From “The Herald’s Wand”
By Li-Young Lee
any wonder
Before
the serpent was a serpent,
she was my mother.
Living in time made me almost forget.
But I didn’t forget.
She bore me into the world
from the splendor of her body with a heave,
from the sanctum of her maw with a groan,
and as she found me pleasing,
she called me Lover,
and she nursed me, singing,
Honey for the bear,
meat for the tiger,
an egg for the snake,
and milk for my baby.
Any wonder
I’ve been hungry and thirsty
all of my life.
Someday, I shall return
to the dark of my mother’s mouth,
where all rivers meet.
Before the serpent was a serpent,
he was my father.
He brought me forth from the ancient thorn
lodged between his cloudy eye
and his incendiary eye,
and as he found me pleasing,
he called me Beloved.
And because I was no bigger
than the tip of his little finger,
he carried me on the wide brim of his hat by day.
At night, I slept in the spiral of his ear,
that gate to the unseen heard,
the unthought known,
and the garden of nutmeg.
Any wonder I’ve lived most of my life
insomniac by night
and distracted by eternity all day.
One day, I shall return
to rest beneath the green stem finding root
between my father’s eyes,
his figuring eye and his eye of the void.
The offspring of her mouth
and of his wound.
The outcome of her darkness
and of his hurt.
Her brooding and his injury.
Her looming and his harm.
Her dwelling and his damage.
Her river and his tree.
Surrendering to divisible time,
I almost forgot.
But I never forgot.
Any wonder
I set out on earth
to learn to sing.
wooing
She told me to meet her here.
So I’m here.
She told me,
When the hour arrives
as a bird
bearing a lighted lampstand,
you’ll see me again.
So I’m waiting.
The world is neither place nor thing.
The world is a spell, she said.
The body is neither thing nor place.
The body is a spell, she said.
Mind is the spell of spells, she said.
She gave me instructions
to prepare my body for burning: steep it
six days in milk, six days in myrrh.
So I did.
She sang a song called “Subject to Wings,”
and she told me to memorize the refrain:
First you turn the blood to water.
Then you turn the water to wine.
And then she put in my hands
the two jewels she gave of herself:
the serpent’s left eye
and the serpent’s right eye.
When I see her again, she’ll show me
how to use one
to find lost things,
and how to use the other
to find things no one can see.
And then, she promised,
I’ll behold in broad daylight
what I see every night in a dream.
hot milk hissing in a pot
Before
the serpent was a serpent,
she called me Son,
and I followed her.
Following her voice, I learned to speak.
Following her hand, I learned to write.
Following her eyes, I learned what to follow.
She called me Zither,
and I lay face up in her lap.
I ached under the fingers of her left hand.
I trembled under the fingers of her right hand.
She called me Clay Ledger,
and she laid me face down and opened me
to inscribe on the back
of my heart, where I’ll never see,
The 5th Veda, The Lost Books of Adam,
and The Sutra of Longing.
In the dark, she lit a candle
and enlarged my shadow.
Blowing out the candle,
she revealed her own shadow.
Some nights I slept facing her
and entered encrypted worlds of her making.
Some nights I slept facing away
and slumbered dreamless.
She called me her bow,
and she bent and strung me.
She called me her arrow,
and she loosed me.
And I’m still speeding, quivering with her aim.
axis mundi
When the serpent’s bones were laid
at the roots of the tree,
and the branches opened and closed
as though they were clapping,
and smoke began to issue blue and black
from out of the tree, smoke billowed white and thick
to engulf the towering spine, and when
in the center of that cloudy pillar
an ember appeared and bloomed into flame,
and a bird flew out of the fire
as the tree roared and shook, lion-maned,
and out of the mouth of the bird
came forth singing,
what song did you hear?
You’ve sung it all your life,
whether you knew
or didn’t know you were singing.
One who was there said,
The sun was shining so bright, I had to shut my eyes.
The light was so warm, it smelled like cinnamon.
And I felt certain I was about to see an old friend again.
Another who was there said,
I was so scared, my teeth were chattering.
And I felt my skin was about to burst into flames.
I wished I were a thousand feet below the earth.
And a third who was there remembered,
I gathered the bones to lay them in place,
and not one was missing.
But I couldn’t put the one I love back together.
That one danced around the tree
weeping and weeping,
waving a handkerchief and singing,
What a splendid bird!
What a majesty, the tree!
Of those three, which one were you?
Whether or not you remember, you were there.
