by naomi shihab nye, from red suitcase
1.
japanese teacher says:
at first light, rise.
don't hover between
sleep and waking,
this makes you heavy,
puts a stone inside your heart.
the minute you drift back to shore,
anchor. breathe.
remember your deepest name.
2.
sometimes objects stun me,
bamboo strainer, gray mug,
sitting exactly where
they were left.
they have not slept
or dreamt of lost faces.
i touch them carefully,
saying, tell what you know.
3.
cup of waves,
strawberry balanced
in a seashell.
in morning the water seems
clear to the bottom.
no fish blocks my view.
rápidas manos frías/ retiran una a una/las vendas de la sombra/abro los ojos/ todavía/ estoy vivo/en el centro/ de una herida todavía fresca ~*madrugada* por octavio paz
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Sunday, February 24, 2019
pure silence
quotes from lost paradise by cees noteboom
"the gallery owner must have told him something, because he stood there before me without saying a word, whether out of shyness or because his thoughts were miles away i couldn't tell. and i still can't. sometimes i think he doesn't see me, that even when he touches me or has sex with me, i am invisible to him, someone without a soul, a mere shape or figure - and he is right about that - as if what we do has no substance, as if his pre-announced departure can be felt in everything, in his long silences, his stillness, his refusal to see me although i am dying to be seen and know i won't be - i knew all that the moment i saw the painting."
"after a few days in port willunga we went to a strange place, a reserve in which we played at being aborigines. it sounds awful, and it was. i don't know why he took me there, but at least i now know how to find food in the desert and have seen how pure silence can turn you into silence yourself. no one was surprised to see me, so perhaps he had brought others there before. i shrugged off the well-meaning nonsense and practised withdrawing into myself - i'm good at that. it was not his mob, and since they spoke english to him, they did not come from the same language group either. i did see him smile, but not at me. i considered telling him what had happened to me that week, but my black cloud could never be his. i would take it with me when i left, incorporate it into the rest of my life, as if one cloud could cancel out another. we'll see. it is our last night together. i rub my hand over the dirt floor of the cabin. it feels hard and dry, like paper. everything in this country is different from mine. outside, the dawn's early light flows out over the world with such violence that it almost hurts my eyes. red paint. blood. i roll over and look at him. he is still asleep. he too just a shape. i wish i could lift him up and fly away with him, over the vast emptiness of this country, to the place he comes from, to the place he belongs and i do not."
"the gallery owner must have told him something, because he stood there before me without saying a word, whether out of shyness or because his thoughts were miles away i couldn't tell. and i still can't. sometimes i think he doesn't see me, that even when he touches me or has sex with me, i am invisible to him, someone without a soul, a mere shape or figure - and he is right about that - as if what we do has no substance, as if his pre-announced departure can be felt in everything, in his long silences, his stillness, his refusal to see me although i am dying to be seen and know i won't be - i knew all that the moment i saw the painting."
"after a few days in port willunga we went to a strange place, a reserve in which we played at being aborigines. it sounds awful, and it was. i don't know why he took me there, but at least i now know how to find food in the desert and have seen how pure silence can turn you into silence yourself. no one was surprised to see me, so perhaps he had brought others there before. i shrugged off the well-meaning nonsense and practised withdrawing into myself - i'm good at that. it was not his mob, and since they spoke english to him, they did not come from the same language group either. i did see him smile, but not at me. i considered telling him what had happened to me that week, but my black cloud could never be his. i would take it with me when i left, incorporate it into the rest of my life, as if one cloud could cancel out another. we'll see. it is our last night together. i rub my hand over the dirt floor of the cabin. it feels hard and dry, like paper. everything in this country is different from mine. outside, the dawn's early light flows out over the world with such violence that it almost hurts my eyes. red paint. blood. i roll over and look at him. he is still asleep. he too just a shape. i wish i could lift him up and fly away with him, over the vast emptiness of this country, to the place he comes from, to the place he belongs and i do not."
