Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore

From MILLENNIAL PROGNOSTICATIONS

Nov 1999-Feb 2000

They do not know how immortal, but I know.
— Walt Whitman

1 / AS WE ENTER THE 3rd MILLENNIUM

As we enter the 3rd millennium
roots reach down like gnarled hands
boats rise up on waves like ballerinas
buildings bloom like flower gardens
skies turn purple then gray
then yellow-gold then white as a sheet
for a split second on everyone's eyelids
and astounding things take place in them
saith Tiresias
sitting full weight on a miniature city of sugar in
robes of flame or flame retardant
cerulean satin
his long dark face an enigma in a space where
everything else is openly plain and simple
birds fly through slack telephone wires making their
casual auguries first
one direction then veering off at an angle into another
ants carry and are carrying on as usual
unmindful of the year's embrasure
which may be a new word I'm coining because I
can't think of one momentous or
all-encompassing enough radical in its
edgenessness right at the
razor's edge of things metamorphosing into
entities rare and strange at the
sound of the millennial bell or at least the
wooden sound of the clapper inside the
bell since the reverberations of the glassy brass
bell itself will resound all the
way through the 3rd millennium
to the fourth
when wingéd horses may be as commonplace as cars or
thought transportation eyesight itself
able to teleport us to far-off places and
straunge strondes as Chaucer that
early second millennium
observer of human foibles would say and his
strange words tumbling through the lengthy and
wildly troubled centuries to us still

11/25/99

2 / ALL UTTERANCES SHALL BE PROPHETIC

All utterances shall be prophetic
on the tongues of brown round-faced children with silver eyes
and snow shall fall in glass balls
onto miniature cities of sugar
and the seas shall rise a fraction
and the skies shall darken
and the skies shall lighten as before
nothing remains the same
but the days go on as usual
around the next corner
and the sharp one after that
where a procession of feather-bedecked magistrates and
city elders of the
emerging metropolises of the imagination will suddenly
heave into view playing on
exotic instruments made of bamboo and wound grass blades
and singing the most
outlandish things such as
"The house of air shall be everywhere"
"the light at night shall be more bright"
"every third person shall be a saint"
"I miss seeing your face
beaming down onto mine"
and other phrases both
poignant and unexpected
as everything else is

11/25

4 / IN SIMPLICITY AND COMPLEXITY

In simplicity and complexity pure rotation
simply and complexly flows
the barren desert can't be barren with so many sand grains
tossed and turned
the sky goes on and on until it hits a
planetary sphere a solid moon a
pure rotation just like the one at home
turning round the central table where
brocade sleeves on crook'd elbows are
lined up like curtains on
gilded windows
tables where the laws are searched out and explained
by the learnéd doctors of the stars
the seed puts out its fragile feather and extends it
the larva turns and turns inside its case
awaiting meteorological auspiciousness
to emerge triumphant as a fruit fly
or butterfly now creasing the air of the
rain forest into morpho winkings of
opening and closing wings as it
works its way to whatever it works its way to
to be satisfied as a
morpho butterfly with its
shocking midnight blue against the
surrounding transparencies of air
rotation and rotation and rotation
everywhere

11/27

11 / THE MYSTERY OF SOMEONE SLEEPING

The mystery of someone sleeping the
mystery of someone dead
on the train back from New York I watched
people sleeping
masks for faces eyes shut mouths lax jowls relaxed
heads lolling or wedged against windows
where on earth have their animated inhabitants gone
leaving no trace of emotion or attitude other than
an almost embryonic fluidity of
eyelid ear cheek mouth forehead
as if we are souls with a liquid covering that
solidifies at birth upon air contact finally
returning to fluid again when brought down
brought down to earth at last
but sleepers their faces tell no story unless
scarred
they are in a bliss they maybe don't
feel when awake they're in
God's hands as if
cradled there
ebbing and flowing
puppeted by their sleepy breathing
and I wondered at what the
sleeping face of Cleopatra must've looked like
or sleeping Jesus
all extroverted moonlight
beauty in its essence molding
a perfect face from inside
even these faces actually beautiful and as if
carved from within
perfect line of lips not speaking not chattering
perfect closure of eyelids not flashing not emoting
perfect tilt of head in repose in the
soft beneficent arms of cosmos
only a spark away from the look of death
death the same face but unable to shake
awake
the spark of life between it and
final sleep looking similar to
these mortals except that unlike the dead at their
appointed station they
wake up and file out with their live faces into the
awakened world

12/19

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