sorry, jesus, for letting you down

sorry jesus for letting you down
when the world turned voracious
on the teeth of dishonesty
cruelty and love proclaimed
behind hands with fingers crossed
the heart you bestowed broke
finally it could take no more
in a sidereal year of midnight
lit by prayer's occasional flare
it beat its last pulse of goodness
expiring on a bed soft as arctic brine
tasting of tears, bitter vintage
from the remains of broken dreams
the sleeper once attempted
to build in a promised garden
only to unearth the lie of love

Futebol Star

Her seven-league boots
leaping yards, running the pitch,
she is the beautiful game

Rain on the Glacier

Troubled sleep fractured by thunderstorms and restless mind, it is no good thing to roll around on the sheets under the grey smear of a streetlight sky. The clocks may be digital, but that does not prevent them ticking too loud as to keep one awake. It was enough to make one run into the street, clothed in nothing more than swirling leaves and a coat made of anxiety.

It was rain on the glacier. Dark, cold, wet. Things to be avoided, yet here they were wrapped around my throat. I laid still, hoping it would go away.

A few hours later, and it was time to get up and make some sense of the day. Sense making is no easy task without defined goals, a sense of purpose and a job. I had none of those. The rain saw fit to make sure of it. Looking out the window, I saw the door to the shed flapping in the breeze, another incomplete task dropped from the colander of my mind.

It was the third day in a row I had forgotten to go shut and lock the door.

Not to be too pessimistic, but that seemed the story of my life, staring as I was out the window at the grey oppression of the sky. One long unfinished task, another episode of wasted potential. Chronic, it is. The contemplation of it left me in a sour mood, a brown study as the old-timers might say.

I thought once again of Bouvet Island, the most remote place in the world. Claimed by Norway, inhabited by no one, home to seals and birds, and I wondered if there might be a place for me in that stark ecosystem. Perhaps I, like the seals and penguins, could learn to live on krill and ice water. Brutal and harsh, maybe, but simple and and beautiful in own way.

The sun came out late in the day, the white gold light of which inspired me to grab my pinhole film camera and leave the house in search of inspiration in what ultimately proved to be an abortive attempt to capture the fading glory of the day. I forgot a crucial piece of equipment and the light went before I would have been able to go get the piece. I shivered in the cold breeze, and returned home empty handed.

I daydreamed about Bouvet on the drive home, then reckoned it was too grim a prospect for me to dwell upon. The sun faded back behind the clouds as I pulled into the drive. Late fall and anxious thoughts had there claws in me, I knew. I cast about the house for some relief, and found it in the form of cooking dinner.

The rain continued to fall upon the glacier, but I chopped, stirred and tasted until the umbrella unfurled, and I found myself warm in the heart of home.

Afternoon, On The Road

Feet treading brown leaves
Traveler smiles, not alone:
Shadow and hawk's cry

That From Which The People Grow Their Bones

Sunset over the sea painted Tulimak's face in soft shades of salmon and peach.  It was cold but not unpleasant on the ridge line overlooking the water.  Small gauzy puffs of smoke marked the cook fires being kindled  below in the settlement.  The old shaman rocked back on his haunches, breathing deep and filling his lungs with salt tang and cedar.  The corners of his mouth lifted, the cracked leather of his lips bending in a smile.  It was good, he thought, to breathe so clean an air on his last day on earth. 

A black-backed gull hovered on the wind almost level with Tulimak's head.  The gull studied the human with a beady eye.  The shaman returned the seabird's gaze, grunting a low greeting to what would soon be a fellow traveler.  Soon, the shaman reminded himself, if he had marked his days properly and according to the lore handed down to him by the great Uqalik. Uqalik the Great, who himself had given his body to the earth so that the tribe would know and be reborn.  Tulimak smiled again as his fingers absent-mindedly touched the totem hanging on the sealskin thong tied about his neck. 

