Tuesday, June 28

waiting, a little chat

 Mary said

sitting on a chair
waiting, waiting.
looking at the walls,
waiting, waiting.

Why must you always let men go at their own pace?

You can receive and respond and play
but sit and wait
It is not so much a dialogue
Men must go at their own pace.

Outside, running, jumping, reading, swimming, doing
and waiting, waiting
You can prepare and be ready to give if he comes
But you must be waiting.

Why is it that I can change pace and walk alongside another?
just because I know, and I can see, that it is their speed?
As a human we should not just react but act.
I can step back, and evaluate, and see and say,
‘this is fast for me but I’ll go a little faster since another person has a need.’

Why must I always wait for a man to go at his own pace?
Is it because women are trained in the tasks of love
and men just learn to take?
Do I sit, do I sit, do I wait?

And Mary answers

I understand your frustration, oh friend, I do.
But it is not like that.
Sometimes men wait
The person who is gong faster is the one who has to wait
The person who is slow cannot go faster, but the person who is faster could slow down. It is kindness.
Like walking with a child whose legs are shorter.

And if you are worried that at this pace you never will get there, then you know that he cannot get there, and so either you forget about Ithaki or your paths must part.

And Mary says

I hear you sister but you are wrong.
Wrong wrong wrong
I would slow down to help a limping man,
I would stop to sit by a man on the side of the road resting.
But a communion is between two people, and together they have their own pace.
Together we can have our own pace, but I cannot wait for his.
If the equation does not include me, then I am the zero.


But Mary said
Our problem is unsolved indeed,
but if you are in a rush, why should the other person rush with you?


Mary, oh mary, you just don't understand! 
I don't want to rush him, I don't want to drag him to Ithaki over night. 
I want to express myself and say hello, to share my happiness, to let my joy show. I want to say 'hey, so and so', and not worry, that I've said to much. 
that i broke the ice that he was standing on
that all is now gone.
I want to show my joy.
Can't he handle that? 

Monday, June 27

the work of God

The wind is blowing hard!
This way and that
but we must keep to the road.


Do not be fooled by all the phenomena
Disturbed by all the shouting
Shocked by all the drama
Taken with all the spectacular.


Day in and day out
our task is the same.
Steady your foot,
keep to the road.
Day in and day out,
our task is the same.

thank you letters


Freire,
You had such a fertile mind
You cared.
A little seed was dropped,
and a flower grew.
The wind blew in pollen,
and a field of flowers grew.

You had no hardness in your mind
no cement
no rocky ground
no untilled earth
Because you cared,
And your heart was well kept.

Sunday, June 26

something new, something old

Everything I had before died because it was dying
and I don't want something dead.
I don't want a barnyard of dying animals,
a kitchen of rotting fruit.
I want you
alive and awake
healthy and strong
happy,
and to belong.

I'll sing you a song

Love, love, love, you open the heart
You make way for things to come
You make soil for things to grow
You open the doors and let life in.

Love love
You are living
and you are strong.
You lift carcasses, broken buildings and dead dogs,
you make space, for new air,
for life, for more.

Love, love, I’ll sing you a song.
Be in my life, make me yours.
Make me for you a home.

Love, you are the light and the air
the water the sun 
the soil.
You take dead things apart, and from their parts you make more.
Life is because of you.

How I hate death, how it oppresses me
Love, make me yours.

Saturday, June 25

a lady in waiting.

I.
If you are summoned you appear right away. So, I put down my book in mid-sentence. I shed the cloth I wore where I had been sitting, by the open window. I dove strait into the bath and swam across to its other end. A bowl of soap was brought over and placed beside me, and quickly I washed myself all over, particularly scrubbing behind my ears, along the back of my neck under my hair, the front of my neck, and then the rest of me. My auntie is correct in what she told me – that cleanliness is half one’s beauty.

Soon after, I appeared before the queen. I walked towards her keeping my back strait and my head up, until I came close, where I knelt and bowed down before her. While she spoke I faced the floor, my left cheek touching my left knee.

We did not say hellos and goodbyes. In such situations we acknowledge one another with a pause of silence before she speaks, and another pause of silence, after she has spoken, before I get up to leave.

This is what she told me: she said the prince will come to meet me now. She said: ten men will come to see you, and if you recognize the prince he shall reveal himself and his kindness to you. If you do not, you shall be expelled from the state for thirty years.

When she had finished speaking, she glanced for a moment down at me, and then strait ahead again. I stayed bowed on the floor.  This is the way I showed her my gratitude, and my appreciation of the honor that was being done me. I left without looking at her again.

II.
Going back to my apartment, I took off the celebratory dress and wore another more simple cloth, so light and so flimsy that the breeze touched my skin again as if I were naked.

I ordered somewhat my books along the windowsill, as I did not have time to do that when I left, and, stepping out from the camara into the garden, I went down towards the beach.

The sun was hot, and rising, but the breeze was cool, and the shades wide. I walked down amongst the trees, down the 200 steps, through the cold stream, and down to the beach. The rising sun had not fully reached here yet, and the beach pebbles rested cheerfully in the shade of the boulders. I walked across them and round to the lagoon. My walking disturbed the stones under my feet and little crabs shuffled about me. I mean tiny little crabs, about the size of a fingernail. I reached the sand, and sunk my feet into its body. The coolness of the wet sand bellow the surface layer stimulated my feet. I twisted about, digging my feet a little deeper in, and enjoying the grainy texture.

The sun began to show above the cliff. The soft waves breaking along the beach began to lessen, subdued by the growing heat, and the sea was becoming more serious. I dropped my cloth and ran in.

