First Revolution

1.
And then, the ice had a mind to melt.
Or, the mountain took to fire.

2.
Far within,
vibrations from a surface
breached and rose, from
 
the interior escaped
a gasp, a resonating
emptiness, a suffering
 
hollow sound from where
 
merely the memory
of sound was harbored. 
 

3.
No human
memory (that is, of the kind
we with intention melt
to run away a history of suffering:

madness, prayer,
envy, wanting fire)

has by rising through this iron throat
escaped to pour itself

over the outside surface
from the innermost,
which is the surface
of a lunar meadow
alien to memory.

4.
So, though no filmy souls escape
the mountain’s snare, the rocks that melt
against its new embittered fire
are an emblem for the end of their suffering.
 

5.
The end of awakening is the beginning of suffering.
 

6.
Bent against time, this
undiscovered surface
Waited to be clothed again
in fire.

7.
I, too, must be ready
to receive the memory of those
 
whose breath-swept
reds will melt into my
soil, whose blue
deeps and twitchings escape
 
with a wheezing last.

8.
A future we cannot escape.
 
This is
the beginning of our suffering.
  

9.
An utterance,
in urgency.  The boiling
 
melt of substances
whistling for a surface
spits outward. 
 
A viscous plume, a memory:
 
tar, honey, pumice froth, fire.

10.
The sea is
spattered with remnants of fire.
 
Before the sun, at sunset, escaped,
 
before memory,
 
before suffering,
 
the mountain, the surface,
 
began from somewhere
to melt.