The totem was yellowed bone, taken from a mighty elk many summers ago and carved into the shape of a hare.  The shaman drifted into reverie, a waking hallucination of the day Uqalik had given the totem to Tulimak, on the great man's last day on earth; before Uqalik walked into the forest to dissolve into the earth.  Through the oculus of his mind's eye, Tulimak watched the broad back of the man recede into the green shadows, becoming smaller and smaller until finally the man had disappeared and in his place stood a large hare.  The hare turned to stare at Tulimak, the marbles of its eyes glossy black in the twilight.  It sniffed twice before turning back around to lope into the cedars.

Tulimak understood that on that day, he was no longer an ordinary man.  The totem had grown warm in his hand as if to signal the transfer of power.

The old man would have continued to dream had it not been for a cough behind him.  The dream cedars wavered and faded.  The cold air of the approaching night stung the shaman's cheeks.  His blocky head, which many in the tribe compared to an iceberg, swiveled on a neck corded with sinew as he turned to consider the young apprentice, Anuniaq, waiting for him a few paces away.  Tulimak smiled and beckoned the young man closer.  He reached into his anorak and pulled out a small, intricately carved bone flute.  Anuniaq's eyes widened at the sight of it.  Tulimak spoke.

"This flute is now yours, Seeker.  It is time for me to return to the earth, to dance with the hare and the raven.  Do you understand, boy?"

Anuniaq swallowed, too nervous to speak.  He nodded his head.

"Good," the shaman said.  "I go now to the cedars and the stones.  Remember me in the season of new life, when the rivers run high.  Remember me, so that the tribe may remember the earth."  Tulimak turned away before the lad could say anything, striding unhurriedly but with purpose towards the waiting cedars.  As he approached the trees, the transformation begin.  His skin slid over his bones, forearms and thighs shortening and bending.  He fell to all fours.  His fingers began fusing together, the nails dissolving into sharp black claws.  Speech slipped away on a lengthening jawbone, cracking and popping.  His new muzzle felt heavy, but good.

Tulimak grunted as he slipped away into the feathery shadows under the gently waving fronds of cedar. He did not look back at Anuniaq, who had brought the flute to his lips. The faint strains of the bone flute bade the wolf-man farewell. Tulimak sped into the forest and the soil closed in around him.  The music would be different in the next cycle when the mineral earth cast him up, wearing a new skin to call home.

Anuniaq played on under a sky gauzy with aurorae, slowly making his way down the hill.  The flute grew warm in his hands.  His heart was full of the earth, sky and sea, complete and eternal.

Sitting Beside The Tracks, Waiting. The Crickets Hum.

I'm here.  Not doing much, but I'm here.  Good thing I brought a hat.  The November sun hits low in the cool air, but it can still burn me.  I am waiting beside the tracks for the train whose number I do not know.  I suppose I'll sit here a spell and wait for the shadows to lengthen over the hill.  A tunnel bores through the hill like a wide-open vein.

---

Metaphorically, you understand.  The reality is that I am sitting on my couch.  Sundown was three hours ago.  the quiet in the house is just what I need.  I'm a little confused that it is warm enough that I have some windows open to catch the breeze.  Post-holiday fatigue has set in, it is a shade lonely here at Casa Del Gumbo.

But I am waiting.  That is no metaphor.

I accomplished a lot today.  I'll spare your the tedium of my Domestic God triumphs, let's just say a lot of ducks and a lot of rows now march behind me.  The two things I did NOT get done, however, weigh on my big noggin.  Here's what I did not get done:

1) Find a job.
2) Write something truly edifying.

It's funny, right now I cannot decide which pains me more.  I managed to get a resume out the door, but the 22 others behind it?  Nothing.  As to the writing, dear readers,  I'm in a pickle.  This is the longest drought I think I've ever had.  It has me worried.  It also makes me tired.

I have this recurring image in my head of popping a cork from a bottle to pour something, only nothing comes out.  Except a puff of air.  And the tang of desperation.  So, the glass remains empty in this most quiet of Novembers.

