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    ALSO BY PATTIANN ROGERS  Quickening Fields Holy Heathen Rhapsody The Grand Array: Writings on Nature, Science, and Spirit Wayfare Firekeeper: Selected Poems, Revised and Expanded Generations Song of the World Becoming: New and Collected Poems, 1981–2001 The Dream of the Marsh Wren: Writing as Reciprocal Creation A Covenant of Seasons Eating Bread and Honey Firekeeper: New and Selected Poems Geocentric Splitting and Binding Legendary Performance The Tattooed Lady in the Garden The Expectations of Light            PENGUIN BOOKS An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC penguinrandomhouse.com Copyright © 2023 by Pattiann Rogers “Essential Electronic Flickering and the Brain” copyright © 2023 by John A. Rogers Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader. This page: J. A. Rogers et al., “Soft, Curved Electrode Systems Capable of Integration on the Auricle as a Persistent Brain–Computer Interface,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 112(13), 3920–3925 (2015). This page: J. A. Rogers et al., “Three-Dimensional, Multifunctional Neural Interfaces for Cortical Spheroids and Engineered Assembloids,” Science Advances 7:eabf9153 (2021). This page: J. A. Rogers et al., “Injectable, Cellular-Scale Optoelectronics with Applications for Wireless Optogenetics,” Science 240, 211–216 (2013). LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Names: Rogers, Pattiann, 1940– author. Title: Flickering / Pattiann Rogers. Description: First. | [New York]: Penguin Poets, [2023] Identifiers: LCCN 2022041770 (print) | LCCN 2022041771 (ebook) | ISBN 9780143137665 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593511787 (ebook) Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry. Classification: LCC PS3568.O454 F65 2023 (print) | LCC PS3568.O454 (ebook) | DDC 811/.54—dc23/eng/20220831 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022041770 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022041771 Cover design and illustration: Kelly Winton Designed by Sabrina Bowers, adapted for ebook by Estelle Malmed pid_prh_6.0_143014498_c0_r0    This book is dedicated to the readers, those in the past, those today, those tomorrow, always into the far future, and dedicated to all writers, the authors, the poets and their words, and the making of the books, editors, printers, publishers, and dedicated to the lyricists, and the listeners listening in audible, in digital, the words spoken out loud or whispered or sung, solo or chorus, or, in silence, the words touched as braille, as well, dedicated to all tenacious words indoors, outdoors in forest shadows, and breezes, and rains, on ocean sands, to the audiences in auditoriums, in chapels, this book is dedicated to all, readers, writers, listeners, and words, Flickering, my book/your book, dedicated forever. * For the Song Delivered and the Moments Left  Once I watched a flame flickering in a fire circled by rocks. It was singing in a melodic, foreign language. The humming cadence of its quiet sizzle sounded occasionally as the flame was swaying, dimming, uttering a soft, breathy click, one castanet tap, then a rush of light, golden and alive with intention. A spark, a tiny sun flew into the night. I watched the gestures, listened to the words, the flame faintly flickering still, becoming smaller, weaker, nearer to earth, transforming itself into a blue pearl shining in ash at the root, not dead, not alive. It shivered once, shook itself into breath and out again into silence and disappeared, and I said I understood everything.    Contents Introduction HOMESPUN Summer Isn’t a Life-Form, Exactly The Skedaddlers: An Overview Of Rivers or Trees? Coyotes, Chicken Hens, and Spring Peepers Lifting the Soles of the Feet to the Sky THE BEST OF BONES From the Beginning Multitudes Decoration, Worship, and Gaming Omnipresent Stories The Extinct, Giant Creatures of North America A Remnant Remember The Oldest Story of the Oldest Story THIS BEAUTY IDEA The Artist The Stance, the Stone Statuette, the Sculptor Keeping Beauty under Control The Knocking The Artist, the Poet: This Beauty Idea The Beauty of Harps and Bells Amiss Stranger and Stranger VORACIOUS Archetype II Making Love with the Gods The Perfect Lover Poverty Celeste, at the Campfire CREATION IN RECOVERY Convalescence Body and Soul and the Other, and the Other The Puzzle of Serenity Never Alone ASSESSING THE SITUATION Assessing the Situation: Breath, Spirit, and Chickadees Light as Condition In Place, In Time and the indivisible universe . . . CREATED IN THE IMAGE Homo sapiens: Creating Themselves I II III Poetry, Science, and the Human Soul Essential Electrical Flickering and the Brain Notes and Poems Acknowledgments  _143014498_  Introduction When I started writing poems for this new collection, I was using the word Flickering as the working title. As time went on, I became quite fond of the word, the look of it, the distinctive sound of it, its carefree music, how it rang at the end and the ringing rang on. Flickering suggested a lighthearted stance and a promise to return. Flickering offers writers wide possibilities. It can function as a verb, an adjective, and an adverb (when it accepts an -ly). It is a common noun and, with variations, can be a proper noun too. Flicker is a bird of the woodpecker family. In the book My Friend Flicka, Flicka is a horse. In addition, flickering offers countless opportunities for functioning as a metaphor. Another advantage of the word flickering is that it instigates happiness in most people when they experience it in action or encounter it in the wide physical world of nature. Why? I’m wondering about this. People call flickering beautiful. It made me happy just to write this list: flickering sunlight on a lake, flickering fireflies, dew flickering on morning grasses, flickering holiday garlands, the gorgeous flickering inside a diamond. Tiny sequins are sewn on clothing so the body can flicker. So what does flickering have to do with the poems in this