Daughter of Jove, you are yet Saturn’s Child

Make a memory with me, and I’ll polish it ‘til it gleams. I collect them you know, like the rocks I collect on my solitary walks. The most vibrant and colorful I cherish like those that I keep in a crystal bowl on my bookcase; but the most beautiful, those I cherish most are tucked away like the rocks kept in a little leather pouch that I hide away and chose to share at my discretion.

Move me, surprise me; stir the waters of my deepest well, and I will never forget. For better or worse, out of love and compassion or bitterness and hate, I cannot erase what is impressed upon me; I record it all, like a fossil in a stone. The meat of it all will decay, but the impression of its bones will remain, and with time I’ll be able to see the hidden of what held it all together.

I can taste it, when a memory is in the making. In the midst of the moment, I am thinking to myself, I will remember this always; and a sort of melancholy overtakes me, because I can taste the ripeness of the moment like a yellow nectarine pulled from the tree, with a crunch that sends the juices flowing; and it’s passing, it’s slipping away; it is being made, and in its making slips away like a shadow thats lost between slants of light. But some moments are like staring into the sun, and when you close your eyes, you see it behind your lids, a fixed yellow spot suspended in the darkness—everything else is lost, the clouds, the blue of the sky, the crowns of the trees, and all that remains is that which burned brightest, that dazzled and blinded, and yet you could not look away.

I’m thinking of a smile from last November. Here was one of the most beautiful smiles I’ve ever seen, and made all the more beautiful because it was so unexpected; and I wished in that moment if only I could spend my life keeping that smile on that face. I keep that moment tucked safely next to my heart, and when I’m alone I like to draw it out from underneath. And I see that smile, I see those eyebrows drawn together in such happy sense of surprise, and I feel myself in turn awash in my own surprise at the warmth and tenderness I’d inadvertently evoked. This moment is like my own personal little sun, it keeps me warm when I grow chilly like a warm leather armchair by the fireside.

Most of humanity is a blur, a sea of faces. They come, they go. Some you meet, and you forget their name even before you’ve said goodbye. And you know you’ll never see that them again, and you don’t care if you do. And then once and awhile along someone will come, and the world never seemed so beautiful, because until that moment they hadn’t existed for you. It’s as if heaven opened up and poured down on you, because everything seems possible, everything all the more beautiful. You see the best in them, and the best in others, and the best in yourself, and its like stepping outside and smelling a fresh breeze of salty sea air, or the smell of pine on a damp winding trail after spending the day in the stale air of windowless room.  And you want to be the best of yourself and give of the best of yourself, and give to the world all that is the best of what you have to offer. Because they inspire you and enrich you, and add such vibrancy to the color of your world you hadn’t known existed.

And even when the glamor fades, and you see that they are not some star fallen down from heaven, but a human being after all; just as frail, vulnerable, and full of foibles as the next person, how beautiful it is when one’s compassion is stirred. Because you can see reflected in another your own humanity, the brevity of it all, the frailty of a human life—how easily bruised and battered we can become. When I can see myself in another person, I see the steps they take that I’ve taken, or steps that they’ve took that I’m taking, and I’m roused to such a fierce sense of loyalty and solitdarity, and something in me rises up like grizzly to her hind legs when her cubs are threatened. Something primal and instinctual that curls the lip and stretches the muscles taut.

Then there is the sort of beauty that is found in the bittersweet, when one’s fantasies are dashed against the rocks, and all is shipwreck to a siren’s song. Sometimes it’s the timing, its all wrong. Too early, too late, or the stretch of window of possibility is lost, and the door is shut. Not quite ready to stretch yourself, or let something go. But the beauty of what is lost, of what could have been, how heart wrenching, the agony of it. And you recognize it was lost out of fear, out of a lack of self-confidence, out of a lack of boldness, and you could almost dash your head against the wall, the idiocy of it all is so unbearable. How much has been lost, how much opportunity in one’s life can be wasted in such a stupid manner.

And how much better a condition would the world be, if we could all learn to trust? In ourselves, and in others, and in Providence? How much better would the world be when we could recognize our own selfish actions, and choose not to act from it? But to act from a place of compassion, empathy, and love? Toward ourselves and toward one another, and to treat others as we’d treat ourselves? But first it’d require that everyone be able to love one’s self, and the world is sadly lacking in people who are able, to embrace themselves in all their darkness as well as their light.  Perhaps if we could learn to truly love ourselves, we wouldn’t need to point out the shortcomings of others, for who is not without fault? Those that feel the need to focus on other’s faults do so out of fear of looking at themselves.

Here my thoughts become muddled, for one strand of thought has become entangled in another, and isn’t it just the way of things when the lead sinks in. Perspective becomes mired in a foggy bog, and its damned hard work to try to trudge out of that kind of muck. Perhaps it’s a grim note to end on, but such dismal thoughts hinder reflection, they bring my fount of happy hope and inspiration to a sputtering trickle. I forget that I’m an idealist in world populated by realists, and not everyone is blessed with the happy disposition of optimism, of wishing to see the best and brightest in everything and everyone. Nor am I always capable of keeping that kind of optimism afloat. Sometimes when the mood takes me, I’m as darkly pessimistic as I’m optimistic. That when I’m wounded the walls go up, its like the Great Wall comes between me and those whose who cause me harm. My only comfort is that brick by mortar brick, I’m learning to chip it away, I’m trying to remain hopeful and optimistic amidst the worst of the pain. That when someone hurts another person, especially someone they love, its out of their bleeding wound, and I never met a wound I didn’t wish would mend. I often find myself divided in my nature. I am both a daughter of Jove as well as Saturn’s child, and here is lies a crux in my nature.

