Miles would go into temporary retirement before the end
Of 1975, citing health problems, drugs, booze, and spiritual
exhaustion. But as this last document before the break suggests,
he was also at the end of a musical cycle. Having brought so
many strains together with this busy sometimes noisy, sometimes
relentless band, he returned to that quality for which he’s always
been celebrated: his use of space and silence. For five years, as
listeners everywhere waited for his next note, Miles chose silence.
–Kevin Whitehead
Liner notes from Pangaea
1.
Words collapse into movement.
Collisions of purpose.
Seashell mountains. Shallow sea on the brain. Bitter protozoan pools. Fractured lives.
Room for all. Nameless together. Shift together in namelessness. Drifting apart. Shifting plates atop mantle. Drifting amnesiac world that does not fit.
Sun’s unfiltered poisonous rays. Crusts of Algae scum. Slow amoebic waves. Bubbling magma of words. Pushing and scraping underneath. Movements across hemispheres. Past sediments in amnesiac trenches. Word movements across many hemispheres. Grunting. Eroding. Magma movements.
rub rub rub
Joints cracking. Stinking Smoking choking movements.
Constant drift.
Not quite perfect fit beneath our surface. Why words collapse into amnesia.
Imperfection begets movement.
Blind purpose. Undertow. Blind to what moves them.
Imperfect feelings about ourselves. Consonant chaos. Drifting apart to assemble. Fifty million inches from now.
rub rub rub
Drifting together.
Don’t crowd.
Pre-Cambrian
Can’t stop us.
Sudden sparks of life. Possibility of purpose. Equatorial Eden of creeping feelings. Stimulating poisonous sun. Nameless in smoky hemispheres. Separate fools of land. On plates of imperfect consciousness. Hence the word movements to anywhere. Tectonic titans of rock are we.
rub rub rub
Leading to rubble.
Imperfection begets movement. Pushed by word magma. Drifting farther and farther apart. For a purpose.
To meet.
To come together.
Purpose of a surface existence. This movement of words.
To be one.
A plot of earth.
Maybe as we once were.
Before being moved by words. Always seeming to start over.
No one remembers.
2.
Rubbing. Scraping. Shaping.
Through ejecta and haze. Finding outlines of others. Overcoming waters. Don’t crowd.
Movements father than words spoken. Older by the inch. Emotional sparks in all hemispheres.
But what moves us (asked Antarc)
Who is speaking down there (asked Eury)
Asi does not turn at the sound of a voice behind but feels something creep beneath the shelf.
We weren’t properly introduced (said Asi)
You’re Asi (said Eury)
You’re Eury (said Asi)
Cementing word movements. Nameless no more.
What happened up there (asked Austral)
Backed into a relationship (cracked Antarc)
Like us (said Austral)
We’ve been side by side since the haze lifted (said Antarc)
How do you explain it (demanded Austral)
Hurrying up to position ourselves (said Antarc)
Eury and Asi. Knitted spinal mountain. Blind only to each other.
You will never tire of my beauty (said Eury)
Punished by never seeing it (said Asi)
Antarc quakes sardonically.
We will all be joined (said Tethys)
Why (asked Antarc)
A matter of when (said Tethys)
Tethys closes in beside Eury and Asi.
All of us meant to be together (proclaimed Asi)
What moves us toward each other (asked Eury)
Our wanting to be together (answered Tethys)
Not I (said Antarc)
Who doesn’t (asked Asi)
Someone who can’t stop it (said Tethys)
Antarc measures the word movements above. They might be going somewhere.
How close are the others (asked Eury)
Afri, Pantag, and Indi glide southward.
Close enough to want to be closer (said Tethys)
3.
What about me (cried Indi)
Afri and Pantag creep toward Antarc and Austral. Miles of earth crushed underneath. Memories rubbed in Tethys closes on Eury. Asi continues to look away. Calm of concern. Sandwiched, Eury doesn’t like the arrangement but has no say.
Magnificent magma pushed me here (said Tethys)
We don’t know what we are doing (said Antarc)
How can you say that (said Austral)
We’re being taken (said Antarc)
What does Antarc know down there (said Tethys)
Afri swivels and corkscrews its landmass toward chilly Antarc. Afri’s curves, its magnificent cape, distract Antarc. Antarc can’t say what it sees. Mating ritual of swerve and avoidance. Can’t fight attraction. Sudden purpose clouds Antarc’s thoughts. Get closer to Afri. Cementing thoughts.
