Song of the Andoumboulou: 300
2022; Duke University Press; Volume: 49; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1215/01903659-9789682
ISSN1527-2141
Autores Tópico(s)Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis
ResumoSong of the Andoumboulou: 300—for n. o. brown: “the h.d. extension”— Once over the summit we saw clear to thebay, white sunlight bounced off the water. The shells of a thousand ships lay rotting un- derneath. The birds were in the backseat questioning and answering themselves, “Polis?Pubis? Pubis.” It had been that way the whole way, all the others following the parrots’ lead, “Po-lis? Pubis? Pubis.”. . . Andreannette and I rode in front with the radio on, keen for a sense of the state of the world, the BBC news was on.It had been the birds versus the news most of the way we'd come, the grounding of the737 competed with by “Polis? Pubis? Pubis.” We looked out before us. The white sunlight on the water moved standing still. Nothing if notsomething seen in a face was the shimmering light on the bay, I told myself, a certain somethingwhose last resort ships had been. . . Something seen in a face did not align with either polis or pubis. It was an inordinacy subsequent to numberless than number. As light as Anubis's feather it was or would be, a lightness afloat in heaven,light heart as in heaven, it was or we suspected it to be. The birds, even so, knowing we knew, refused tohear it, namesake perfume suffusing the thought of how and what we thought. They went on asking and answering themselves, nonstop, “Polis? Pubis? Pubis.” “We're nowhere if not at the weighing ofthe heart,” I let out, pushing back, turning to face them all, there in the backseat, make eye contact, “ex- actly nowhere.” They went on asking and answer-ing themselves. . . I turned back to the white light on the bay. Andreannette, behind the wheel, looked at me and I looked at her, something seen in a face weighingon us again, weightless, light as a feather no matter, something one saw or one somewhat sensed one saw, a matte light maybe, a diffuseness or a glow, a ghost or a guise before the fact, ahead of itself. Somethingseen in a face looked as if dreaming to outlive life was what it was. We were each an ahead-of-itself ghost. The weighing of the heart was afoot was as well what it was, light hearts no lighter than lit floated in heaven, asparkling tarp or a kind of hover close to the bay. . . We were under the spell of Eleanoir's Helen, Eleanoir, in thebackseat with the birds, under it as well. A first rung or a first platform it might've been we looked out on, the light on the bay a bar or a stage of light an ascend- ing step might be taken from, no matter a foothold a foot slipfrom___________________ Was it Andreannette's Helen, the ascending step some intangible something on her brow, whatabout it was but wasn't there, what about it could not be availed, some incendiary thing seen reflectingthe sunset among the redwoods, there where the o- pening was? What it was to've seen it would brook no telling, tell though it drove one witless attempt-ing to, face parallax with body perhaps, a rise above body but not, would-be rise. . .Something caught holdof us neither she nor I understood, something seen in a face, maybe there, maybe not, but, whether or not, the birds in the backseat taunting all the while, as if to put pubis and face together, making fun, a phantom we were haunt-ed by• It felt right to've come back to Lone Coast,whether it was or really wasn't Lone Coast, a certain somewhere put away, kept in mind, its ownif not mine. Eleanoir among the Persian birds was Helen heckling us, Andreannette the blend of the two she'd be, the blend of the two with Hilda she'd be, the three with every other she'd be. . . Beauty itself was a shade or a shadow, its chaseof its tail whose wind whirled us round, the birds word- obsessed but of syntax nary a tweet, a fantasiasuch as before but unrebuffed. “Polis? Pubis? Pubis,” the birds eternally queried and eternally replied. We were hoping it was a dream and it would clar- ify things. Sex but short respite, it seemed it said or implied, meaning more that it cause the burningof cities and ships. . . We rode along, the birds in our hair not yet in our heads putting pubis and face togeth-er, disconsolate parts they discrepantly addressed. Lone Coast lay before us, nothing if not a jewel in the sun, night's eye open even so. We rode along roll-ing downhill, more than “rode along” says, the summit behind the birds in back, a sense what Andreannette called “pinnacle traversal” stropped and readied our way. The bay was all sparkle, night's eye no matter, night's eye complicit perhaps. It was the visionary descentwe'd maybe dreamt and always wanted, the coming-into what only it could be. The birds were drowning out the news, the bar of light was a razor's edge, the bay a facetedcut reflecting heaven. . . It had been getting to be that time for a while, repeated dreams of an imminent arrival andgoing off, gone high and gotten straight or as if gone high and gotten straight, the as-if's forever lilt let on. It was asif our day had come, shipwreck priming the water not- withstanding, the day's book read by the light of night's eye, a braille way of reckoning rattling downhill, baylit epi- phany, strop. . . If was as-if sharpening what-if, strop'slay razor, sanctified edge. This was what it was to be real, I thought, my eye caught by Andreannette's nicely veined footriding the brake as we rolled west, the bayshore the conti- nent's outer edge. We were far from the Aegean but antique in our own way, the