truskawkowy

there may be a sense of comfort from uncertainty.  if the weather permits.  i ran this morning and collected thoughts along the way, had they been pebbles i wouldn't have made it, even a block.  maybe it is better to say 

i plucked thoughts along the way.  the weather was gray with a bite in the breeze.  the sky was slate.  a few days ago there had a been a strong quake that broke down hundreds-year-old churches.  not counting the real houses of the living.  

i went to see a part of the city and the traces of earth-moving.  she recalled the sound of glass straining on the 19th floor, and the narrow escape staircases swaying.  the quick escalator 

couldn't move.  a crippled woman had to be carried through the flights.  still there were cars on the streets.  in another place, there were no more bridges.  in yet another, tons of rain.  and flood.  isn't it too easy to say 

all of these are a reckoning?  the cab driver said calmly.  there was a cross on his dashboard.  his radio airs an advertisement for floorwax.  in between the spaces of every so few hours 

were aftershocks.  the national media feasted for sympathy.  but in the meantime, in some places, there was talk on the importance of mayonnaise despite a protein living.  a well-taught 

young conservationist pointed how egg yolks were used to build the heritage churches.  this, of course, was all well-known.  still, every body went on living.  and in a pad, a cheese and wine party with cold cuts.  

a german who was stranded in hongkong arrived exhausted in the country.  and wondered why the people play mournful love songs.  some prefer to take photos of themselves.

i looked from a high point at the capital and thought of bubbles.  random and uncertainty.  like a child who died at four.  or a dog born from a stray to be a stray to die unloved and starved.  a body without burial on a public high way.

sometimes this country makes me very sad.  and while a good number debate about the future, i return with my luggage and kept fever.  she gives me medicine for colds, which i refuse, preferring water and rest.

how a friend is so happy to give a sachet.  From home, she says, reading aloud the ingredients.  skrobia, regulator kwasowości: kwas cytrynowy, 1,1% sok z limonki (syrop glukozowy, koncentrat soku z limonki), ekstrakt z czarnej marchwi i hibiskusa, aromat, substancja wzbogacająca: witamina C, sól, barwnik: annato.  but there is no truskawkowy, she says, pointing at the strawberries as advertised on the cover.

what are words

maybe they are

like a woman's 

cupped hands

holding space

for the fleeting.







-shane

tattoo

in graduate school years ago, we thought of getting inked for when we finally would succeed.  h* was doing the management of politics, j* was doing clinical psych, i was doing art.  h* had a series of girls who'd visit the dorm after his soccer, until i was finally afraid to greet them, afraid to say the wrong name.  h* would get engaged and married first years before finishing school. j* would travel weekly, post pictures, as then he had eaten chocolates and played violin in the middle of papers.  why do you do clinical, i asked him once over breakfast.  the same reason you do what you do, he said.  did j* got his one-way mirror glass house the way he said he would?  i look at my left arm now and see the many studies i've had on its skin, the attempts of corporeal permanency.  what about that poem in the book starring the three of us in that university dorm at *?

about the why we live

in another time, the technique was all that mattered:  how to construct the lines, how to cut them, how to end; also, what medium to use: wax or wood or metal; what frames, what movements of light or line; or how big the canvas; is it better in graphite, in oil, or latex; what mixed media to use; what texture the background, the color, the chiaroscuro; should it be two or three dimensional, or should it be in relief or in double images; should it also include an installation, a center piece, a performance?  where will the exhibit be held?

in that another time what was often not thought was the why.

why do you ____?
what do you ____ about?
why do you ____  the way you do?

no certain answers to these of course.  only the hows are measurable.  the birth of concepts, of be-ing, no real origins as there are no real arrivals yet.  every thing in transit.  what we can only recall:  terminals where we think we came from: one point to another.  

but the nuances.  
 

the things we do not tell

the office these days has a kind of absence.  the indefatigable secretary, Gloria, has not been around for days.  almost unheard of, but yesterday.  someone said she is undergoing some heart tests, but is not confined in a hospital.  she has been uncomplaining all these time, which made me ask just how much have i been missing.

some things chosen not to be told.

one afternoon Lilia asked me to read a poem about a lake, a grandfather and a boy.  also, in another scene, the boy's sister who was left alone sitting on the lap of the grandfather.  Lilia remarked something about the horror in the poem.  i gave her a copy of a piece by Laux;and she was unable to keep.  we said nothing more.


