Listen again: indescribable beyond. in doubt. trumpet,
exchange, those make my darkness. speak give
sometime out of entangled saw it vision : can:
And them clouds, writes Hildegard, one as in sound.
one, reforming, nor unassisted, vessels... one fragile
unshaping, whose shape didn’t always sing, taught
the elements roaming vision are but God’s to satanic I.
Therefore returns bird to angel vessels, makes fragile evil,
light us might Listen to for God does it not write, devils?
Wrote back and forth breathes forth for devil works.
like Another eggshell alternation between
light and darkness mysteries spaces between good
but between whichare Ach! works. I saw
inwardly, divine long witnessed the infinite breath
became // Another in difference ecstasy, said, sound again:
what but angels so. Music so. music, mystic know : You
when the complete are grey, turning pigeons, And Then
into empty passages intertwined mind is Clouds
Those and God’s passes between, clause, or
Woe! between boom are she and they which turning make
Whose soul were words
// a call, doorway, brightness, strength.
a moist greenness sacred
through entreat your mixed
greenness, through own
into vigour and the like to sound,
all the indifferent, all that is
of you woman, all by
When wonderful raise
the wrought God, the by Father,
fall by and by of mystery,
your flesh so long is things
by as though And so
I entreat you: Father, you
of power a green took passive
of pass And moist Word,
imagination as the not rhetorical correspondent,
In the world by breaking
which simultaneity May, She
from soul to metaphors
forth until heart
sacred intoxicating: and
creation honeycomb! Sweet
sound simultaneity: body, a Word
seek swirl sensation, fire.
with stone: the thing
by these concludes palpable
and was Truth, resounds,
Word honey upon red-burning things
her starry God there. know
sweet letter limbs.
with Spirit enchantment
through an angel fall
upon your heart
wyrd[bird
by Claire Marie Stancek
an excerpt from
Claire Marie Stancek is the author of two poetry books: MOUTHS (Noemi, 2017), and most recently, Oil Spell (Omnidawn, 2018). She is co-editor and co-founder of Nion Editions, a small press devoted to publishing chapbooks. She lives in Berkeley, CA.