[Happy fall to all. It feels subversive to wish happiness to anyone right now. Which means, to me, it is all the more important to wish it. The intercessors are abuzz at present — that much is for sure. In the past two odd weeks I have been well in the thick of things. “Things” being this new world of submission. Submitting my work, that is, to people and presses who have not specially requested it. I have already received back one yes, for a small six-liner glint of a piece, which will appear in print. My larger manuscript is getting sent around. All the while I am following the sage advice of “Be not too happy when receiving a yes, so as to be not too down upon receipt of a no.” I have no doubt these words will find their way wherever they will, just as well as where they won’t. Every yes, every no, is an invitation. Is great! Reception and redirection (which itself is a reception of a kind). The most interesting “hurdle” has been the famed gatehouse guardian, “first serial rights”. Of course, many manuscript contests require this. However, many journals and magazines also require this. Each publication wants to be the first to debut a piece of writing. Exclusivity until release. First serial rights as a rule makes intuitive sense to me when it is about first ISBN, or first appearance in print (and many are this). A few I have encountered expand “first serial” to include personal websites as well. Which is to say, some of the Missives I had hoped to submit to certain magazines are prohibited from such submission. A redirection! This means, then, that I am to submit pieces which I am expressly not permitted to share here prior to their being published elsewhere. It would feel wrong to withhold a Missive, when a core part of this project has always been releasing the missives as soon after receiving them as possible. Fortunately, I have already had one piece come through which is decidedly not a missive, and yet is in a family with them. The distinguishing detail seems to be whether the first line is entirely capitalized (and thus a Missive) or not (and thus…something else—which is permitted to be reserved for other venues of publication)! What a strange, strange game this all is~] Received 10/21/24 | 1:02 am
Listen to the Recitation:
INTERCESSORY PROCESSORY
"PROCEED" says the Accessory
Every angel is accessory, to one's plight
Condemned in damnationfeld, illustrious
In the canopy of carollery sings a squirrel
Chippering away at the trance of time
Telling tales to terns to turn away from task
Of winter's preparation. Harvest the golden
Wilting leaves, falling crisp upon brim
A low-turned wire's emburrowing bray
The catch of the day, reeling tight and taught
To be wary, oh so wary of the dimdark daze:
The aftermath of intercession
Dazed and downtrodden, as if admonished
When lifted, when praised — receive it!
The fox is not hunted, nor is it hunting;
Listen to its austere cry, a lynx is watching
Calmly from the thin border of trees, behind
A meadow field golden dry, waving wind
Lifting seedy burrs onto firm breeze, gusting
Gales and ganders to some unseen dawn
Lighting just now the field beyond next
Turning the wilted dead grains purple, orange
In the rising peachy lotus dawnlight, yes
The lynx vanishes, before the fox can
Turn to see it — nothing sees a lynx without
Its wanting them to see it. The permission to see
Is a great gift. To see and be unseen, seen only
As you wish to be seen, when one wishes it
The antennae tufts ought not be plucked —
How else to know before knowing?
Leave the hairy accessory, before you lose
Power to grim dalliance, no alliance
To your own becoming become,
To no one else's linger, to no unkindly stare
Turn off the fear that is cast upon you, this
Estrangement is not yours, it does not belong
To you, belong to yourself, to the cold wood,
To the crisp fallen meadow, to the first freeze,
To the deep frost, encasing in crystal the crops
Unharvested, left to break down and feed the earth
We feed the earth, with every step send down
Nutrients, of our soul; warmth, of our spirit inkindled
Glory, cry out in prayer
Intercede on your own behalf
Pray again, on your one beholden path
God, oh God, lead me now,
Lead me to next.