I felt anxiety and fear. The woman who had the home before me had failed. And the woman before her. Women everywhere were often leaving.

The first thing I decided is that I would not be afraid. There is no usefulness in being afraid.
In fact, fear has one value. It indicated to me that this is an important task, a significant one – and that it is difficult.

But I knew that. Otherwise, fear could only get in my way. I would do everything that I could, anything that I could, and then I would have to let things be and become what they will. It would be ok, as, having done what I could, there would have been nothing I could have done about it, were I to choose badly.

How would I know the prince? I thought, I wouldn’t look to recognize him, I would wait for him to recognize me. I thought, that a normal man usually cannot see you. He looks at you, and he sees only what he already has in his heart. So I would wait to see what he had in his heart in this way. Also, I thought, only a man who can love can see another person as they are. I would wait to see who would recognize me, and I would choose him for a prince.

I lay on the water floating with my eyes closed. So vast is the sea, and so open a space, and still, you can be there and trust that you are alone. You can relax, and open you mind and your heart, let them unfold and spread to fill the whole area – as if there is no one there to confine you by observing you. With this vast expanse about you, you can trust that you are alone there.

I put my ears inside bellow the surface and I listened. I sought advice, and hope.

The other thing I decided was this: that I would give time. Time, I thought, is like a dimension, and it lets you see the shape of a person well. From where we stand, without it, we cannot see.



Friday, June 24

on the way to Troy, for Eleni


Standing firm, stiff.
Waiting to see what will happen here.
Will it go good, can I feel?
Or will it go bad, and I will need to retract all emotion-in-waiting, suck it up?

I don’t spill, I don’t just spill,
I don’t just feel feel feel anyway
I know what I want, but I am not swept away by passion.

I keep my feet together, my hands in my pockets, so that I can go either way.
If the situation has space for my feelings, I will feel.
I am effective
Efficient.

(I shall be happy anyway. I needn’t get too excited about what I want.
God knows better than I what I need.
Either way I will be happy.)

If you don’t know if you are going to buy a house
you are not going to move into it are you?
You see if you will get it first, otherwise
you leave your furniture where it is.

My emotions are like kids in the car.
They are so excited that we are going to the sea
They laugh, they play, they fight.
They are eager, they know what they want.
But I won’t let them out on the highway.
Not until we get there.

My emotions, do I suppress you too much?
Do I not let you dance in public?
Do I not let you sing too loud?


no thank you, i rather be free

What a horrible feeling, how unhappy
how oppressive
to have spent the day wanting a love you will never have
and to be left exhausted, and with discomfort in your chest.
Pain! Go away, leave me. Pain, don’t oppress me.

During the day, it is like a classroom out of control, a
room without a teacher, raising havoc.
The evening, is like pain coming in, closing the windows,
sweeping everything away. All of the noise and games.
What sort of education is that?
What is good about it?

What is good about a day without you, a day that will
last and be vast?
Today I took the seeds of my love for you and I tossed
them on hard ground.
And the crows came in afterwards and ate them all away.
What a sad day without you.
Knowing we will never be
Drowning all the little bits of joy we started.

Oh sad day, let your grip of me!
Sad day, I am not yours! I am free and I will be happy.

Thursday, June 23

I wish to forget


Today is your last day
I only have to wait today one day
walk around
not call you
not fantasize too much
lounge about
not call you
just this one day
and then you will go, and I can start to forget.

The time passes so slowly
but it will pass.
And if you want to see me again
if you really do,
you will.
I hope that you will.

But hope, you are like a colonizer.
You rape a country,
you let nothing grow
I wish to forget.  

without shelter again.



Loving, being in communion with another,
Opening your heart, both of you, and loving,
Is so wonderful.
It is so exhilarating
Joyful. Lovely

But this waiting, this burning, this fantasizing
I hate it.
It drains me
It tires me
It leaves me with nothing, and hungry.

Wave, pass over me as gently as possible
Pass by and leave me unharmed.
Desire, pass and let me be free.
Let me love from my heart and be free.

Wave, you tire me
You drain me
Pass and leave me

Lay me gently on the beach
Let me eat pomegranates
Let me lift my face up
Let me see my Lover
Let me be.

Thursday, June 2

evening

She sat sitting on the porch, to be alone from her parents, alone with her desire. Her desire to be with someone. She looked at dark fields, some trees, stars and the moon. Overwhelming open space so boring and frustrating, trivial, because it promised no chance for excitement, interaction enhanced with sexual tension, mental stimulation, or spiritual fulfillment.

She wondered if this burning she felt, that she contained, that made her present insufficient and boring, was a need felt by all people. And if this need, the boredom, exploding in her, this wanting, to move, to meet people, consume stimulation, have the environment that realizes her sexual playful intelligent self and feed her hungry self, is the need that makes people seek change and action. A force that invented the light bulb and the night club.

What is this yearning that she feels? To go out, find others, find fun, be part of the fun, eat it, so that it reaches down and punches this strain in her chest.
What do we need?
Can we ever be satisfied or is this a force that urges consumption and movement that will never be satisfied?

She didn’t sit there desiring a man of this sort or that. Yes, sometimes she does. But really, this feeling is so familiar and experimented with, that she can feel it like a concept, stripped of its particular object of desire.

2005

morning

I am mourning
the morning

I saw the light come out from
behind the mountains
A bastard light
that came to life
from whatever went on back
there in the dark
a bastard light
that came to life, from God

I mourn the morning
until we are well into the day
for what is here is here to stay
I take off the black
and I sit naked in the shade

1999