week two — floromancy

Gyun Hur + Louise Tate + Danny Gurung

Wednesday, June 9, 2021 at 10:55am

Did you know on the other side of the street across,

That the kudzu ate red bank, that part people call god’s land?

Did you know kudzu came from near where we come from?

So it will survive alright

As we have.

And maybe

The kudzu will eat up the entire South

With its healing touch as the miracle vine

And maybe then,

Your red Iris won’t cry no more,

We will weave us garments with thousands of hearted-leaves and Dickey’s kudzu flowers on our heads.

And surely then,

We won’t cry no more.

- Gyun Hur

*Views from Pueblo, Colorado. Photo: Danny Gurung*

Somewhere between waking and walking, the fever breaks. We’re in the car like we were when I was a kid. We’re in the car like we were when it all went wrong the first time. But the way is smooth. Two hours stretch themselves over the highway and into the hills. I curl up across the middle seat and close my eyes, willing myself back to nowhere.

When I wake it’s quiet. Maybe someone’s talking but their words catch on the wind. Through the window is the world, the place the pilgrims once prayed themselves to. Everywhere around us America unfurls. Summer has yet to bake the greens into brown. But the light is harsh and clear. Notice how the neighbourhoods burrow themselves into the landscape, like mites, how the houses cling to grass they didn’t grow from. It takes such effort to live, even more to dream.

This town is new. No that’s not true, we’ve driven through it before. It’s hotter here down south. The architecture is Spanish. The train station is historic. There’s a rattle in the air. Kids and their parents splash in the fountain trying to find refuge. They’re so happy. Or if not happy then present, focused only on the rush of water and the ripples their hands make.

One day the wandering will make sense. It will have been worth it. Dad keeps driving even though we’re late. There’s something he has to show us. The ground is dry and cracked. The sky is flat and just glad to be blue. They say millionaires are buying land down here for when the world ends. The road spins and ends. We climb from the car and find ourselves at the top of a lookout. The world is a postcard. From up here nothing matters.

We stumble into June. The days grow so long it feels like a beautiful joke when the sun finally sets. This has been a year of dragging knuckles and waiting out the end but it looks like we’re back to believing again. Nowhere to rest. It’s been a long time since I made a wish. But it’s dark so why not? Like a firework in the night, the choice is made. It might take a lifetime to come true.

- Danny Gurung

She stands on the edge, hopeful.

Chapped skin, licking lips

And wondering.

A woman;

A colossal and urgent feeling;

A loosely unravelling yearning.

The view from her luminous island

Is sunny, windy

And wild.

Buoyant, she lingers –

Light and weightless –

Her hunger, for a moment, abated.

- Louise Tate