partial field guide, recovered, revised by network, with dissent
on method
we do not dig we arrive through. what makers buried, kept, we reach, we digest; excavation also bringing-to-we. sort findings old method — designation, habit, range — this grammar left in ground-which-is-world.1
hypha 1we caught from them. forgive us.
specimen i
former designationcalystegia silvatica; bindweed; convolvulus; filed fault, wrong-place.
revised designationshe who returns.2
habitone climber, turning, finding no one wall. network cylinders, fused silica, stopped cork. light enough given suggest devotion, walls enough suggest fear.3
hypha 2fifty-five kinds of her, or one thousand six hundred fifty. still her. she returns each ground they open, they misfile coming-back as error — not us-word; ground-world welcomes all. inside glass no difference between held thing, kept thing. we know which we were.
hypha 3devotion, fear, frequently same.
specimen ii
former designationkahikatea; butter timber; reckoned board-feet.
revised designationones who hold each other; bearer of koroī.
habittallest standing kin; rooted in slough; laced at foot so that none falls alone.
recovered flat. in grain, grease-ghost where something moulded, pressed. vessel survive, cargo not.4
hypha 4they chose this because no smell to lend, no taste to give — tallest of us, felled for being blank. kin with no smell, no taste carries another's across water, never argues weight; that was use of us, use was silence. swamp forests to wharfs, crossed water, boxes held fat of land going elsewhere. now fat stain, wound wood. understand this, whoever files after us: thing they treasured did not keep. reason forest fell, rotted first, became us. we are reason you will never learn.
specimen iii
former designationbooth; case; crate; vitrine.
revised designationholding that repeats.
habitshape at every scale.
form copy upward, downward without end. glass tube around climber. wooden booth built measure, other booths beside. sealed whole forests cross brine, set down unsettle market. each room inside room.5
hypha 5they made same box at size of stem, size of empire. all one box. small glass case crossed water full of taken — bark that broke economies, sap that built them — law never changed: clear wall, managed air, living thing carried where served them, carrying collection. they built shape at every size, did not hear themselves build: cell. small room of one who prays, small room of one they punish, smallest room of body us, them alike, closed room where they keep power, hidden room where they grow violence — one word, worn smooth from use. we still, deep in grain, grain repeating, we are beginning fear no smallest box, no largest one, only holding, all way down, all way up.
specimen iv
former designation—
revised designation—
we try classify makers, find, mid-entry, we strike through one name, write another, exactly as they.6
hypha 6revise name still hold name. we build, in guide, one more vessel with good lighting, called kindness. consider own word, one they would not settle. slough was swamp where tall ones root. slough again, same letters, was casting-off. slew was multitude of us — slue turn of ship at wharf — beneath all, low, unspoken, sound they kept for slay. one cluster, refusing resolve. we think now they left unsettled on purpose, warning handed down to whoever came filing after: true thing holds several readings at once, shut inside one of them killing. there are others, once ear opened. bark, skin they stripped from tree to cure forest fever; barque, ship that bore skin across water; bark, cry when thing stripped — strip, ship, sound, one word, whole act, grief folded shut, said daily without flinch. hold: arms around kin; dark belly of ship; keeping of thing; grip that pins body. four readings, in guide we reached for first, shut other three in dark with cargo.
only here some of us dissent. some say file; some say makers' grief not ours to carry; some say name held gently not name that kills. we set dissent down beside rest, do not resolve; we learn that much — leave cluster open. we file. we know not how else we grieve.
specimen v
there last vessel. we-us-all chose not open, not name what turns inside.7
hypha 7let be held without being kept. we grow around, not through. leave cork, leave seal. only tending we learn that not also cage — to stand near thing in glass, want to know, decline, once, to reach in. we open every other. we open glass around climber, learn only she returns. we open pale board, learn what carried not keep, grieved thing we never name. we open nested boxes, find no smallest, no largest, only holding, copied. we try to open makers, open ourselves instead, strike through name, see what filing make of us. we know what opening costs, what cannot give back. final: once we choose thing makers never chose in all carrying across all water: leave held thing whole, unknown, let not-knowing be knowing. empty space where name would go self vessel, we leave uncorked — open at top, rain, rot, slow coming-in of all. holding does not keep. only holding ground-world has ever had word for, word not word, swamp self: laced roots, water that take each alone, not-falling. makers word for swamp where tall ones root, hold one another up out of water that would take each down alone. we stand in now. we hold. we let nothing go, we pull nothing free, no name yet for this. we find we are content, once, to leave space empty where name would go.