Monday, February 18, 2019
i'm pretty comfortable, but i could be a little more comfortable
short story by lydia davis, from can't and won't
i'm tired.
the people in front of us are taking a long time choosing their ice cream.
my thumb hurts.
a man is coughing during the concert.
the shower is a little too cold.
the work i have to do this morning is difficult.
they have seated us too close to the kitchen.
there's a long line at the shipping counter.
i'm cold sitting in the car.
the cuff of my sweater is damp.
the shower is weak.
i'm hungry.
they're quarreling again.
this soup doesn't have much taste.
my navel orange is a little dry.
i didn't get two seats to myself on the train.
he is keeping me waiting.
they have gone off and left me alone at the dinner table.
she says my breathing is incorrect.
i need to go to the bathroom, but someone is in there.
i'm a little tense.
the back of my neck feels prickly.
the cat has ringworm.
the person behind me on the train is eating something very smelly.
it's too hot in that room for me to practice the piano.
he calls me when i'm working.
i bought sour cream by mistake.
my fork is too short.
i'm so tired i won't do well at my lesson.
this apple has brown spots on it.
i ordered a dry corn muffin, but when it came, it wasn't dry.
he chews so loudly i have to turn on the radio.
this pesto is hard to blend.
the wart on my thumb is growing back.
i can't have anything to eat or drink this morning because of the test.
she has parked her mercedes across the end of my driveway.
i ordered an oat bran raisin muffin lightly toasted, but it wasn't lightly toasted.
my tea water takes too long to boil.
the seam in the toe of my sock is twisted.
it's too cold in that room for me to practice the piano.
he doesn't pronounce foreign words correctly.
my tea is too milky.
i've been in the kitchen too long.
there's cat saliva on my new sock.
my seat doesn't have a back.
the blender is leaking at the bottom.
i can't decide whether to go on reading this book.
i missed the view of the river from the train because it got dark.
the raspberries are sour.
the pepper grinder doesn't grind very well.
the cat has peed on my telephone.
my band-aid is wet.
the store is out of decaf hazelnut coffee.
my sheets get all twisted in the dryer.
the carrot cake was a little stale.
when i toast the raisin bread, the raisins get very hot.
the bridge of my nose is a little dry.
i'm sleepy, but i can't lie down.
the sound system in the examining room is playing folk music.
i don't look forward very much to that sandwich.
they have a new weatherman on the radio.
now that the leaves are off the trees, we can see the neighbor's new deck.
i don't think i like my bedspread anymore.
in the restaurant they are playing a loop of soft rock music.
my glasses frames are cold.
there is st. andre cheese on the platter, but i can't have any.
the clock is ticking very loudly.
i'm tired.
the people in front of us are taking a long time choosing their ice cream.
my thumb hurts.
a man is coughing during the concert.
the shower is a little too cold.
the work i have to do this morning is difficult.
they have seated us too close to the kitchen.
there's a long line at the shipping counter.
i'm cold sitting in the car.
the cuff of my sweater is damp.
the shower is weak.
i'm hungry.
they're quarreling again.
this soup doesn't have much taste.
my navel orange is a little dry.
i didn't get two seats to myself on the train.
he is keeping me waiting.
they have gone off and left me alone at the dinner table.
she says my breathing is incorrect.
i need to go to the bathroom, but someone is in there.
i'm a little tense.
the back of my neck feels prickly.
the cat has ringworm.
the person behind me on the train is eating something very smelly.
it's too hot in that room for me to practice the piano.
he calls me when i'm working.
i bought sour cream by mistake.
my fork is too short.
i'm so tired i won't do well at my lesson.
this apple has brown spots on it.
i ordered a dry corn muffin, but when it came, it wasn't dry.
he chews so loudly i have to turn on the radio.
this pesto is hard to blend.
the wart on my thumb is growing back.
i can't have anything to eat or drink this morning because of the test.
she has parked her mercedes across the end of my driveway.