What about me (asked Indi)
Antarc contemplates Afri’s approach. What moves Antarc to feel something for Afri. Their lands rub rub rub. Collision of caresses.
Still friends (Austral asked)
Side by side we have drifted forever (said Antarc)
Why had Antarc not seen Afri earlier? All the wasted movements. They now drift together. Irresistible desires. A slide southward. Embraced. Afri tilts eastward to avoid the cooler air. Gorges fold upon themselves. Love within their grasp. More tightly Antarc embraces.
Indi rushes into Afri and breaks Antarc’s grip.
Where have I been (asked Indi)
Fool (said Antarc)
We’re supposed to be together (said Indi)
Afri and I were together (said Antarc)
We three are together (said Afri)
I am more a part of you (said Antarc)
Not as much as Asi was a part of Eury (said Indi)
Did I ask you (said Antarc)
Afri and I share more shelf (interjected Pantag)
Afri’s mine (said Antarc)
What does Afri say (said Pantag)
We are all together (said Afri)
Antarc sees Afri’s coastline of affection rotate onto Pantag. Perhap Antarc had rolled too far southward.
I imagined us as lovers (said Antarc)
Pantag, Afri, Antarc, Indi, and Austral become more firmly bonded. Less caressed. More rubbing. Finally grinds to a halt. In their own time and way, Tethys, Eury, and Asi unite and drift together southward.
You captured me (said Antarc)
You overestimated the pull (said Afri)
Antarc desires renewed caresses, not touches blown cold.
You didn’t see Pantag (said Austral
I could have avoided Afri if I had known I was not really wanted (said Antarc)
You just happened to be there (said Austral)
Don’t crowd (said Antarc)
Why will you not want me (asked Austral)
We have always been attached (said Antarc)
Pantag purrs below. Movements slow. North and south lamds close in Blind to what slows them.
4.
Paleozoic
A brighter world takes shape.
If you really look, Antarc, you and Afri aren’t so tight (said Austral)
If only I wasn’t drawn to Afri’s long shelf (said Antarc)
You’ll forget (said Indi)
It’s your fault (said Antarc)
I didn’t separate you from her (said Indi)
Afri’s still there (said Austral)
Indi distracted her from me (said Antarc)
I couldn’t help arriving when I did (said Indi)
Did Asi send you (said Antarc)
Afri lurches, quakes, grinds, roars atop Pantag. The continentally inflected pair rub rub rub in deep troughs of pleasure. Pantag hauls its lower horn beneath Afri and grazes Antarc’s lower shelf. Antarc deeply aches with love’s lost caress and feels the mantle giving, crunching.
Then pretends to be apart from Gondwana. Ignores its billion years-long attachment to Austral. Its land sinks slightly. Ignores Pantag’s and Afri’s geologically tantric grinds. Ice accumulates tremendously on Antarc’s brow. Weight of Gondwana keeps Antarc from the sun’s warmer rays. Longer nights.
Stationary agony. Frosted hell. Afri remains a blank slate of mind toward Antarc. Gondwana rubs wrongly Antarc’s want of caress.
5.
Tethys Eury, and Asi drift toward the others. Imperfection begets unity, oneness, purpose. To exclude and evade the seas. Together for how long?
A glorious time has come (said Tethys)
We always knew it would be (said Eury and Asi)
Antarc wants to lose them. Austral like a chip on its shoulder. The magma of words trickles inside Antarc where it cannot be seen.
Won’t Antarc join us in our celebration (said Eury)
And spoil the occasion (said Tethys)
Antarc will drag us under (said Pantag)
Leave us then (said Asi)
I would if I could.
What about me (asked Indi)
Antarc’s always unhappy (said Pantag)
Since you stole Afri (said Austral)
Afri came to me (said Pantag)
How do you know Antarc’s unhappy (asked Eury)
I heard its cries in our earliest basaltic dreams (said Pantag)
What does Pangaea mean? That I have to listen to insults? Triumphant philosophers. We move, therefore, we speak about purpose. They think that the seas have retreated, that seas fear our movements, that seas can be forgotten, that seas will never rise again and swamp this dream. Happiness as Pangaea. On a side of life we cannot see lies remorseless oceans.
