Nathan Thomas
A Collective Counterpoint
dreams are born in the skull,
music in the skeleton. and wild
sententiae follows the wind.
notes of assonance, the hyacinth’s syntax
buds in Hopkins.
cutting into compounds
we explore what pastures
stretch:
morphemes, phonemes,
in which land will they roll?
strewn flowers, will you carry
the scent of lovers’
suspended bodies?
springing up
in silent letters, will you tell, make visible,
the collectively felt sound
of counterpoint?
which syllabic animals graze amongst you now?
the sky tending to its pink, frame
by frame, turns its light onto burials,
onto the shimmering elision
of the-everything-said,
the pulsating, in and out of focus
chiming of unfurling.
with faith in marginalia,
in the fringe of the mother-tongue,
let sleep
spill from sea-blossom, green
in snow.
let sleep,
green in snow, spill
from sea-blossom.