i ordered an oat bran raisin muffin lightly toasted, but it wasn't lightly toasted.
my tea water takes too long to boil.
the seam in the toe of my sock is twisted.
it's too cold in that room for me to practice the piano.
he doesn't pronounce foreign words correctly.
my tea is too milky.
i've been in the kitchen too long.
there's cat saliva on my new sock.
my seat doesn't have a back.
the blender is leaking at the bottom.
i can't decide whether to go on reading this book.
i missed the view of the river from the train because it got dark.
the raspberries are sour.
the pepper grinder doesn't grind very well.
the cat has peed on my telephone.
my band-aid is wet.
the store is out of decaf hazelnut coffee.
my sheets get all twisted in the dryer.
the carrot cake was a little stale.
when i toast the raisin bread, the raisins get very hot.
the bridge of my nose is a little dry.
i'm sleepy, but i can't lie down.
the sound system in the examining room is playing folk music.
i don't look forward very much to that sandwich.
they have a new weatherman on the radio.
now that the leaves are off the trees, we can see the neighbor's new deck.
i don't think i like my bedspread anymore.
in the restaurant they are playing a loop of soft rock music.
my glasses frames are cold.
there is st. andre cheese on the platter, but i can't have any.
the clock is ticking very loudly.
Thursday, February 14, 2019
space and ancestors
from m archive by alexis pauline gumbs
soon she was shaped like a ghost. had it always been so? she had noticed that in crowded places people always seemed to find her to be the route of least resistance. there was space where she was standing. she was space for other people's journeys. no one could see all there was to her. it made her feel small. she poked her elbows out and broadened her shoulders, she wished she had a retractable fan that popped out of her vertebrae like a dinosaur. she wished she had huge angel wings to slap the faces of the unseeing everyone. nobody thought she was such a big deal.
or
wherever she was there was space and ancestors came through. they were drawn to her like they had been drawn to all the shores and like water they began to shape the stone of her back into sand. she recognized the shape of stardust, she breathed deeper to feel them moving. it didn't take long (only eternity) for the evidence in her side abdominals to show the work of breath, the depth of working. her movements became dance for landing light. her offering to the heaviness of heaven. she cultivated fluid-nuanced hips to stretch the follow-through of being. her bones decided not to know their limits. the space around her shone with beckoned peace.
* * * *
when the memories started to come back we were sleeping. not quite dreaming but regenerating our cells. almost dreaming that we were regenerating cells. on the verge of regenerating the cells that would let us dream deep enough to remember.
we didn't know about the liver cells that could sing. the stomach lining kaleidoscopes. the geometric worlds in our larynxes. we had explored our bodies like battlefields and colonies. never like funhouses or arboretums. until our days became boardwalks on a rising sea and the nights we could sleep became worth saving, like named and labeled trees.
when the memories started to come, we were untrained. we didn't even know how to tell each other what was happening. eventually we would learn to share what went on while we were sleeping with all the specificity we had reserved for waking life. but at that time, when the memories came back, we were only starting to know.
* * * *
when they cut us down they found our layers, obvious as orbit. there was the year with the blood in the groundwater. there was the year of the sulfur in the sky. there was the year of bark turned blue with freezing (in the middle) in the middle of july. there was the time we focused on waiting. there was the time we warned them with lines. there was the season of not enough ozone and way too much sunshine.
when they cut us down they found us open to what they easily could have known if they had paid attention to any one of those seasons through which we had grown. we offered ourselves to their breathing. we offered ourselves to their homes. we offered ourselves to their dull admiration, their need for protection, their forehead intuition, the walks they walked thinking they were alone. we chipped into pieces to soften their playgrounds, we bent in strips to ferment their drink. we made every component of their housing except the kitchen sink.
we watched and grew thick with the knowing, we bent with the load of their love. it's not easy to be resilient when you feel from below and you see from above. we broke in the middle so often we thought we'd evolve past hearts. and we'd offer ourselves for release (but we want to see the next part).