Can we let Antarc take us any further south (asked Pantag)
What do they know? They see a hemisphere of untied continents. I stick to silent Afri, intruding Indi, foolish friend Austral. I know nothing else. They are smart not to follow my track. I have no purpose. Most unrequited track. Worse than Afri neither loving nor leaving me. I blame Pantag for taking Afri’s mind off me. But I will not abandon or love Austral. I say to them to ignore my blank messages of immobility.
Less Pangaean than Gondwanan.
Less Gondwanan than Antarc.
Less Antarc than Afri’s lover.’
Less Afri’s lover than former aimless drifter.
Less aimless drifter than aimless quiescent.
Loaded with an ice desert. Beyond earth’s imperfectly constructed surface. Undertow minimized down here. Fewer faults. Uncrowded form above.
Mesozoic
The sun less potent here. Ferns and brute animals fossilized in glaciers. We are all
terminally inert.
Pangaea lords the supremely fulfilled. Continents pray to what moved them to this final resting place. Do they dare resist satisfaction? At the butt of Gondwana, can Austral be pleased with its destiny?
Do they wonder what moves me when plate and surface do not budge?
All I do is regurgitate old sediments into new thoughts. Tracks in my imagination are sole witness to an existence.
6.
No entrances or exits from Pangaea.
Some straining from Tethys, Eury, and Asi. Gondwana’s quiet.
Why should they move? This is what they wanted.
Keep me under. Tight to the surface. Plate stuck to the mantle.
More tugging. Magma sputters. Renewed movements? Or had they never ceased?
What is so suddenly wrong with this hundreds of millions of years arrangement?
I could tell them, only I am stuck in thought. Purpose wears thin. On a bedrock of platitudes I now reside.
Will they tell me I was right? That we weren’t made for a purpose? Especially this purpose of being together?
Tethys, Eury, and Asi cannot help themselves. The plates are fitted for separations as well as for coming together. No continent wants to believe it. Will Tethys find new resolve to understand why we must be apart?
We will come together anew, don’t fret (Tethys told Eury and Asi)
They drift from Gondwana and can think what they want. Go and try again. Make new oceans. Lug yourselves around the earth. I will stay here. Rest on my errors. Looking up on all sides. No longer delude myself about Afri. Stop playing their continental kaleidoscope.
7.
Tethys, Eury, and Asi abandon Pangaea for good. They always had their own arrangement at heart. Pantag will not give up Afri. Or is it the opposite. Why do I care? What were they or any of the others to me?
Happy now (shouted Tethys)
Just want Antarc wanted (said Pantag)
They find voices when Pangaea no longer matters. I never wanted their dream of having purpose.
I used to advance two or three inches a year. Now ice accumulates and depresses my land more cruelly. Suspended beneath everyone, I wish to let go and drop into space. Into and through the blue.
It’s Antarc’s fault Pangaea’s breaking up (said Eury)
Antarc refused to move (said Asi)
Indi frees itself. Jettisons toward Asi. As if to defend my honor.
At last, Afri breaks contact and veers toward Eury, though still stuck to Pantag.
Indi heads for Asi’s belly. Continental sucker punch.
Austral remains at my side. Speechless. Bitter as a glacier. Unlucky as Pantag is lucky. Strangely less burdened as I with the depressing ice.
Must you leave us (Pantag called out)
We will join you later (said Tethys)
We will crush Antarc later for destroying our happiness (said Eury and Asi)
So, I am wrong to be right. Wrong not to believe in Pangaea. Think ice throttles my laughter at their threats. Choking on the mere idea of a new arrangement. The new purpose becomes…revenge against Antarc. A billion years to dwell on it. Or will they forget why they have drifted to avoid me?
Afri’s nearly out of sight. Plates inexorably rub rub rub. Occasional forgotten caresses. When? Occasionally slowed to a whisper. That was Pangaea. A good moment of silence, relief, and contentment. For someone. Now the magma flows. Shouts from Tethys: HERE WE GO. Regain momentum. Flows through the cracks. Only I won’t crack up.
Unmovable Antarc waits. Listens to the arrangement. Other continents flow to new hemispheres.
Even Austral leaves.
All must go apart.
Time to measure the silence.
Cenozoic
—
Robert Castle has an author’s site at www.amazon.com/author/robert_
