I see I must rewire the Twittering Machine
Whose song was lightning
when lightning-struck—
And then sang singe, sang smoke: elect
-ric elegy, perpetual elegy, the fuse
That fused syllable to
sound is blown, is
Blown, and now the dry-throat on noting
Nothing drowns. The gold-sheathed wire
Soldered to star
sang both the star
’s celestial thread that fretting through
The night kept the night a needle-width
Undone, and sang
yellow the yellow
Thread unmending the sundress wife kept
In closet December-long. And longer:
Through darker months
none could name, none
Name—since, ever since, that star whose light
Powered the Twittering Machine’s ever-song
Died, was always dead,
though nightly seen,
Is still seen, cold but brilliant overhead. The gold
-sheathed wire withered, tangent to the moon.
Now a fungal-wire aches
down cemeteries
To find a decaying song. Earth-battery—
It winds the dynamo by a ceaseless, clock-
Work turn, clock-
wise turn,
But the Twittering Machine refuses song.
No, no—not refuse, not refuse. We’ve rewired
The mechanism. Stars
are silent, trustless:
They lock the dark vault they seem to pierce.
Music of the spheres? buzz, no test-pattern,
Program cancelled, shut.
Now one dark talon
Sheathed in darkness drops unseen from sky
And scratches the earth as the earth turns.
Do you hear that sound
of gravel on gravel
Grinding? That music is our music now.
by Dan Beachy-Quick
Robin Reagler 