---

It's deep fall in the woods by the river.  I hear its murmurs, faint and silvery as they filter up through the barren trees.  The rail bed gravel is warm beneath my haunches, a welcome buffer against the slow cooling of the air.  The air itself is tinged with watery gold as the sun goes down.  The mineral tang of rock embraces the dusty grass aroma of the weeds on the embankment.  A soft, steady breath of cold air wafts from the mouth of the tunnel as I peer into the gathering darkness in the middle.  The rails, twin seams of polished silver leading to a mouth of gold at the far end of the tunnel.  I stare into the gold, eyes owlish with fatigue.

I place my hands on the burnished metal rail in front of me.  It trembles ever so faintly, but I cannot tell if a train is coming, or the earth is sighing.  I remove my hands, and wait.

Pebbles in the Coffee Can

It's November and it would normally be colder than it is, but I will not quibble with the temperature outside that allows me to open my windows.  The faint susurrus of wind on the leaves is soothing.  It pleases me.  A train horn blares across the river, the mechanical din only sweetening the sounds of the night.  The storm inside my head finally breaks.

These mental tempests arise suddenly, linger far too long and always leave me drained and vaguely ashamed.  I know I should not feel that way.  The stresses and petty annoyances of life will always come and go.  To be wrapped up in them is a sure path to being a malcontent, as I know to my deep chagrin.

The day was a few clouds, a lot of sun and breeze.  The sky was pretty and the air inviting.  I had rattled around in the box that is my home for most of the day when I suddenly felt the walls closing in me.  It was time to leave.  I absconded to my favorite local park, for what I hoped to be a soothing meditation on walking around the lake.  It was not to be.  Too many distractions, too many stresses intruding on my mind.  Bills. Upcoming loss of health insurance.  Joblessness.  Being separated from those whom I love.  Feeling helpless in the face of strife.  I spiraled further down into a full-blown funk.

Not even the antics of the geese and golden sunlight could blow away the fog.

I came home and turned off the phone and the computer.  I opened the windows.  I took to the kitchen, hoping that chopping vegetables, making rice and stirring the pan would provide the balm I needed.  It worked, to a degree.  The meditative quality, the deliberation needed to do it right, both provided diversion.  As a bonus, I had a delicious dinner, too.  My own version of comfort food, though I have no name for the dish I made.

I watched the evening news as I ate, perched on the couch.  I held the heavy white porcelain bowl close, feeling the warmth of the peppers, chicken and rice seep into my hands.  Chewing became hypnotic.  The tension in my shoulders and neck began to ease.  The pervading metallic tang of  discontent fading in the simple act of chew and swallow.  I was mildly surprised when I looked down to see the bowl was empty.

Afterwards, I turned off the television.  I turned, as I often do, to write something.  The image I could not rid from my mind was that of pebbles in a coffee can, tumbling down a never-ending hill.  All the troubles, fears, and insecurities so many rocks banging against the container of my brain.

So I sat still, next to the open window by the dining table, and let the gentle hands of the wind massage my temples.  The din subsided.  I saw the coffee can come to rest, perhaps hard up against a tree or buffered by a thicket somewhere.  I sent up a small prayer of thanks.  The wind nods it head, and whispers sweet nothings.

Sunday Meditation #9: River Run Free

Fair amount of walking this week.  White gold sunlight, crisp November air meant temptation to be outside in the creation instead of flinging myself at the walls that bind me in grayness.  It was breath, it was life, down by the tea-colored river.  A few hours of grace in which I offered up my thanks.

Ruminations while I walk.  The pub table in my head seats two figments who question in a slow-motion call and response.  I talk to myself, my skull an amphitheater.  Most of the time not spent taking photographs (in itself another form of questioning) I devote to the state of my union.  Unemployment having weighed down my thoughts, I cast them off to truly assess the current state of affairs.  It is good, sometimes, to do this.  Since I do not attend church (although I haven't forgotten about it) I walk in the chapel of nature, with trees as roof.  The rocks, leaves and water a floor fit for any soul.

