On Floating Bodies The enunciation of the law of buoyancy Rubbed out In fragments --Ambiguous-- Becomes prayer There had been a bone fight -- Ὀστομάχιον But who remembers such allusions? A finger moon? Some pointless pointing? Who can measure the time falling bodies Take to light? Like light, myths are subject to the effects Of time and space And so it is with Henry Archimedes, naked, soaks in a California hot tub It is 1973 He is a black and white photograph from the era of Chemical photography He is in the invasive, blue shade of the Eucalyptus He is in the present tense, yet relaxed, because his real name Is Henry His friends like to call him Archimedes because when he enters A tub of hot water he tends toward buoyancy Especially while drinking wine And Henry always Drinks red wine while soaking Henry is fond of Epicurus All that remains of Henry are some fragments What is remembered most about Henry: He is working ten years on a single poem Little is known or remembered about this poem Scholars suspect it was self-referential Like a hall of mirrors Or a web of cosmic jewels It is a poem about itself -- A poem about poetry It lives in fragments As if washed ashore like a whale -- Becoming whale bones "Whale bones become bone flutes Bone flutes don't fight They live on" Here is a fragment of Henry: "The enunciation of the law of buoyancy Rubbed out In fragments --Ambiguous-- becomes prayer There had been a bone fight But who remembers?"
William Irwin Thompson was an innovator in many ways; mostly, I believe, in his sense of knowing that if there is a problem to solve, an issue to mindfully approach, it needs to be done with a
group containing artists, philosophers, historians, anthropologists, musicians, poets, bricklayers, architects, and more; and I would add now, so many years later, black, yellow, brown people, and
indigenous people. His entire life was a creative work; an amazing person, and now his son follows.
Deeply touched by your piece today...a lover of myth, am I.