Month: November 2012

If I die today,

the unborn daughter stays in my cells

and books not written

lose their grip

and all the cakes I never baked

remain uneaten.

 

My sister’s baby never lived

to meet its aunt,

the tragic travelling

never happens, the plane flies

without this passenger,

the closet has boxes

that someone else will toss.

 

The liquid light

will fizzle forward,

and a few tears drip into the dirt.

 

The deep intertwinings

stop flashing as the dendrites cool,

the cells no longer flicker,

the belief in a web

disappears;

the pulse of tides is unaltered

except by immeasurable entropy.

I want someone else to say

what a good girl,

what a bright light,

what a lovely sweet presence

… or to hear it in my soul

so completely

that there is no room for cold.

 

I am looking to be seen

as if the mirrors

could capture the sun

and intensify my need for warmth

until the heat

annihilates my centre.

 

Both visions there,

the beauty and the hag reflected back,

the clutching hand, the one extended,

compassion in the tears that see

there is no seeing,

the mirrors are a shield

and a barrier to living,

a shiny protection

against the stark and vibrant desert.

 

The peasant woman wears black

and seems old

and might be wise

but is certainly afraid.

She points to the very narrow door,

speaks a terrified warning

as if it’s a secret:

there is someone screaming behind that.

 

She urges me to flee

and so I do,

but tell her it’s a horse behind that door,

the screaming isn’t human.

We run through narrow streets,

she with her old ways,

a dark kerchief,

a dour panic.

 

Behind me is a man I used to know,

cynical, friendly under other circumstance,

but today he clutches his daughter,

his little girl clinging to his chest,

hiding her eyes from the danger.

 

He is angry at the woman who leads us,

gives her an animated finger,

sprints past with his precious burden.

 

So I am last in line

through narrow streets,

through old gates and swinging doors,

all rotting,

and the dark wind finds me first,

blows dread through each of us

with cold penetration.

 

But it does not stay;

the black cloud blows through fastest of all,

out through the corridors

to whatever lies beyond.

 

And maybe with dread gone on ahead

there is time before the crumbling

to turn back alone

and listen to the screamer.

There is no thorn in my foot,

for which I am grateful,

but a dozen or more small prickles

make walking hard

… this is the season for soaking my skin,

drawing out the miniscule wounds,

inviting new cells to play at healing.

 

This day is for wallowing,

sand or water no matter,

and I can even answer the phone

without a hint of crazy unglue

or sounds of labour.

 

Like a doula at my own birth

I warm the water,

invite my nakedness at all levels,

create a warm humidity for waiting.

 

These contractions are the waves of my undoing,

the ripples of my nature moving through;

discomfort, yes, and pain,

and a willingness to ride a tide I don’t control.

The choice was set in motion long ago;

the soul-friends watch with noses at the glass

but this is mine to do,

and none can birth this for me,

and even I can do nothing

but surrender.

Heal the being with that precious name

so that the nameless god-one can dance here,

can rumpus in this body,

cause a ruckus with this life

in unexpected tastes and colours.

 

Let the story of the body-holder shift,

draining away like unnecessary nectar

or draughts of wine past its prime;

flow, story, move downstream to make peace

with your own currents,

drip into the land that you feed

on your way to the ocean.

 

The ocean has need of this body,

present in this place.

The body moves to catch the ocean

as it falls over the desert

in cooling drops of sustenance.

 

Drink, body, drink to quench your sky-thirst,

knowing that the water

is your own,

knowing that the story will flow again

and the empty body wake to feel the dew.

 

Damn right I am hiding,

putting myself in plain view

under this cheerful shrug,

these tolerant wrinkles

… unwilling to clasp hands

for a communal dive off the cliff,

unwilling to cackle in public

or cause the sharp disillusionment of innocents.

 

This prickle-bush is not barren;

there are berries hanging

not in easy reach,

the tasting will leave scars

or at least deep scratches

from ungentle thorns.

This kind of luscious

is not poison

but will hurt,

and is kept out of the reach of children,

even grown ones.

 

This creative burn

is not just pubis,

not just throat

or a kick in the belly,

but ear-tips

and trapped breath

and tears stored in thighs

that could have shed them long ago

but held them closed.

This hunger is not just for younger men,

or former selves,

or future or past breasts

or hair or slippery baldness;

not just for different kinds of cream

and salt and indulgence

and raw paring down;

not just for moans

and temple bells

and boys planting laughter on the lawn

and the unspeakable volume of tsunamis.

 

This fear is shared,

known in every language,

first cousin to the soccer mom

who may deny the kinship;

it is the growling solitary wail

of the liberated predator,

the shaking in the night

that visits us all.

 

Our feathers and rattles at feast-time

are useless to drive it away,

but sometimes work to usher it close,

find room for warmth near the coals.

Dangerous lives,

these quiet ones who

steep their feelings

like tea, untasted

and stored deep,

brewing at a low simmer,

 

until the pungent odour wafts

– no, it assails the room,

a chemical chess game

where all the moves

involve surrender.

 

A dozen knitted tea cozies

and proper gloves

and all the tea in China

can’t prevent the rising heat

from wanting to be sipped,

sucked out of the saucer,

lapped and fully tasted.

 

This the aromatic call,

the scented unintentional plea,

the secret flavour

blended over hidden fire.

 

Hot tea can burn,

numbing any hope of satiation.

With breath inside my breath,

I nod to all the teachers

who live inside me;

their flexible minds, lithe bodies and ambrosia hearts

move me in ways I cannot move

but do,

even if the mirror can’t capture my tiny shifts.

 

They love me,

even the ones I’ve never met,

and I cherish their sweet and sour nourishment.

And because I am wiping the sleep from my eyes,

their voices are mine,

and not,

and their sufferings mark my story,

and mine are known to them.

 

The words have been found before

and tossed around

and discarded for the sake of other kinds of honour.

The flash of kinship beneath them,

the dendrite of recognition,

lives on.

I don’t want to pray for the unlovely,

the known mess,

a tangle of threads

complex and impervious.

 

I prefer ladies in distress

who live far away,

or hang from clean turrets,

prefer the noble trees

in other backyards

that need protecting,

the land-worshippers in foreign places

who do not wander my streets

looking for a lost home.

 

I pray for my brothers around the globe

and hesitate to mention

the knotted dirty fur

of my own black sheep.

 

Prayers have power,

these worded and wordless thoughts

attracting flies to my sweet knife,

and oh! I have been stingy

with the sharing,

waiting for something other than flies

to feed.

What is a spell

if not a lightening rod

for yearning,

a vessel for collecting

the energy of ages,

an envelope for carrying

the meeting place of tendrils?

 

Distilled wordlets

bathed in vision

simmered in wisdom

poured into being

to quench a waiting thirst.

 

The bustling matron

pauses in the line,

readying herself to hear

from shaman,

or wizardess or oracle or priest,

not dusty words by rote,

but her own electric destiny.