The river is inescapable.  It knows what is in my heart, sussed out by silent conversations between my heart and the water over sand and stone.  On my walk, an observation: the dam is gone.  Gone.  How did I not see this on previous walks?  A whole dam, disappeared.  The concrete scar on the river demolished and taken away, leaving unsettled stone and new sand banks in its place.  Trees have been planted, young trunks upheld by plastic tubes the color of dirty milk.  On the north bank, a crumbling concrete sluice lies filled with soil.  The rusting cogs and beams on top stand in mute testimony to the new violence perpetrated on a river that simply wants to be left alone to pursue its course.

I stand under a sky filled with oyster light, on the railroad tracks above the river.  I watch the water fulfill its aqueous nature.  A broad smile blooms on my bewhiskered face as the river flows into my heart.  I know now.  I know.  The river is joyful because it is freer now, flowing where it is supposed to flow.

As does the love in my heart.  There was a dam, inside, a Gordian knot of fears, anxieties, insecurity and timidity.  But somewhere back there, in the fullness of this very trying year the dam cracked.  It broke.  The pent-up waters of love burst forth from the reservoir of my sore heart and began to race down the valley of my soul.  It feels good, this enlightenment.  It feels good.

I know why the river sings of joy.  There is no path so satisfying as that which one is meant to follow, and the river, in its contentedness, knows this.  Now, so do I.  I feel the path that sings to me of home, and I follow.  I follow love.

Small Things 02: Fall and Light

October 15th, 2011, 4:45 PM.  Fall afternoon for the books.

Today, looking out my dining room window through which a gentle breeze was blowing, I was enraptured by the light.  Cerulean sky, white-gold light, and I gave my gratitude for witnessing both.

I know what beauty is, and I am grateful.

Between Everything and Nothing

October 1st, 2011. 9:52 p.m.  Cool, rainy, quiet.  In other words, almost perfect.

This weather makes me want to smoke.  I don't know why.  Tobacco smoke makes me physically ill, and I loathe the smell of it.  Yet here I am envisioning myself with ciggie in hand, massaging my temples and blowing a thin stream of second-hand out through my nostrils.  That will not do.  Not tonight, not ever.  I shake my head a few times to make the feeling go away.  All at once, I am tired.

This house is quiet, much quieter than I can recall any other place in which I have lived.  The last place that approached the level of quiet here must have been my boyhood home; both houses have masonry walls.  It has been decades since I have lived at length inside the ones in which I grew up.  The neighborhoods are similar and they both possess their own peculiar quiet.  My current one seems to have a bit of an edge.  Or perhaps it is my imagination only.

This room I am coming to enjoy.  It is the largest bedroom I have ever called my own.  The room in which I slept in my old house was larger, but I rarely was alone in there.  Psychically, my current room seems expansive because it is just me.  Well, me, memories and anticipations.

Rain falling.  I turned off the air conditioner yesterday.  Tonight, I leave the fan off so I can soak up the imperfect silence.  I hear that rain through open windows, gentle hiss on the leaves and grass, backed up with a faint chorus of crickets.  The sound lulls me.  Soothing whispers borne down to earth on the breath of angels.  There is no straining to listen.  There is no need to work so hard.  It is enough to lay still, and listen.

The rain falls.  I lay back on my pillows with my eyes drooping shut from the lassitude of the day.  In doing so, the rain sound intensifies.  The reduction of one sense, sight, allows for the sharpening of another, hearing.  Laying here, slowly melting into my bed, I listen carefully, and relaxed.  Drops of water strike the earth, the window glass, the eroded edges of the wood fence in the side yard.  The feather force of the drops pings the gongs of my heart and soul.

Rain speaks, it whispers in unhurried consultation with the night.  I lean toward the sound.  Water makes holes in the breeze to tell me that between everything and nothing lies love.  I dream of walking straight and narrow between them, hands outstretched, and am filled with the warm embrace of knowledge, of knowing that this room in which I lay will not always seem so big.

