Crane Fly

by Heather Cameron

Today we will enter the heart of a poem, the mind of a poet.

On the stairs of a second floor landing

below a wall of light representing morning

lies the body of a cranefly.

Tipulidae Oleracea.

Regardless of language we work from the absolutely literal

Six legs. Joints like grit.

Rolled-up, beech-bud body

ringed, segmented

to discover the bare bones of a poem. Without syntax. Understand this:

The boll-weevil-like head rests empty mountain / not see human

upon a rostrum slanting into hear / people speak / sound

knees like clots of ink shine / green moss

All language is translation. Even English to English.

No mouth.

How can it eat?

Through language we create realities. The plural is deliberate.

The sheer unnecessary massiveness of the face:

like a sewing machine presser foot, drill,

or ink-line sketch of itself.

We will discover that each of us possesses the exact name for all things,

and for each of us it is different,

and that we have always known it.

Legs

mechanical typeset levers.

Wings

small, brown, maple keys.

The key then is how to say it?

Bobbing gnat.

Gollywhopper. Gallinipper.

Jimmy spinner. Mosquito eater.

The hardest question, the reason we are here,

Is it possible

to be any more intricate,

any more awkward, or diagrammatic . . . ?

is to ask,

Where is our translation going?

So flutteringly soft-winged,

to advance

it must first disentangle itself from itself.

For example, the sound of a beginner’s violin

is raw scratching. What must happen is the

imagining of the music it will become. To hear that.

Translation

is always exacting, always about self revelation

not disclosure.

Of course it stumbles.

It has no eyes.

What could it possibly imagine?

The poem lying before you

represents all the difficulties

of getting words on paper.

Ideogram.

Perfectly, falteringly, made.

And that is how we listen to each others’ words.

You will discover for yourselves

all the rest is fancy dancing.

Outside a man called Fabien walks in the sun,

talks

of biomechanical models of the skull.

Downplays his skill.

A shotgun wound. Someone’s child

born without a mouth. Necrotizing fasciatis of the jaw.

He corrects problems, enjoys the variables involved,

admires practical results;

the precision

of soft tissue, airflow, mucous.

He doesn’t communicate with the patient.

The tediousness of prose.

Over the next few days

bits of cranefly drop off.

Legs.

The head.

A wing.

There is a tree that sheds like that.

Twigs, fruit, seeds, leaves.

Disassembling.

I have to believe what is

is perfectly made,

Crane Fly its exact name.