* * * *
what we wanted was to want to. not to have to do anything. and the problem was we forgot after all these years of force what wanting was.
want was not getting, nor was it having. wanting was not needing. wanting was not having to have or needing not to need. it was not. and there was a wideness in wanting that didn't quite fold in on itself. it deepened and rose up and radiated out and touched softly to itself with warm warning.
* * * *
there is compelled. and then there is compelled.
that was the other time we had gotten to the edge of everything. war had become the question impossible to answer and then the empty appeared with their swallowing want. (we didn't know.)
you have to know that we were shedding ourselves. you have to know that we felt alien in our hearts. you have to know that we already felt it. that never enoughness gnawing at our spirits. this is the only way we could have ignored the prophets and our own knowing for so long. you have to know how deeply we had given up, to trust ghosts to take you away. we lied and told ourselves that maybe across was a better place. and then we nailed ourselves to crosses here.
i don't have to tell you. but we were wrong.
soon she was shaped like a ghost. had it always been so? she had noticed that in crowded places people always seemed to find her to be the route of least resistance. there was space where she was standing. she was space for other people's journeys. no one could see all there was to her. it made her feel small. she poked her elbows out and broadened her shoulders, she wished she had a retractable fan that popped out of her vertebrae like a dinosaur. she wished she had huge angel wings to slap the faces of the unseeing everyone. nobody thought she was such a big deal.
or
wherever she was there was space and ancestors came through. they were drawn to her like they had been drawn to all the shores and like water they began to shape the stone of her back into sand. she recognized the shape of stardust, she breathed deeper to feel them moving. it didn't take long (only eternity) for the evidence in her side abdominals to show the work of breath, the depth of working. her movements became dance for landing light. her offering to the heaviness of heaven. she cultivated fluid-nuanced hips to stretch the follow-through of being. her bones decided not to know their limits. the space around her shone with beckoned peace.
* * * *
when the memories started to come back we were sleeping. not quite dreaming but regenerating our cells. almost dreaming that we were regenerating cells. on the verge of regenerating the cells that would let us dream deep enough to remember.
we didn't know about the liver cells that could sing. the stomach lining kaleidoscopes. the geometric worlds in our larynxes. we had explored our bodies like battlefields and colonies. never like funhouses or arboretums. until our days became boardwalks on a rising sea and the nights we could sleep became worth saving, like named and labeled trees.
when the memories started to come, we were untrained. we didn't even know how to tell each other what was happening. eventually we would learn to share what went on while we were sleeping with all the specificity we had reserved for waking life. but at that time, when the memories came back, we were only starting to know.
* * * *
when they cut us down they found our layers, obvious as orbit. there was the year with the blood in the groundwater. there was the year of the sulfur in the sky. there was the year of bark turned blue with freezing (in the middle) in the middle of july. there was the time we focused on waiting. there was the time we warned them with lines. there was the season of not enough ozone and way too much sunshine.
when they cut us down they found us open to what they easily could have known if they had paid attention to any one of those seasons through which we had grown. we offered ourselves to their breathing. we offered ourselves to their homes. we offered ourselves to their dull admiration, their need for protection, their forehead intuition, the walks they walked thinking they were alone. we chipped into pieces to soften their playgrounds, we bent in strips to ferment their drink. we made every component of their housing except the kitchen sink.
we watched and grew thick with the knowing, we bent with the load of their love. it's not easy to be resilient when you feel from below and you see from above. we broke in the middle so often we thought we'd evolve past hearts. and we'd offer ourselves for release (but we want to see the next part).
* * * *
what we wanted was to want to. not to have to do anything. and the problem was we forgot after all these years of force what wanting was.
want was not getting, nor was it having. wanting was not needing. wanting was not having to have or needing not to need. it was not. and there was a wideness in wanting that didn't quite fold in on itself. it deepened and rose up and radiated out and touched softly to itself with warm warning.