On The Cusp Of Fall

So here it is, September.  How about that, dear readers?  A lot of water has passed under the bridge since last September, some of it fresh and sweet, some of it sour and poison.  I'm just glad to still be standing on the bridge, watching the water flow.  Perhaps playing the adult version of "Pooh Sticks", tossing the twigs in the water and seeing which one comes out the other side first.

Yet it doesn't matter all that much, which comes out first.  All the twigs are in the same water, the same river, the same flow toward the ocean.  The analogy holds for me.  I have been swept along by the current and finally learning to relax into it.  I fear the river less than I used to, these days.  It is the journey, after all, that counts.  The currents of the past year have been strong and unpredictable, but never could be said to be boring.


September.  Summer on the cusp of fall.  Having raised my head to the wind, I can smell something in the air.  Something crisp and clean, hinting of fall and the harvest.  Good green things are growing, and I can hardly wait to sink my teeth into their savor.

Awake in Tierra del Fuego

It wasn't bad  pizza what made me start writing tonight, nor was it a virus, or too much alcohol (or any alcohol, for that matter).  This probably isn't my Jerry Maguire moment, supposing I ever have one of those.  No, really, this is the result, I think, maybe...

...see, I can't even pull the trigger on that thought.  'Cause apparently I have commitment issues.  Or something like that.  And I write a lot like I often talk.  In short, choppy disjointed sentences.  With odd punctuation.

So the problem is maybe the way I think.  My thoughts are like ball bearings rolling down a billion narrow tracks placed side by side on a shaker table, which itself is randomly whacked causing the bearings to jump their tracks and start all over again.

Gahhh.  Scrap that.  I don't like the machine analogy.  I am not a machine, although I sometimes feel like one.  A tired, stressed out machine about to be replaced by the next generation of shiny, noisy things.  They may not be better, but they look better, and therein lies the rub.  I may have the content, not sure I have the form.  My surface, maybe it ain't so shiny.

So there I go again, off on another tangent which barely makes sense to me.  If it doesn't make sense to me, I can't expect it to make sense to you, dear readers (to whom I'm very grateful that you've stuck it out this far).  Analogy, analogy, I'm looking for an analogy.  Or is it a metaphor?  A simile?  Gahhh, again.  See?  Distracted by my own self, or the shiny things that are my thoughts.

Crows.  My thoughts are like crows.  Bright, clever but so easily distracted.

This rambling edifice is the result of being tired and run-down.  "Shagged out from a long squawk" to borrow from Monty Python.  The stresses and strains of the week have taken the starch out of me, and tonight for the first time in a long time I laid down on the couch after eating alone (again) at my neighborhood tavern, and channel surfed the television.  Watching things about which I either cared too little or cared too much.  I melted into the couch cushions.  My eyes absorbed food porn and real-world obscenity, and suddenly I was off my feed.  Two sides of a very disturbing coin.

I gave up, eventually.  Watching stories about people stuffing their faces and about humans killing each other for the sake of flag and religion, well, it was too much.  I laid back on the couch and fidgeted with my camera, thinking I would take a picture of myself and use it as source material for a Really Intense Post about the life of a would-be Artist...and I did take some pictures of myself and the view from the couch.  But I don't know if I'll share any of those.  The notion took on some absurdity as I scrolled through the pictures I still haven't downloaded from the past week or so.  A strange melange of my daughter, an aunt of mine, and scenes from the church of my boyhood.

The images of my blood and kin, of the cross, of the stained glass panels aglow with afternoon sun...an intensity of emotions I am at a loss to describe.  I sat and stared at these images, scrolling back and forth, zooming in and out, while the radiators creaked and popped in little echoes resounding through the barren temple of my house.  Friday night, and a payday, and what am I doing?  Laying on the couch, wondering just how I got here, and analyzing the best angle to create a weird photo of the ceiling fan in my living/dining room.

