for Tomàs
The candle is not there to illuminate itself.
—Jan-Fishan Khan
It will only take five minutes, he said,
and so, though I’d not spoken with him before
and though I was about to teach a class,
I followed him outside the library door
to the dirt lot where his truck was parked
and from the open pick up bed
he pulled with flourish a rolled-up rug
and spread it between the rabbit brush
and milk thistle, then hoisted
two flat wooden seats he’d fashioned
out of pine, arranged them on the rug,
and swung a bench-like table from the bed
and placed it in the center.
And I expected, what, well, not
what happened next. It’s your canoe,
he said, and from his truck he plucked
a long and knobby stick. And here’s your oar,
he offered, with a slight bow of his head.
I took it up and kicked my shoes off, stepped
onto the rug, then leapt up to table top
and began to paddle the air.
Where are we going then, I said,
my eyes on the horizon.
To Java, he said, and I paddled harder,
eager to reach its shores. I’ve always
wanted to go to Java, I said, pulling
through currents of air. And look, he said,
there’s a farmer there on the banks
saying his morning prayers.
And he pulled from the truck a large
straw hat that he set upon his head
and a simple white scarf he let
slip through his fingers in a ritual
of silk. And when my boat came near,
he stepped beside it, met me
with a bowl-shaped bell, and circled
the small canoe, baptizing the air
with its one-note song. I closed my eyes,
and felt the tone open inside me,
and when I let my lids fly up,
he was standing right in front of me
with a vial of dark oil that smelled of vanilla
and evergreen. And he anointed me,
touching the oil to my head with his finger.
I knew I had arrived. I jumped down and hugged
the farmer, then searched the ground
for a smooth white stone to give him in return.
And as I journeyed back to the library,
somehow now only steps away, I took with me
the scent of pine, the smile of the native man,
the joy that comes when all the lines
we thought we knew have been erased,
and our inner map wildly rearranged.