Nanã Buruku's Wetland Cypress (Inhotim) Poem by jia shuixing

reading was safe when everything else was harm -
and the library is now on fire

so then!
egyptian etymology notwithstanding
one is forced to think of the industrious monogamic societies of the north
the eunuch cai lun and friedrich gottlib keller

every single new thing you face
is rot -
and suicidal

but!
glycoside hydrolases are the enzymes involved
in the degradation of the major fraction of biomass.
down here in the tropics the devil is in the microbes!
such as polysaccharides present in starch and lignocellulose

...and on and on and on and in the absence of prairies and complex quiet,
and even if here the land is wet and pulpy,
and dark enough that the soul can face its change in always critical but deeply nurtured flows,
and even as that moist and loamy smell fills up the swamp

you grow hard and dry, if you ever do.
and the words burn.

until you're eaten by the mud and the iron and the spiders