I am attempting to surround myself with artifacts that mean something to me on a deep personal level.  I have a start with three big framed prints of mine, but it isn't enough.  The three prints only serve to highlight just how much room there is left to fill.  The echoes of the radiator gain amplitude in the remaining emptiness, a feeling only intensified when I look at the images on my camera, tiny pictures of a big lonely head.

It's cold here tonight, with the possibility of snow flurries.  Perhaps it is time to turn in, gather the blankets around and keep in the heat.  Yes, it is time.  I'd better get to it, because if I'm still awake when the next train horn blows, I may just jump in my car and drive to Tierra del Fuego.

Scent of Our Archaeology

Sighing deep, the aromas inhaled
curl around a memory trigger
firing bullets of the past

Heart folds around the impact as
radiators emit the smell of toast
and us, back when the world was young

Aroma of adulthood rising from the glass,
and desperate swallows drown the sting,
to disinfect the past, or bring it back

The Tree at the Center of the World

The countryside is a particular shade of gray-brown outside of the towns, everything the luster of a dirty hen's egg laid bare in the wan November sunlight.  It is a color that has no name, I think, or at least not one you would care to remember.  Because who would want to remember something that reminds them of ghosts and distant love?

The trees all start to look the same, except the pines (of which there are more than a few) and the occasional leafy holdout showing off in a  last gasp of red or gold glory.  Even those few specimens look downcast, like a king who just lost the war, taking off his crown to hand over to the victor.  The only thing missing is a cast of crows alighting in the barren fields.  The few birds to be seen usually manifested as seagulls and waterfowl down by the many rivers crossed on this journey.  Every rule has an exception it seems, and this day was no different.  Somewhere close to the halfway point a quartet of turkey vultures was observed sitting on the ridge line of a small outbuilding on a farm that was passed.  Fitting for the time and mood, they had their backs to the sun and wings outspread, like exotic flowers soaking up the heat on a cold fall day, their feathers the petals.

The radio kept to a murmur, because the flower of my heart was napping in the backseat.  There are only so many farms she can see, barns and twisted oaks before the novelty (for her) wears off.  I didn't mind so much.  She needed the rest and I needed the quiet.  This drive through the eastern Virginia tidewater flatlands, from my boyhood home back to the place where my adult self keeps a bed, it lends itself to reflection and rumination.  There is a general lack of elevation, a scattering of 'artifacts' of civilization (silos, houses, tractors, signs) in combination with a sparseness of actual humans in the landscape.  I am attracted to this terrain, yet unsettled by it.  I want to live in this place, but fear I'd be more alone than I feel now.

So how far away is far enough?  How close is close enough?  These thoughts loop over and over as cruise control takes me closer to where I'll sleep tonight.  Almost all of the family that gave me life is slipping further and further behind.  I am a lighthouse keeper on a far, frozen rock and I'm watching the supply ship sail away into the mist.  I wave until my arms ache, the ship dissolving into the gray rim of the horizon, and I can only hope things will last, that the ship will come back.

It is no ship I'm on, only the 12-year old fading gray seat from which I captain the nondescript vehicle that is my car.  The wheel is worn under my hands, as is the shift lever, but they feel good.  Solid, in their own way.  The analogy I can think of is like well-made tools used for decades by the same craftsman, or perhaps a well-worn saddle perfectly broken in.  I do not kid myself that this car is a miracle of modern engineering, like some Swiss watch on wheels.  It does make me a tad melancholy to think that soon I may have to replace it.  It has indeed served me well, but the pasture beckons, as it were.

If only I had the stable in which to keep it.

Lunchtime approaches, as does the small town which is home to where I will eat, as is my new tradition.  The daughter isn't so thrilled, claiming she doesn't like their food, but my craving for a fried oyster sandwich will not be denied.  We always stop here on our way back.  The restaurant proclaims it is a family "tradition since 1938" and that simple phrase sends a pang through my heart, as we sit and scan the menu.  I look around at the old wood paneling, the heavy brown wood tables, the lines on the faces of some of the patrons.  A few look as if they have been coming here since 1938, but today I don't see that as the punchline to a joke.  I see it as a lifeline.  A thread.  A root connecting people to their past, through the soil of the present.  I am envious.

