CANTO 11 Auroras hiss

 

Auroras hiss and crack—buffet the Diamond T

as it arcs down the plane of the ecliptic,

spirals above the Arctic, dives through moondogs!

I’m long past being amazed, my face is glazed

like the icesheet, the permafrost wheeling under me.

The truck whips past river oxbows and acid peat bogs.

Turtle, enigmatic Terrapin,

imperturbable on the hood, speaks:

You were after a sensational solar satori,

fool! you would burn up in your own ego.

KNOW THAT I AND THIS VEHICLE YOU RIDE

EMANATE FROM THE DIAMOND SUTRA.

Now I will send you down a diamond standpipe.

You’ll go in the dent at the top of the world

to emerge from the bulge at the bottom.

May your crisped and sizzling consciousness

come into wisdom, doubtful though it is since

you are so poor a specimen!

PHAT! my reptile guide vaporizes!

I’m circling lower—wildlife’s watching me:

pintails, teal, and baldpates

investigate. Scaups, goldeneyes, and scoters

fly up to windshield level, scanning for clues.

Mergensers, squaws, harlequins, and eiders

quack queries!

Canada geese, snow geese, sand-hill cranes,

and plover whirl, flap, and ruffle irascibly,

but they’re intrigued.

Gyrfalcons study the whooshing Diamond T,

scream and pern about mere anarchy

while ravens debate organic form with ptarmigans.

I skim yards above the brimming tundra.

Skua swoop and swerve, skittish, scandalized;

jaeger juggle feathery conundrums.

At the edge of the Chukchi Plateau,

the limit of multi-year ice,

cursing emperor penguins scatter

while ruminating sea elephants rear in alarm.

Narwhals nuzzling walruses

pick up a riff of Vajracchedik

and relay it to lounging polar bears and elephant seals

who instantly give up tracking

nuclear submarines and head north

spreading word of the Great Event.

Barren-ground grizzlies order collared lemmings

to cover the basins and lakes,

and caribou to pass the word

to plains, cordilleras, and ridges.

The news spreads like wildlife!