Let me go into the mountain’s depths away from the light. The sky holds nothing. Neither does the sea. Only the rock, the granite, the depths of mountain provides for me. The mountain carries me down and away, away from this light, protecting all it covers as I cover myself with my grandfather’s coal dust. I will carry this canary with me, if you think I must, as I travel deeper, ever deeper, into the mountain.
A scribe dips a sharpened quill into the red ink well, addressing the naked need for barbed wire fences of words to create barricades in red. Next, weaving starts. Words to cushion, Kevlar words, preventing of any element from penetrating and thus, creating need want desire-- For such things burn,,, dangerous when they trespass the Kevlar of red ink the Scribe fashions with her sharp quill— Words of arm’s length, only so far, no farther, Step back Back away Turn away Words of red to always protect-- Woven into blankets, vests, a house, never to be a home.
Inside a sarcophagus of stone, I have dwelled, a hard place in which to learn to live, no breath taken, heart stilled, where all living shrinks down, behind skin and soul, to be bound in hieroglyphic wrappings designed by others. Onlookers believing the pretense they wish to see-- as I stopped struggling for air, a mimic of the beating rhythms of life, accepting the coldness of the stone. Any warmth transitory as the sun in its travels from season to season from rise to set, in these years I have known only coldness after any fleeting glimpse of warmth. Such a bitter coldness-- though none would think I lived encased within stone, so life-like my hieroglyphic mask, a masterful mimic I had become. Until stone cracked, by mountain winds and sun, falling in splintered shards, crumbling to dust ‘round me. My tattered, faded wrappings torn, hanging loosely. Until a hand, as if in possession of long forgotten, ancient magic, should touch long dead embers, and in touching rekindle flame, swirling within, spiraling outward warmth that does not die upon the withdrawal of touch. A heat lingering, warming still, stirs hunger once thought dead to life. Sweetness pounds a rhythm out— starting a heart to beat again, blessed breath returns to deflated lungs, the shallow breath, the weak pulse hold ancient power, leaving flesh and blood and bone to move in life again, a life reclaimed from the stone of gray filled years. Cautiously, hesitantly, I step over the dust of shattered stone, making my way toward the touch that carefully, tenderly removed my tattered hieroglyphic bindings, allowing me to move freely within my own skin. There trembles within, a longing I never sought to find. Hope rises and takes Fear within its embrace, transforming it to joy, as I extend my hand to the warmth of you.
Here, beneath the trees, we sit in the peace of a sunlit afternoon. My words, my pale pathetic words, fade in the light of you. As the words I grasp at as possibilities to say all I mean evaporate from my hands and mind like the water in this drying arroyo shrinks away from its banks before us, I am left wordless. For no words can stand in the light of you and the gifts you bring to places where I discovered pieces missing in light of you.
I tear the trailing ivy
From the trunk of the crepe myrtle tree,
A routine autumnal yard task,
Look up to a partly cloudy Texas sky,
Think of madmen and bombs,
A madman and eleven shot dead
As they prayed on Shabbat—
No words, no words come
Even the birds fall silent.
no gulf across time no forever in forever promises of time that drips still as if the eternal existed in the binding of souls and yet-- and yet— breath stops in hope-- with my final breath I will soar into the sun to wait for you, or should it be-- find you there waiting for me, then we will fly beyond whatever magic of spirit there exists, mingling and joining with the elements-- of air of earth of water of fire merging and separating and merging again for an eternity. then should we, in the beauty of condemned blessings, fall to earth once again, no matter where, no matter when, I will find you yet again.
At the edges of this cool morning, humming with the dying of summer, I, long awake, attend to things that must be done: dogs fed; trash pulled to the curb; a load of laundry started; hummingbird feeders cleaned; all ordinary, mundane things— This chill in the air has me wish I’d put on a jacket, yet the chill will be gone by noon. And I find I smile. For the first time, I do not despair at the dying of this year’s summer, but find a joyous warmth in the light as this year’s autumn is born.
I could rake these stones. Free these tiny weeds which my feeble fingers fumble to grab and tweeze out. Yes, with a rake, I could disturb the harmony of stones, free the weeds— But no. I have had enough of stones. I’ve enough of their weight placed upon me. I’ve carried the tonnage of stone from place to place, lived under it, barely breathing through years, lived decades encased within a sarcophagus of other’s demands and expectations, all shattered now in lovely shards left in the distance behind me. No, I will leave these stones undisturbed. They will not take up my time. There are other ways to weed, and should the weeds take the stones, there is beauty to be found in the wildness of weeds.
Morning drifts away with chores I assign myself: The must do, the needs to be done— An endless list to fill a notepad next to the calendar: Feed the dogs, Clean and fill the hummingbird feeders, Change the sheets, Do the ironing, Neatly fold the sheets from the dryer so they align perfectly on the shelf in the closet-- Leave no time to think. Even less time to feel. Keep all thoughts, All feelings at bay. Use the list like a whip and a chair. Let no old cliché hold any sway. Whip the old “nothing ventured, nothing gained” into a new pose of Nothing ventured, nothing lost upon the circus stand, a much easier creature to manage this way.
golden promises shimmer in summer’s sunlight somehow cozy now think eternity somehow cozy, snuggled in velvet lined starlight as earth turns toward fall no comfort of faith within Fatima’s secrets
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