joshua Dudley Greer’s ​‘Somewhere Along the Line’. Paired with the photograph, below is a poem by janan alexandra.

Joshua Dudley Greer: Interstate H1, near Honolulu, Hawaii, 2017

The Cathedral

Lovelies & Gentleones, Joys & Pearls,

We gather here today
not with scripture
but sculpture
not under Christ
or his creepy
crucifix
but instead
what we behold
here in the photograph:
in this case
a criss-cross
canopy above
a man’s head,
a horticultural umbrella
not cruciferous
but most likely
still cousin
or comrade
to all green
growth
in the god-
given
ground.

Which, you might
notice is no gravel
pit or gravestone,
but instead a bed
of needledown,
a rose-gold skirt
of leafy tread
which I imagine
this man walks upon
maybe gladly at times
in bare feet. No
steel-toed boot
no hobble-heeled
sole flapping
in the dirt,
no shoes, no shirt
& the live oak
groans come in.
Maybe this man
calls her grandma
or sometimes baby
& she in turn
calls him good
which in the wooded
grammar of trees
takes a long time.

Which reminds me,
trees sleep too,
lowering their
branches at night.
& here in the picture
of what is maybe
a palace by the free-
way, a secret
hamlet my ear
names The Cathedral,
there is a man
whose face
we cannot see,
standing with
his hands
on his hips.

& maybe instead
of imagining him,
or the light passing
through his hourglass
heart, think of a tree
you love, or better
yet, think of napping
inside a tree’s many
mouths like our squirrel
& owl brethren,
imagine laying
in the bend & sway
of her lovely threaded
hands that gather
a country with
a long history
of people
& a long history
of trees, which
we might not learn
in the cold
classrooms
of our schools
or in the monuments
of our cities but which
we know in the snare-
drum rattle of our
bony knees. Like
walking by anything
& feeling an anthill
weep in your chest.
Like hearing
the quick lift of feet
in your own
blood & breath.

& just as old
is the story
of my people
& your people too
making home
in the wood,
rooting for refuge
in the shaggy under-
growth of swamps
& leaves, tending
shelter in a thick
night that knows
what it has seen.

When I study
the photograph,
I do not want
to study the man,
who faces away.
Let’s say the thin
chicken bones
of his shoulders
lift like angels
from his back.

What if the red ribbon
around the trunk
is hibiscus sprout,
trumpet throat,
hummingbird,
ear,
lifting.

Let’s say that
like every river
& elephant,
this tree
blooms
& weeps
with
perfect
memory.

& standing under
Grandma Baby’s
hat of green leaves,
this man might
sometimes touch
his fingers to her eyes,
stroke closed her lids.
Maybe we might
stroke closed
our lids. Learn
from the pocket-knife
who folds herself in two,
burying the blade.

What if we said
won’t you lie here
with me, trace
each branch from
crook to elbow
til we’ve climbed
our eyes up this
crocodile-skin
staircase to the stars.

Look—
pennies
scattered
in the sea-
dark air.

Look,
sometimes
this mess
is a wishing
well, sanctuary,
map with no name
for home but here,
a charcoal sheet
which your god
& probably my god
too lay out each night
unspooling together
the long studded
carpet facedown
for us all to see
where we live
under a freckle-
meadowed sky
that goes on for
as long as we might
stand to tip back
our heads, jaws
clicked open
for the moon
to catch like a hook
in our throats.

Perhaps
it is so quiet
we can hear
each other
breathe — just
now, soft
rocky whistle
of your wheeze. 

Poem by: janan alexandra
Image by: Joshua Dudley Greer