ANNE WALDMAN

SKY-GOER

the commentary:

“Kadro” in Tibetan means “sky-goer”. The Sanskrit
term is “dakini” and is understood as a feminine
principle that may appear as a human being, a god-
dess –wrathful or peaceful –or as the play of energy in
the phenomenal world. Tibetan Buddhism speaks of
a language described as the “the secret signs and let-
ters of the dakini”, and another which is a secret code
of tantric terminology referred to as “twilight” lan-
guage. The oral teachings are sometimes referred to as
“dakini’s breath”. An exceedingly symbolic cipher,
many volumes could emerge from very few letters.
Whole teachings are condensed into single seed sylla-
bles and hidden in the earth, in rivers, in trees in
cloud formations, or in the mind of the adept. “In
diamond rocks, in mysterious lakes and unchanging
boxes”, as one description goes. Specific practices
encourage the practitioner to join with the energy of
the dakini and unlock the runes which travel beyond
dualistic boundaries. Suffering is ego’s failure to con-
trol situations to make them “mine” and perpetuates
the fantasy of solid self which is, of course, an illu-
sion. The dakini fearlessly cuts through the static.
She doesn’t own anything. The playful dakini consorts
with you and can turn on a dime if you are too
attached. Fixation is the wrathful dakini. Here out of
hypnogogic poem-sound what might ensue: a game.
A dharma.

the rune:
(secret signs & letters)

agr (bright sky)

ess (fire light)

gra (gratitude)

tu (you)

af (aft)

fin (end)

lo (lo)

kol (close, the rock, the ground))

or spi (the liquid ground)

or spra (lift)

pru (wait, safe)

ec-it (plant it)

gio (almost day)

gyo (glow)

esx (anger)

ttt (pointing anger)

ul! (ultimate anger)

or ist (let go, it is)

mta (mate, matter)

mma (mother matter)

142

or lapst (left)

mya (matter missing)

or

gnb (glib)

or

skv (up, attainment)

dpt (up from shoulder, attainment)

ble (wheat)

stt (stiffen)

oom (more & lifting)

ot (you & I, tears, crystal)


twilight:
(unadorned)

eath ng lo or sca ni xp scre –ish!
su-esc or ill uct ghy nde ow
ng sm av nc s or ro ryf .str
cliu ksh rys me-wa or rsd ch-hee!

images:

(eagle-headed
crow-headed
lion-headed
tiger-headed
buffalo-headed as you could be)
the translation

breath tightens
anger, what is that?
plot?

pearls scatter about the feet
small pearls in which you intuit the universe
contract & expand, many
luminescent eyeballs of fish, see them & many
humans –crystalline - see them
treasures for the mind, prescient, see them, their desires
a thousand pores filled with eyes like glittering stars
seductive glance lift off the page-edge
what I saw in the twilight was
someone reminded me of you
coming toward me
“I” and “other”, stranger
was anger was desire
was stranger anger
was metabolic design of anger’s doom
was wave as in “wave away”
was in trance of yell & push & scream
was a book of many angry eyes
& I in the anger room both fierce & quiet
a story faces a tigress & responds
& she wants to destroy the making of what she loves
declines in narration of all of it ago in a story
way you yourself broke apart, shatter
& crystal is a word for it I wish & let go
came clear of water was loud words of it
& tears down her cheeks in syllables I wish.