* * * *
there is compelled. and then there is compelled.
that was the other time we had gotten to the edge of everything. war had become the question impossible to answer and then the empty appeared with their swallowing want. (we didn't know.)
you have to know that we were shedding ourselves. you have to know that we felt alien in our hearts. you have to know that we already felt it. that never enoughness gnawing at our spirits. this is the only way we could have ignored the prophets and our own knowing for so long. you have to know how deeply we had given up, to trust ghosts to take you away. we lied and told ourselves that maybe across was a better place. and then we nailed ourselves to crosses here.
i don't have to tell you. but we were wrong.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
flying
from m archive by alexis pauline gumbs
they were addicted to things like hydrogenated soybean oil and mutant chicken. their memories were linked to the tastes of things the studies said were poison. and so they bought other things, things that felt older to them. but they continued to trust the source of the studies, which was also the source of the earlier poisons. we can only understand this through the concept of addiction, which was an ancient condition of being that was characterized by lying to oneself and others in order to continue behavior that was repeatedly harmful to oneself and others.
they really thought they knew what home tasted like. what healthy was. how to cleanse their palates. there were brilliantly marketed packages that disavowed the past which were very attractive to people trying to distance themselves from the mistakes of their parents but who didn't have the bravery to distance themselves from the system that created their parents. they ate these new and different things while they pretended not to be their parents.
they thought they were tasting the future (which for some people tasted like cardboard and for other people tasted like sugar), but they were not. they were avoiding the necessary bitter tastes of the most accessible greens. to say the general palate was unbalanced would not be quite saying it. how could they have known what this would mean after?
the only one who made it had a direct connection to those women who craved the crunch of eating dirt. who sensed their need for iron. and acted.
* * * *
they dug in their memories for the one day. for some of them it was a couple of days per month. rock-bottom days. the days in their lives when the world had already ended. they thought back. and asked:
what did we each do then? on the day that everything went wrong. when transportation and communication technologies conspired against us individually. when we personally couldn't get out of bed, dehydrated with crying. when we didn't ask for help. when we hurt the people we loved. when the sun died. when we lost everything. when we lost exactly who we needed to save. when we knew there would be no tomorrow. what did we each do then? how did we keep breathing past it (because we are the ones that did). they dug for those memories and stacked them in a row.
that's how. that's how we learned to get through this.
* * * *
at some point the work of pretending we weren't going to die, that our children weren't going to die, that our deaths and lives weren't going to be forgotten, became unsustainable. it was hard enough to just breathe and metabolize. to find something to metabolize. to find people to metabolize near. now some people call it the true end of whiteness, when the world could finally operate based on something other than fear of blackness, of being, of death. but at the time all we knew was the story had run out. all the stories. of staying young to cheat death. of thinking young people wouldn't die. of immortality via "making a difference." of genetic imprint as stability. of stacking money and etching names on buildings. people used to do those things before. not to mention that they would not mention death and would hide the dying away and strive to protect the eyes of the children who already knew everything.
at some point. all the dead being here anyway and all of us here being obviously doomed, we let go of that particular game. and started breathing. and saw our hands.
we let go.
i felt like i could fly.
* * * *
on a screen the size of a wall there was a gif of amazon warriors cutting off each other's breasts to better hold the weapons they needed.
through the speakers audre lorde's voice was on loop. the only recorded reading of the cancer journals.
she looked at her reflection, lit by candle in the small pool, and thought back to yesterday when her sister comrades had surrounded her singing, i'm gonna lay down my burdens. . .
she blew out the candle and began to pray. may that which is not mine fall away. may that which hinders my love leave of its own accord. may that which blocks my circulation dissolve in this moment. may who-i-am-not run through this river back to the ocean. may who-i-am emerge clear as birth.
she cried during the hours she was in there. she squatted, sweated, moaned. she bled and defecated and urinated and screamed. she scrubbed off layers of her skin. she pulled out most of her hair. and at some point she blacked out, exhausted. and the dark room held her.
