To my reader: This poem works best when spoken or chanted out loud — or when performed with a dancer and improvised music. There are many rhythms to try and emphatic stops or starts. There is no “right way.”
When I chant it I can make the “and’s,” “the’s,” and “are’s,” which are so visually annoying, disappear into small breaths.
Enjoy!
Lillium: A Chant
The lilies
and the water lilies
the lilies
and the water lilies
the stem
and the root
and the moss
and the lilies and the water lilies
and the rains and the river rains and the spring rains
and the moving waters and the still waters
and the lilies and the water lilies
and the lilies and the water lilies
and the mud and the black mud
and the moss and the wet moss
and the waters running and the waters resting and the waters winding
are held,
are held
and the lilies and the water lilies
and the lilies and the water lilies
and the stem and the moss and the rains
and the river rains and the spring rains
and the lilies and the water lilies
and the lilies and the water lilies
are held,
are held
and the mud and the blue mud and the black mud
and the waters resting and the waters winding and the waters falling
are held,
are held.
Molly Hum
i come to hum.
I smell the rain night night air i walk.
where is that rain now night night smell.
where they go when lights go what they do different?
catch old catfish in their dreams,
heave and roll and sleep and miss it all.
i know.
i crazy molly.
we all caught in night i die too they die too i come back maybe
humming:
night rain night rain night rain.
i this cricket leg scraping scraping up against the other lover.
rain smell rain
rain smell rain
rain.
The Women’s Review of Books/Vol. 1, No. 10/July, 1984
Note:
The repetition of words and phrases, sometimes with slight variations, was as close as I could get to translating my feelings of awe into words when thinking about the way we human beings are a part of Nature – whether we think so or not – and how indifferent Nature is to individual lives.
Molly Hum seems to know this. She came to me one summer night when I was sitting on the porch listening to the rain. I don’t know where she came from, but she is alive and well, still inside me. Perhaps she will speak again one day.