Distance and Separation

Franz Baermann Steiner, "Gebet im Garten"

Franz Steiner and the Bushmen (whom he made known to Canetti, per Michael Hamburger)

Li Po, borne across centuries on the prose of Arthur Waley,
a near cousin of the anthropologist,
the Bushmen divided by language
separated by secret aspects
preserved in couplings
dictated by some successful hunt,
(the slow exhaustion of one terrified giraffe -
perhaps each spear, each dart, had an almost name)

Distance collapses, separation expands,
the past remains not quite compressed,
leaving a trail of glass beads,
not the dull, selenic powders of the unexploded moon,
these beads in strands, invisible, twined cosmic dust,
terminating in tiny layers of deadly buds.

Of what and who is other than us
[we, the people, we, the Dene]
singers are permitted to exaggerate.
No one will demand a polite tone
and a respectful story -
they were snakes and liars
only do not inflate their misdeeds
or we may look weak,
our elders foolish.

(My mother's uncle confided,
"Not all their women looked so,
or we had not kidnapped them -
or murdered their sons")