The Black Man 8-19-2011

I dreamt another dream tonight

Where the black man came to me.

His teeth and eyes shown bright

As he held me by the sea.

 

I’ve dreamt this man before,

Where snow flakes fell fat and round,

And with his eyes this man implored

Me not yet to Winter in the ground.

Sunday Morning Prayer (2011)

Strolling along the bone white shore

Stripped naked by the tide,

Not stone nor shell lay on the floor

And so I never stopped nor slacked in stride.

 

Over sea and cloud did the sun cast his golden glow,

And everywhere where he did throw

His dazzling beams, was drenched in silver and gold,

How it glittered, how the clouds blushed brightly bold!

 

Its quiet times like these

When Heaven meets the Sky

And its not so hard to imagine

You’re standing quite nearby.

 

I can almost hear you whisper,

I can almost feel your touch,

And I close my eyes and pray to God

That you know I miss you much.

February Tulips (Winter 2011)

Into the waves did I wade.

A kiss upon each of these, two red lips–

Wordless, yet more than words have ever said.

And so I laid them in her arms and of ocean bade,

To sink my gift beneath her waves.

 

But the jealous sea only pushed them back,

She threw them on the sand.

Their waxen petals lay bruised and broken,

Beside all our hopes and dreams.

Yellow (Fall 2011)

I cannot sleep.

It is a welcome relief.

Tears spring from

The Fire in my belly.

Thawing and revitalizing

What was frozen and sluggish.

 

I can see it coalescing

My dreams coagulating

Into the tangible pavement

Of Prima Matera.

 

I feel it pulling me

Forward from Within.

Like the anticipation

Before the race,

I stand crouched,

Ready for the gun.

La Ultima Notte (2004)

The wrath of battering waves

Beat and pound

Against harrowed cliffs.

Crashing and roaring

They charge, rivaling against

Thrashing winds.

Lightening pierces and tears

Through the bruised and broken sky,

And all is swallowed

In the quickening boom

Echoing up and down

The discontented shore.

 

But I lay at the top of the hill,

Tucked safely between

Two quivering arms

That shelter and carry me

Away from the threat

Of the Storm.

 

And the crashing and roaring

and wailing are drowned

In the two wet pools before me.

And I slip deep and deeper

Into their cool pricking waters,

Falling up into a Violent,

Bittersweet, Paradise.

 

Soft skins melding in slow, rhythmic union.

A swelling as End blurs with Beginning,

Love’s blazing light warming and

Illuminating like the rays of a gentle

Fall sun on frost-winded day.

Pools shimmer of red and blue

By the glow of the bedside lamp;

Flooding and deepening

To profound lakes;

A ripple, then a wave

Breaks deep inside,

And the flood streams

Past the breakers

Into the dark humid hallow of my parted lips.

In the Mirror (Fall 2012)

Here is the cheek you would caress in my sleep,

The eyes you would kiss when the lids were drawn down.

Here is the mouth from which you drank deeply,

The lips that once smiled, but now meekly frown.

Here, there, every inch of my body,

A memory made where you fingers lingered,

And I hear the echo of a memory of words you

Never said but showed me, to treasure and treat well

This encased soul’s temple body.

Temple-Fortress, Blessed Be, for ShaDawn (2009)

We are not so different you and me,

We both have fathers, mothers, friends.

The wind sweeps softly over us free;

The sun shines down atop our heads.

We bleed and sweat, and shed

Bright tears of sorrow and of glee.

 

But I have not had a vicious word

Spat at me. Nor had my worth

Threatened to be trodden down and slurred,

Because my skin was dark at birth.

I can’t undo humiliations you’ve endured;

I can but do my best not to let them reoccur.

 

I can but tell you how I do admire

Your lovely color, rich and sheen,

Whether caramel or coffee bean.

I love your heart where burns that fire

Whose glow enduring forged steal-like pride;

Blessed be Temple-Fortress, where Spirit resides safe inside.

Underground (Winter 2012)

You were only twenty-six

When you’d crossed the river Styx,

And left me here to carry on with out you.

 

You’d fought until the bitter end

But the tear too great wouldn’t mend,

The fierce gray wolf had finally gotten to you.

 

Now I walk this valley floor

Where you’d trodden once before,

The ghost behind me, Oh, I know it is you!

 

Within this wood there lurks the beast

Who’d bitten you, he comes for me.

The trees are thick, but whispers lead me onward.

 

Though my sun is in the west,

Fires burning in my breast

Like the sun, they are glowing golden for you.

 

Three times before the sun will set

The King’s fate is sadly met,

But from ashes you won’t rise again, will you?

 

Though the light is fading low

Among the trees down here below,

I have no fear of shadows here beside you.

 

And in this dark a path is found

Among the needles on the ground.

It snakes along the valley floor and I press onward.

Someday in Wonderland (Winter 2012)

My white rabbit, you disappeared down a black hole

Each night like Alice I chase you round my dreams,

You and your pocket watch.

You shouting to me, “Too late, too late!”

But one day, we all must follow

Down into that black abyss,

Into a slumber from which

We never reawaken.

And perhaps one day when its my turn

To disappear down that magic rabbit hole,

I can finally catch you and ask you the time.

And then perhaps you will no longer tell me I’m too late.