A sharp, high-pitched, piercing sound — like my arthritic knee — persisting, traversing luminous valleys, penetrating dark, viscous tunnels — like my asthmatic throat. Again and again, shattered surfaces attempting to emerge from the void. I picture it — silent, crouching amidst barely sprouted seeds on beds of tarry sand. Other new meadows of ephemeral shoots, sustained by an anguished moan, pierced by the cries of an improbable animal. Even as it persists — interwoven through rocky ravines and damp riverbeds, black and yellow, red and blue — the pathological object reappears by turns furtively and furiously, amorous, gradually sprouting within tangled roots until it fades away, exhausted and languid.

[vi-26]