Farewell Address
Nā Hōkū o Mauna Kea (The Stars of Mauna Kea) – Luke Jones
Farewell Address
Ellene Warner
“Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”
-(Genesis 3:21-23)
Dear Mom and Dad,
It is summer now.
When comes spring–
I will have to leave Eden.
The hammer of the evening calm
In the orotund throat of the gull
Wakes the infirm mind on the palm
To the bells like stars that
Beg the world to resurrect–
These are ferns with tired design
From long-abiden divine
Order in the live oak shade
So make me Lazarus with his cane
Whose head of wonders leaves
The blind man to the night of seraphs
And their flowing river greaves.
Will we meet again?
I am Arthur with my men
And the apparition riseth o’er Pentecostal high
Raise the light
Raise the light
So the hydrangeas on the beam
Can steal beneath the veil of green
And arms of steam
The children of the lambent stream
Will shed from me the dead and dying rain.
I am marshland and I was tan once
And wild-haired as the moss
And the fur cuff held my shivering
Outside the Philadelphia ballet;
I am nutcrackers hale and gay
That tottle as the piano plays
I am Please-Touch and I am going through a phase.
Time is a river
I dove into with my nose plugged
And battled with the tide
I manned the January tube-side
Beyond the Nantahala raft
In the candid copper photograph
That washes me of sin
That takes the corded hair
And cleaves it by my chin.
My feet are in the river twice
Raise the light
Raise the light
The future is Orion
With his bow between my eyes
Both hands are supplicant to the sky–
It is time!
It is time!
The future looms in Turkish boats
With snakes in crates and damascened stokes
I am nascent and terrible and all that I know
Is a burden of stones
The pilgrimage to undergo.
I have love songs yet to write
Of halcyon nights
From the car to the cradle
In my mother’s arms;
I have books to devour and figs to pluck
And languages to construct
And apples to eat and weight to lose
And tan to gain and newer shoes
I have acne to kill and the killers of me
Are love and loneliness and greed.
The hammer of the evening calm
Is another day lost to the grave
And the countdown goes like men in rows
Onto the boat and far away.
This is cruelty! This is slaughter!
My time is crippled and unrealized
I sent my years with you to cheap demise.
But still tolls the call,
The call to arms,
The call to march from Eden to the field of stars
I am Joan, I am Bernard
In the eye inside the raid alarms
The call from home to fall like stars
The egg must break before we starve
Unborn.
The fruit is to be–the fruit is nigh–
So will you make coats for me when I leave?
Love,
[redacted]