What spontaneously ignites on exposure to air?
What is the name of my first born?
Who eats of the earth’s crust?
The grunion would run that night between 3 and 5 AM, the Los Angeles Times reported
The water flashed and flickered. Clouds of small silver fish flung themselves into the air lighting up the waves
People went to watch, or stood close to the water’s edge to scoop them up with buckets
I begged to go. I knew where to find the grunion-run schedule in the LA Times, next to the moon phases and tide tables
Three or four nights after the highest tide that accompanies each full or new moon, the grunion come to spawn for one to three hours. They return each night following high tide between February and September. It only happens in Southern California and Baja.
No one would agree to take me. It would be the middle of the night.
They come in on waves and swim against outflowing waves to strand themselves, blanketing the beach in kinetic glitter. By flinging their bodies side to side the females half-bury themselves in holes in the sand. Joining them, males cause them to release their eggs into the holes.
I was a body surfer too. I rode the waves into shore with skillful precision, my technique honed by years of practice in the same Pacific. No wave was too big or frightening if caught correctly
Glint of the imagined, entrained by a word, memory that is not, ignited by the full moon
White
(toxic) phosphorus appears as a waxy solid. Contact
with skin can cause severe burns
It glows in the dark and is spontaneously
flammable when exposed to air
Light bearer God of the morning star Venus
Expose white
phosphorus to sunlight and non-toxic red phosphorus appears
White
and yellow-white phosphorous are highly toxic
Touched by sun humans too are sent into molt
Phosphorus was first isolated from human urine. Bone ash was an important early source. Phosphate mines contain fossils because phosphate is present in the fossilized deposits of animal remains and excreta.
Exposed
to the ear the unseen appears rises from deposits of etymological excreta
“Grunion” calls phosphorus -- phosphorus invokes memory of the never seen
Brandt kept his discovery secret, thinking he
had found the Philosopher’s Stone that could turn base metals into gold. When
he ran out of money, he sold his secret to Daniel Kraft who exhibited it around
Europe
The white phosphorous tips of the first matches emitted poisonous fumes
What are sources of light that aren’t fire or electricity? --memory shard, red tide-- nocturnal radiances
I saw blue waves glow and break on the night beach. A species of plankton who swim in clusters emit flashes of light when disturbed by waves
I saw the child switch on the light for the 1st time –I saw her realize she could make light
No one can live without it. Phosphorus forms the sugar-phosphate backbone of DNA and RNA. It facilitates energy transfer in cells as part of ATP, and is found in many other biologically important molecules. We take in about 1 gram of phosphate a day. Our bones and teeth are mainly calcium phosphate
Carried on the backs of comets to the early earth, it is concentrated in the earth’s crust
Babies who eat dirt
Conception a spontaneous combustion, organ lantern
I have never seen the grunion run
Light transported on the back of light
A bright memory of the never seen
What makes you look then shortens your life?
What fire burns without flame?
Tiresias’ riddle exposed to Rumplestiltskin’s question. A noun is a light to see by. A word a net that catches.
Childhood beach Pythia brightest element a crossroad
Before the word phosphorous the grunion run waited for the word phosphorous to arrive
The element that Illuminates the beyond-words --the exact moment to catch a wave right before it pummels you, a second after it arrives- a learned precision—and the smooth thrill of the ride into shore -- flecks of white foam break and spark
March 2025
Gevirtz works with Prison Renaissance and Operation Restoration as a writing mentor to incarcerated people. She has collaborated with many sound, visual and performance artists. In 2004 she and Siarita Kouka, Greek poet/restorer of maritime antiquities, founded the Paros Symposium, an annual translation and conversation meeting of Greek and Anglophone poets. With Kouka and guest organizers Helen Dimos, Eleni Stecopoulos and others, the Symposium has met since 2004. She is based in San Francisco.
the
Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan
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