Eldorado we were in pure boat. It was noth- ing a wheel alignment wouldn't fix in one sense and we were out on the sea in another, a sense come of our day hav- ing come, night's eye wrinkling what was otherwise as itseemed, neither polis's nor pubis's claim to be dismissed. They had both mingled aspects of squawk and elation, the birds ar- bitrating exultance and complaint, there in the backseatbeing coached by Eleanoir, a sack of birdseed in her lap. . . No way were we not ready for whatever the bay might bring, the question of beauty's blame revisited no matter, beauty's blame, beauty's worth no matter. It was an epiphanous auto-mobile or boat we rode we knew for sure, the light off the bay and its bar of light anointing us the closer we got, all asif to found a new state or start a new religion we went rolling down the mountain's winding road. . . Sub-surface gloom nev- er not there no matter, night's eye's darkening pupil, it was the best it would ever be, I thought, Eleanoir and the birds inback, Andreannette's nicely veined foot riding the brake, our wob- bly Cadillac rolling toward Nub's farthest edge brimming with ex-pectan-cy____________________ The foothills when we got to them were waves of earth, the birds, the parrots at least, had escaped from a pirateship. Sinew and cartilage ran underground cabling music, lute strings and balafon planks the ribs of sunken ships, the water's antiphonal redoubt. . .Later Huff would sayhe had seen it all, it was all hermetic reconnoiter, that Helen or that Hilda had consecrated the bay, a kind of arcane re- joinder had brought us there. . .He would say polis ver- sus pubis had been a diversion, a sort of opiate, a point tobe made in that regard though there was, the birds a feather tickat best•Huff had warned us the approach would be all ad- monition, said beware, bear with it, a beach would emerge from the trees. Redwood, eucalyptus and all rushed past us, as if it was they that were movingand we were stuck, stranded in the car. They were running away, the clowning birds their brethren and sis- tren, the clowning birds holding us hostage, theecosphere's reprimand. . . I laid back even so, let my seat back. A bardo illusion I told myself it was. I was under underness's influence, the nearness of Andre- annette, waft and recess her veined feet seemed pre-lude to. It was bodily thrill's proximity, beknownst and abroad, eros what expectancy there was, what fu- ture, all there was. “Polis? Pubis? Pubis,” the birdschirped away as if reading my thoughts, my head un- der Andreannette's dress. . . It was an oldtime religion, mine was, Andreannette's loose-fitting shift a revival tent, only in my mind though it was. Horses’ heads hung from tree limbs, blood dripped where birds had been.I relaxed, I didn't so much as grip my seat, braced by the mention of pubis, what I knew lay under, buoyed by Andreannette's angelic heft. But it wouldn't be what itpromised, I told myself, mystico-blasé before the fact, Elea- noir in back and in fact an old flame, a feather in a photo across the V where her legs met. . . Had it pro- truded like a toucan's beak pubis could not've beenmore present, Eleanoir's Helen aspect in the backseat as well, not so much it as the underness of it even so, pubis'slaunch of thousands, polis's wreck. Not-so-much-it-as-the-underness-of-it lay like a blessing pervading the car, pu- bis's modesty never to be gotten over or gotten enough of, brashness its being there though it was, like as not na-ked and with rampant hair no doubt, Eleanoir commando un- der it all. . . So in truth I sat braced by three underness-es at least, my own, Andreanette's and Eleanoir's, if not Andreannette's and Eleanoir's Helens’ as well. Meat for thelit wind we all were, this or that chance of attachment yet to be taken, love's light scattered, careless Nub. So in truth meditation on what lay under steadied me, braced me in the face of the trees’ menace, our descent down the moun- tain never not the recumbence it was, the bay climbingtoward us it seemed. “So in truth,” I went so far as to say to my- self out loud, underness pervading the Eldorado like a perfume, a divine musk, as of an imminence of heat, anaroused inkling that all would be otherwise. The horses’ heads lay a batá entablature we found, a key to the seaside villa the beach town would otherwise be, sea salt grabbing ournoses, a salience underness too now trafficked in. . . Not-so- much-it-as-the-underness-of-it persisted as we rolled into town, Andreannette's nicely veined foot a granular honey not un- acquainted with salt. “So in truth,” I said out loud, knowingnot-so-much-it-as-the-underness-of-it was only night's way with truth, the density of the day not otherwise to be withstood.The birds were still asking and answering, “Polis? Pubis? Pubis.” A certain sense we were being summoned grew stronger. So it was on to the beach in the beautiful beach town whose in- habitants, Huff had warned, would hide from us, the elsewhere Egypt hadbeen____________________ Huff had chosen to call it the self-evident mystery, the summoning side of the going-forth. Called or called backwas the question, the verges thought bounded between. . . Meat for the lit wind, he admonished us, we began, meat forthe lit wind we'll end up. Babylonian ice plant overhung the cliffs on Lone Coast as we came in, the beautiful beach town as beautiful as we'd been told. . .All its residents “hid,”peering thru windows not touching their faces, phantom stone at the smalls of their backs, phantom sand massaging theirfeet
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