Malak Mattar, Untitled (detail), 2024, charcoal on paper
Chipmunk
If, as Kit Smart said, toads have compensation
for being toads, “since there are stones whose
constituent particles are toads,” this particular
Algonquian helps constitute a granite range
whose high inflections interweave. He flows
between subject and object, neither and both.
He is, as the linguists say, non-configurational,
and like the wind up there no one can tell
whence he came or where he goes. He’s all
action, all tiny jerks whose frames overlap
so quick they almost look seamless, impulses
received and renewed just about at the
same time and at the same fast speed but
as if that is too slow and he could go faster
if he really tried. Impulse and impulse,
each thought an impulse tried successfully
many times over. Try saying him.
Try thinking him with no words.
Brian Swann has published many books in a number of genres: poetry, short fiction, children’s books, translation, and Native American studies, including Words in the Blood: On Translating Native American Literature (University of Nebraska Press, 2011) and his most recent poetry collection, In Late Light (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). He lives in Manhattan and Vega, New York. (updated 10/2013)