The Mobile Codex

Vincent Hostak

December 10, 2022

It takes two to speak the truth—one to speak and another to hear.

-Henry David Thoreau

Once

the science was simple:

a dugout smelled of yellow pine

From the slip, you paddled out,

body traveling with the mind,

crossed the broadening river to

share stories with your breath and flesh:

“snow’s coming,

your brother is growing ill.”

Then

we shaved the fig tree’s bark

casting loose the sheets of vellum

Still, I brought these bound to you:

folios with scents of fruit,

monographs of laden clouds

that telegraphed the coming frost,

charcoal scrawls

of his head upon the hay.

Now

the atom’s long been split

sending bytes that glow and drift

Nuance unfastened from the freight

keystrokes stumble, meanings shift

the old canoes are moored and still

and my report arrives alone

“#frost is here

 & he called out your name.”

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes & produces the podcast: Crossings-the Refugee Experience in America