There is no drama to our order, the fried oysters a fait accompli for me, and Her Majesty confessed that she might eat a turkey sandwich, should one be brought before her.  And so it was.  I devoured mine with gusto, she had to be alternately plied with humor and threatened with loss of wishing well privileges in order to secure passage of a few nubbins of turkey down her gullet.

The wishing well is in the back, a treat for the kids, where they use a small "fishing pole" to snag any one of a number of plastic fish from the bottom.  They can then redeem the "catch" at the register for a trinket selected from a case at the front.  Her choice today was a plastic link bracelet, multi-hued and adorned with a green frog motif cast into the surface of each link.  Quite fetching, she thought, and just the sort of thing that her mommy would like. I smiled as she tried it on, and we turned to go.

It was then the insight flashed on me.  Watching my daughter skip-hop-march to the car,  I felt my earlier envy fade.  I have my lifeline, my thread: she is right there in front of me.  As she laughs in the November sunlight, I feel my roots spread out a little further, a little deeper.  Home may not be so far away as I think.

Lake Effect

Seen but not seen
murmuring waters whisper
over the wind

Over the horizon
waves caress the beach
pas de deux, sand and water

Head lifts, eyes emerge
nose up into the breeze
sensing a heartbeat

Grayish pearl of the sun
breaks through the clouds
hands pressing chest

Drumbeats pounding inside
a cage of flesh and bone,
calling love home

Sound of Semi-Silence

Another quiet night here at the homestead, finally, after more time running myself into the ground, full up on activities and work and stuff.  The radio is off, had to give my ears a break.  I was listening to the iPod all day, then put a CD in the player while driving hither and yon.  Slow traffic makes for interesting listening sometimes, and in this case I was diggin' the grooves laid down by Cut Chemist and Shortkut, two California-based DJ's who reminded me that turntable scratch, in the right hands, is just good stuff.  A colleague of mine loaned me a CD of a collaborative project they did back in 1997, and it is earworthy, no doubt.

So, as I was saying, a quiet night.  The noises are refrigerator hum, an airplane and faint wind plus traffic.  Soothing in their own way.  Funny, on nights like this, I don't often think of the click of the keyboard as 'noise'.  It most certainly is, though.  I wonder why.  Maybe its like fish think of water: it's there, all around them, they are fully immersed in the stuff...so it ceases to register.

Writing is like that for me.  No, its more accurate to say typing, but typing as a function of writing.  When I write for myself, which is a lot, I tend not to notice the clicks.  When I'm typing at work?  Then the clicking really starts to grate.  Fortunately, I am home, and writing.

And listening.

To the cars outside.  The sound of my breath.  The hum of the appliances.  In this house, when the radio is off, the sounds tend to fall off faster than I had come to expect, from living in newer apartments and houses prior to this one.  Maybe its the plaster interior walls, or the mass of the brick and stone.  Whatever the reason, I like it.  This place is, on average, a lot quieter than my previous house and certainly over the apartment I lived in last year.  It makes me feel calm.

Which I need.  Calm, that is.

The calm makes me introspective in a way different than being wired or anxious.  It's slower, more contemplative.  Earlier I looked at myself in the mirror while trimming my beard, and in the snicksnick of the scissors I flashed on the notion that my life is not really under my control, nor is it completely out of my control, and that I really don't know where I am regarding just who I think I am, what I want, and how to figure it out.  To wit, in the past five days, I felt like running away to Rio, becoming a potter, learning how to weld stuff, staying home and doing nothing but cook good food and taking up the art of DJ'ing.  Go figure.

