22 January 2023

What Does Lizard Know 5

Lizard does not know transformation.

Lizard is transformation.


Lizard not an “element”

Lizard is elemental


Nobody’s "stick" lizard

Not a "type" of design


Lizard knows not "lizard or human"

Lizard thinks blinks time to get real people


Lizard re-calls wetlands shining playas

Sees diked drained fenced clearcut Juniper


Knows the dying the displacing the replacing

Sees Coyote Brother Wolf comings and goings

una idea fija

una leyenda infantil

una desgarradura


el sol

como un gran animal oscuro


no hay más que yo

no hay qué decir


— Alejandra Pizarnik, Los Pequeños Cantos, XIII


...

A fixed idea

a children's story

a tearing


the sun

like a great dark animal 


nothing beyond me

nothing to say 


— trans. Yvette Siebert



NOTES

“Stick Lizard”   Mary F Ricks, 1996, A Survey and Analysis of Prehistoric Rock Art of the Warner Valley Region, Lake County, Oregon. Appendix IV p 156. DB noting: several other lizards as “petroglyphic elements” in this compulsive assemblage of Other.

Types of designs - Lizards — Luther H Cressman, 1937, Petroglyphs of Oregon, p 51.

“Lizard or a human representation” — Julian H Steward, 1929, Petroglyphs of California and and joining states. p 65. (Does not include Oregon. DB noting; Cressman followed Steward’s template as he researched and compiled Petroglyphs of Oregon in 1933-1934, published 1937.