Toiling in the Soundflakes (The Mumble of the Homecoming Oak)

For Nadia Kaabi-Linke

 

The halfway chamber stagnates

Thick and hermetical

The swimming dust sets out for sound

Foundations shift thunderly,

crawling in ships and attics

Somewhere so near as the mumble

of the Homecoming Oak

 

The cradle rocks you to tears

The cocooned voices drown at the tips,

echoing like candles

Momentary souls ripple through the air,

and it takes you like a train, the mumble

of the Homecoming Oak

 

What human mud brims in this mast

Oh, to clutch at sap with blood

and sail with leaves below the drums

When mass and mind scatter and sigh

Where light and time glide underground

 

There are no promises here,

this is the In-between

This is where Truth comes for slumber

to kiss the moss that grows on silence

and breathe the earth inside

Melt away your cane and cloak

to trade brushes and whispers

with the mumble

of the Homecoming Oak

​

2022