*


there will be nine one-man shows this friday.  exhibits of selves.  on their papers, the young artists talked so much about their techniques, the how the works were made, too much of it; but too less about the real how of the craft:  the how of be-ing: the space within the armatures.






















 

ways to see

1.  i met A* in a poetry reading, she has two sons, both of them with autism, and she writes poetry.  on her page, she posts Mary Oliver and photos of her sons.  recently she tells about doing a little grocery with the boys, and posts another photo of them playing with water at their front yard.  

2.  in a documentary about children with autism, i thought about their parents and the strength of unconditional love.  maybe reasons had been asked, but expectedly no direct answers were given.  still, the carry on.

3.  a student wrote on her paper that faith is learning the imperfections and still believing in it.  i wrote nothing on the margins.

4.  when i was growing up, about eight or nine, there was a boy who was about four or five years my senior.  he was always in bed and his large frame always carried around by the small woman who was his mother.  i always wondered why he wouldn't just move himself, always wondered why his mother was always so kind.  it took many years before i understood the kindness of a big heart.  and love was not even yet mentioned.

5.  in many torn countries, there remains being a mother.  when they tell stories about carrying and giving birth and raising children in extreme conditions, it is unimaginable.  the strength of a human heart.  

6.  in the early of mornings, when flying flocks can still be seen on the sky and the new sunlight is soft, some young mothers in the neighborhood can be seen carrying their babies for sun, for vitamin D, i am reminded my own paucity. 

understanding the neighbor

W* found way to the neighbor's doorstep this morning.  raised its head to the neighbors, expecting.  anyone who knows W* knows the neighborhood children's pet.  nearly not an ounce of mean-ness on this dog, who worries me, who befriends grown strangers, adores babies and lets little children touch forehead.  the neighbor took an umbrella to hit him, who bent low in sudden fear, unexpecting violence.  i took W* and apologized to the man, for the affectionate dog who trespassed, who expected warmth from all, who must have raised his fear.

astrology

1.  maybe it is in our nature to wait--though the word nature is a loaded word and subject to arguments.  maybe we have the tendency to wait.  to while away our time waiting for something by living.  in any case, maybe we all are waiting for Godot.  who can tell.  and who can say otherwise.  there are some things we know are coming.  the inevitable.  only we don't know the when.

2.  B* passed away.  the dog of some years.  kidney failed.  there is a sense of emptiness in the house.

3.  there are many things we know, but do not think about.  the end of the world, for example.

4.  JJW reads signs in the zodiac.  a feat he showed the first time in B*.  foggy night and the group was smoking and suddenly he said "you're a ----" from out the blue.  an uncanny ability to read the signs of people.  everyone's zodiacs were guessed right.  including a brief description of the you.  and what signs were compatible with you.  and what signs would be bad for you.  i wondered:  do you right away read the person in front of you; can you right away read the lover for you.

5.  JJW recently posted a photo smiling by the Mona Lisa.















 

the orange of stones

my mother was a practical woman.  or maybe there was not much room for dreaming at the time when she was young when she had me and my sister.  a lot of time was needed to keep alive.  i've heard we've moved into war-torn place/s although she and father never told stories about it.  i've heard about long walks and trucks, but always as a word or two like the brief back of a person before she or he closes a door.  i've never knocked.  it is not in the family to ask questions.  although one time, on a clear day when i visited mother and we were outside the house, sitting on white hand-welded metal chairs, she told a story without asking. why she left the union. it was very brief. it ended before anyone could join the table.  

ferris wheel

you've never been in a ferris wheel.  and so one night we stopped at a quaint carnival in a pocket in the city and i said let's take a ride.  you were scared, and i pretended not to.  not because i was afraid of heights, but because the carnival was old, all the rides, rusty.  risky.  not unlikely that any moment something would break, people would fall.  always a third world phenomenon.  but that night, we must have been feeling brave.  you held my hand as we stepped into a cage.  the cage was closed and it felt what pigeons must feel as the wheel began to be turned and the cage was raised.  there were sounds of old machinery, sore, arthritic, beyond retirement.  still, the wheel turned and turned, faster and faster, and we saw only glimpses of stars and parts of the city made strange.  and as you held my hand conquering your fear, i try not to think of metals rods breaking, the bones of the wheel collapsing under the weight of young lovers' dreams.