“Not on Geological Time,” by Felicia Zamora

Imagine a human body that was mimicking or participating or sympathetic to geological time. The all-time of earth. A human of the earth, born on earth, with biological processes that must be cognizant of earth. Not special among the earth. But special because the earth is present inside her. While she’s looking at a lake. Felicia Zamora’s poem is called “Not on Geological Time” (published in Bennington Review, Issue 12), but she’s looking at lake in summer. Contemplating the different summers that might have visited the lake before, like her visiting the lake now. In summer. Making her heart “clench.” Then it “gapes.” “Did you know you were writing about truth?” Which is what I always want to read about truth. Not so much Truth, in the capital T sense, or maybe that Truth, but only if it’s going to lead me to the feeling of truth. The way truth must bleed through so many different moments and facts around me. MY aorta valve when it “clenches.” MY aorta valve when it soon after “gapes.” Maybe these are geological facts like they are for Zamora. Maybe rational proofs.

But the proof itself isn’t where the truth resides, it’s the momentous feeling when rationality starts gaining speed. It is arriving me to an especially salient moment in the logical proof, and the poetic, “Oh!” that is the feeling when I am bleeding in favor of truth. Zamora’s body, too, bleeding through that aortic valve. And I’m aware the valve is probably not technically bleeding. Is blood pumping bleeding? I’m glad Zamora’s poem doesn’t necessitate me asking that. Because she says it, and it’s so for me. And then she connects the body to the earth’s body, or “landscape.” Or “the silhouette of a mountain range / digs truth in geological time.” Zamora says. Everything’s connected. And these natural facts blend or blur or interlock so naturally, I imagine the blood. The poet’s thinking of her blood. Tracing its circulation. Among all the naturals of nature that she stands among. In summer. Looking out at a summer lake.