the next morning when they came she looked rather like a baby bird. tufts of hair, raw skin, swollen eyes, dark red and naked. the midwives stung her with tea tree and she gasped. they wrapped her in cotton and she sighed. they sprayed a mist of jasmine over her and she knew.
she knew she could fly.
they were addicted to things like hydrogenated soybean oil and mutant chicken. their memories were linked to the tastes of things the studies said were poison. and so they bought other things, things that felt older to them. but they continued to trust the source of the studies, which was also the source of the earlier poisons. we can only understand this through the concept of addiction, which was an ancient condition of being that was characterized by lying to oneself and others in order to continue behavior that was repeatedly harmful to oneself and others.
they really thought they knew what home tasted like. what healthy was. how to cleanse their palates. there were brilliantly marketed packages that disavowed the past which were very attractive to people trying to distance themselves from the mistakes of their parents but who didn't have the bravery to distance themselves from the system that created their parents. they ate these new and different things while they pretended not to be their parents.
they thought they were tasting the future (which for some people tasted like cardboard and for other people tasted like sugar), but they were not. they were avoiding the necessary bitter tastes of the most accessible greens. to say the general palate was unbalanced would not be quite saying it. how could they have known what this would mean after?
the only one who made it had a direct connection to those women who craved the crunch of eating dirt. who sensed their need for iron. and acted.
* * * *
they dug in their memories for the one day. for some of them it was a couple of days per month. rock-bottom days. the days in their lives when the world had already ended. they thought back. and asked:
what did we each do then? on the day that everything went wrong. when transportation and communication technologies conspired against us individually. when we personally couldn't get out of bed, dehydrated with crying. when we didn't ask for help. when we hurt the people we loved. when the sun died. when we lost everything. when we lost exactly who we needed to save. when we knew there would be no tomorrow. what did we each do then? how did we keep breathing past it (because we are the ones that did). they dug for those memories and stacked them in a row.
that's how. that's how we learned to get through this.
* * * *
at some point the work of pretending we weren't going to die, that our children weren't going to die, that our deaths and lives weren't going to be forgotten, became unsustainable. it was hard enough to just breathe and metabolize. to find something to metabolize. to find people to metabolize near. now some people call it the true end of whiteness, when the world could finally operate based on something other than fear of blackness, of being, of death. but at the time all we knew was the story had run out. all the stories. of staying young to cheat death. of thinking young people wouldn't die. of immortality via "making a difference." of genetic imprint as stability. of stacking money and etching names on buildings. people used to do those things before. not to mention that they would not mention death and would hide the dying away and strive to protect the eyes of the children who already knew everything.
at some point. all the dead being here anyway and all of us here being obviously doomed, we let go of that particular game. and started breathing. and saw our hands.
we let go.
i felt like i could fly.
* * * *
on a screen the size of a wall there was a gif of amazon warriors cutting off each other's breasts to better hold the weapons they needed.
through the speakers audre lorde's voice was on loop. the only recorded reading of the cancer journals.
she looked at her reflection, lit by candle in the small pool, and thought back to yesterday when her sister comrades had surrounded her singing, i'm gonna lay down my burdens. . .
she blew out the candle and began to pray. may that which is not mine fall away. may that which hinders my love leave of its own accord. may that which blocks my circulation dissolve in this moment. may who-i-am-not run through this river back to the ocean. may who-i-am emerge clear as birth.
she cried during the hours she was in there. she squatted, sweated, moaned. she bled and defecated and urinated and screamed. she scrubbed off layers of her skin. she pulled out most of her hair. and at some point she blacked out, exhausted. and the dark room held her.
the next morning when they came she looked rather like a baby bird. tufts of hair, raw skin, swollen eyes, dark red and naked. the midwives stung her with tea tree and she gasped. they wrapped her in cotton and she sighed. they sprayed a mist of jasmine over her and she knew.
she knew she could fly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)