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The Sensation of Bamboo by William Doreski The sensation of bamboo lingers. Years ago in a river delta huge bamboos lofted overhead, supporting a sky so infested with helicopters no one looked up, no one understood the clatter except as a cruel alternative to speech. The bamboo felt cold, defying the tropical heat to reconstruct its identity in the privacy of its roots. It abandoned its crown to the roar of machinery, cries of women burning in their tracks. It severed at the finger-joints, rheumatoid, and dropped huge logs across my path to remind me whoever I was. Now in frozen New Hampshire the angles at which roofs meet snow-light exclude a tropical point of view but enable the interior cold of bamboo to emerge in the palms of my hands. Not that I want to remember the feel of bamboo, the screams of dismembered children, the grunt of bullet in flesh; but bamboo insists on remembering me. The snow-light’s tough enough to exclude black helicopters and jet fighters quarreling faster than sound. I feel almost safe except for the bamboo flowing through my fists, and the sensation that my roots are growing deeper than absolute chill should allow. |
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