TWO POEMS --


VIRTUAL REALITY

With exo-skeleton and helmet, I inch 
past caribou, wild rose, limestone pillars
as I mind-screen the Cordillera
and a cave with springs 
where I may bathe and drink.
Petroglyphs in blood-rust or black 
enhance its walls -- archetypes of
spider, fish, snake, crow.

Crow, with flick of wing, beckons.  
Startled, I shy toward untried springs, 
where I see him preen 
sooted feathers.  When I pivot back, 
he peels from the wall, ascends
and begins to speak:
"I am Crow, Eye of the World.  As I lead,
you shall follow."

My legs stalagmite and will not yield;  
yet my head, of another cast, 
tilts lapping the profile of crow.
Now, I am eye of the world and can reckon 
where mountainsides drown in tint, 
where objects glitter.  Soon my altered 
voice assumes crow's tones 
and, I rise up.

Hovering, I consider slither of snake 
or creep of spider.  But fused with crow,
I -- sighting limestone hoodoos --
will fly beyond the cave, above caribou 
and wild rose into saturated blue.



WELL OF HELL

The next big voyage will take place on the night of a solstice."
        ...Cult literature found by the Swiss Police
              near a cave called the Well Of Hell, 1995.

Shortest night of the year and bodies were 
petaled sunflower rays at the heart 
of a campfire: adults and children 
shrouded with ash.

In World War II, Resistance bivouacked
this plateau, despite gangrened fingers 
and cold-fused bones.  
To the French hunkered by the Isère, 

life had scant reality.  To this cult, 
death-illusion was met near caves 
with art 20,000 years old -- antelope, 
horse, mammoth, each vibrantly alive.

Is immolation a journey?  Then what about 
dolls and toy soldiers strewn behind?
The children might have chosen them. 
All children know resistance, few execution.

Susan Terris