Wings and Dust

I've always been shy. In eighth grade, I fell in love with Katherine Hepburn and decided then and there I would be as brave and outgoing as she was. I changed overnight from a snail in a shell to a butterfly, even though they're unrelated. It's slippery having wings. We all know that if you touch a butterfly's wings, it may never fly again. And what of that? When you become colorful, the wings are hard to resist. And so I did, and so was touched, and had a hard time flying again for many years.

I am awake inside words. They are my dialogue with you. You are the many pieces of myself I've left scattered on the timeline of my life. I toss off the clothes that no longer fit which has rendered me naked more often than not.

And instead of picking up the pieces and trying to make them fit again, I keep moving forward while still looking back. I don't think butterflies know how their beauty is made of dust and scales.

And today what I want to tell you, Reader, is that I lost someone I love very much. I loved him so much I tried to write a book about him. I loved him so much I had to stop. I must walk backwards on my timeline and pick up the clothing I let fall from my hands. I must try it on again and remember. I am scared about what this process means. I've just recently emerged from a dark and lusty place full of demons and hidden gems. I am afraid to go back there.

So, I shock myself into writing. I will tell you this: he was found by his son who walked into his room on a Tuesday and seeing that he was sleeping, turned around and left, not knowing he was already dead. On Wednesday, he did not pick up the phone when people called. On Thursday, his son returned and he (my lover, my friend, my soul mate, my guide, my impossible love-who-drown-himself in sorrow and rum, the love who I left behind) had turned black and was ten times his normal size. His skin peeled off his body like it could no longer contain the whole of him, exiting as he did to some better place. His flesh smelled of rotting animal and his eyes were closed. He died in his sleep from an attack of his heart. I must say all of this. This is where I need to start because the rest is too painful.

His son, all twenty two years of filial love, must have felt oh something so terribly like guilt for not having known; but how could he have? His father was often asleep when he entered that room. We all know he did the right thing -- the kind and respectful thing -- and let his father sleep. But the boy...the boy. I pray for the right salve that will ease the shock. I pray he will release the guilt and feel only loss, but we know that may be impossible.

I speak of his son and I speak of myself.

I love you, Jose Raul Garcia Sagaro, like a thousand airborne butterflies who will never lose their dust.

Forgive me still for losing some of mine.

Territory

Once again, I am inspired by my teacher, Reiko Rizzuto, as I listen to her speak on a panel at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. What makes me breathe in is the story behind the words on her pages -- how, over time, she staked a claim in the territory of writers, until writing became her work, inclusive of all the dreaming that the job entails. 

I gave myself permission to do the same but only because my healing body demanded that I stop perseverating, seek honest land, and homestead. Not that teaching wasn't honest work. And meaningful, too. But that someone wasn't me anymore. 

Where Have I Been?

To be sure, my blog falls in the "much neglected" category, as if that's necessary territory for bloggers to traverse at some point; which begs the question, what is happening with the blogger when the blog is sleeping? In my case, I've been going through the most delightful mid-life crisis. It's not been easy, nor pain-free (in other words, no red hot Miata and I haven't dyed my hair, yet.) I am recovering under my covers from rotator cuff surgery.

I did not know how many small ligaments and tendons and muscles and pieces of connective tissue (sinew?) keep the shoulder stable when performing tiny actions such as moving a pen or typing a sentence. Because I was unable to teach yoga or anything for that matter and I was unable to write, I spent the first eight weeks be-ing with the pain. And in that time, I started to shed. I found out that by be-ing, I was helping myself, and that was enough. Then, I let go of teaching, let go of moving back to Brooklyn, of having my own place, of doing my yoga practice. The only things that remained were walking Gabriel, meditating, and writing -- but not on paper or on a screen -- just words spoken in my head by my characters.

And now, twelve weeks out, I am revising my manuscript and going to physical therapy. Each time I go, my dear therapist yanks and stretches and pulls and tears (yes, tears) all those stubborn adhesions, and each time I lay there, I thank the universe for this time. I was not listening. I am now. My book is shifting, as it has so many times over the years. My story is growing; it's getting thicker and more layered inside. I may have even seen a ghost between the pages.

After I am cooked, well done and seasoned, I will continue to move in the direction of my deepest desires. I will write, I will teach yoga, I will continue to meditate, I will love my dog and he will love me, I will spend time with my family, I will fall in love, and I will send this novel out into the universe. I imagine it lit from beneath like a Thai lantern, floating into the sky until it becomes part of a larger set of lights.

It has taken me forty-three years to stop and turn around, look into my own eyes and listen. Right on schedule.

Full Moon in the Suburbs

                                 for Gary Snyder

The full moon announces itself to this night
a specter chiseled by branches and leaves.
And the honeyed air loiters in the dark particles of Day's exhaustion,
remembering the difficult work of re-creation. 

How this suburb longs to be wild with the neighboring woods,
 slatted moonbeams drawn across its foresty face. 

But these shiny lit facades of houses startled by street lamps
give us no place to
obscure ourselves.

Return to masted quarry,
Reach through obstructing leaves,
and feel the lick of this moon's silvery tongue
cool your cheeks
hot from running
home.

Awake

I was caught in a firmament of ideas
but I was already in bed
trying to sleep.
The poem was happening
The work was working
and I, 
an aurora borealis of thoughts and sensations
was thinking how to record all this without 
getting up, making light, locating pen, and lassoing words,
hoping the good snugglers would stay with me all night and deep into 
waking.

I's

What happens when I's blur
        and then dim?
The clarity of the world shifts and
moves towards the heart

Inside

a deep longing to be lost
in the absence of lines and sharp details.
      I soften and the world disappears
the darkness now a haven for designs
I've never seen.
                Wake up! you say
                 Can't you see?
I's see alright
    in the dim light --
    a night 
to you
         not me

"Red Hills and Bones"

                                                                "Red Hills and Bones"
                                                                Georgia O'Keefe, 1941
                                                                                The Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949


It's soft here on this desert floor--
the first time I've felt soft
in my life.
       Maybe it's the non-doing
because I was undone
      and reduced to my elements
I gave a terminal sigh which was
                   caught in thin, dry air
                            and breezed downwind
                        carrying dust particles as my
                                        memory.

             I lay here,
             just bones,
             and I don't have to
            do. Anything.
The chase is over.
     I don't even remember
     resisting.
  Was I taken down
   quickly?
Or did I die throughout the night,
painting the sand auburn
  inch      by       inch,
the pool of my life spreading beyond
             my form?