At that realization, I looked at myself again in the mirror, just stared.  I had the feeling that I didn't really know that person staring back at me...but I felt like I really wanted to know him.  To make that happen, I suppose I'll have to sit down with him and listen, really, truly, listen.

There's something going on in there, behind those blue-gray eyes...and I want to know what it is.

American Diwali: Requiem

Blood of our veins
was not turmeric and vermilion,
ours the waters of a different ocean
all flowing into singularity

They light the lamps
dress the courtyards
while I light candles
in the closets of my mind

Buttery glow as they chant
I whisper prayers to you
mineral tang of salt and sea
the currents that carried you away

This Festival of Lights, good over evil,
I wonder, will you return? Somewhere
along the Gulf Stream in my heart,
or melding with the Ganges of my mind?

They light their lamps
I light mine (and yours), to see
your ashes a rangoli on the current
Lit brilliant by the diya of my heart

-----

The Gulf Stream and the Ganges River are thousands of miles apart, but it pleases me to think they intersect in the form of souls.

----

In memory of Big Bro, out fishing the cosmic sea.

Leaves and Rust

Face reflects mirror,
Salt, pepper, copper:
Aching for her hands.

Life Cycle: Meditations

Fall is here, this time with more than a hint of Winter in its recent weather.  No snow or ice, not here, not yet...but I heard whispers on the wind.  Not the whispers of demons crouched in the shadows and filling ones head with fear and blasphemy; rather, the whispers of the earth and sky, trees and water.  Ancient spirits that truly understand the cycle of seasons, and the ebb and flow of life.

That sort of wisdom I crave to possess.  I would like to know in my bones, muscle and heart the true definition of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.  I fear I would have to live to be a thousand before I could know such a thing.  Sadly for all us mortals, a thousand years is just not possible.

I'd like to know the turning of the seasons deeply and as part of an integrated existence in the universe.  All too often, in the noise of modern life, the seasons are too quickly defined by the inconveniences they bring: storms, heat, cold, snow.  They are too often portrayed as phenomena to be tolerated or overcome.  I believe this is no surprise, really, when viewed in the light of a Modern Man that sees the natural world as a resource to be exploited and a nuisance to be avoided.

This disconnect I do not know how to overcome.  I pondered this question last Sunday, on a two-hour hike through the woods, along a stream.  My trip began and ended at a parking area between the river and the woods, and its halfway point was a trail head alongside a road that forms a boundary to the park.  In between I walked through thousands of leaves, many patches of sunlight and crossed the stream numerous times.  There were moss covered stones and worn wooden footbridges, illuminated by silvery gold November sunlight.  I heard the call of birds and the conversations of squirrels.  Crows and hawks were seen.

I heard the wind in the leaves, and fancied it was the forest gods speaking to me.

I passed quite a few hikers, joggers and mountain bikers.  I chatted with some, curious about the pictures I was taking.  For the first time, I didn't feel foolish trying to explain why I was so fascinated with tree fungi laying in pools of sunlight spilling through the leaves.

I take pictures of them because they are beautiful, and serene.

Somewhere, maybe in the middle of my hike, I stopped.  I thought I heard something, or sensed something.  I strained to hear, and to see...so close, I thought, to that wisdom I was seeking.  The wind shifted, a branch fell, and I heard a biker coming down the path.  The spell broke.  I still didn't have my answer.

But I am close.  Someday, I hope I'll know.  Until then I'll keep walking, listening...and learning from the seasons passing.

Root Cellar

Is it okay now to unplug
disconnect, shut down the grid,
turn it off?

Will the last person
please turn out the lights
and shut the door?

Yes, turn out the lights
even if the party isn't over
(it needs a breather)

Okay, now? That you are gone?
Because this feeling isn't good,
isn't horrible, isn't death

That's the problem:
this feeling isn't anything
and that may be worse

Winter's coming, smell the ice,
root cellar is nearing empty
while the door bangs in the wind

Cold earth sucks up the warmth
There in the damp, while in the twilight,
a hungry heart gnaws itself to sleep.