public, private, and secret

Gabriel passes away at 87



So a storyteller passes away.
into an other world where perhaps 
there would be no more need 
for stories.  This world we have,
so needy for a better place.
'Though sometimes we forget--

or perhaps because we remember--
we celebrate what brightness
survives in the dark.  A piece
of fleeting life.  He says,
"All human beings have three lives:

public, private, and secret."
And so we live each and each.
A tight exclusive circle.

beginning at forty

This terrarium is called Night Walk with Mishima.  It has come to this.  Working earth in smaller quantities.  Taking things, perhaps, one pair of morning and night at a time.  The day she turned forty, she had a photo of herself among her terraria.  Face hidden by shadow, dancer's feet poised ready to dance in sunlight.  I am happy she is beginning to be happy.  How it was not so long ago when we met outside the hundreds-year-old wall and she was all in white.  Then, there was nothing else to offer for comfort--not even words--except the blunt presence of a listening warm body for which she could beat her grief on.  The words fled her, the writing, the poetry.  And yet, the art soul survived: in her home-made, hand-beaten memories-in-ice creams that she poured herself into.  This lady is cold, she said.  It has been awhile before it has come to this.  Finally growing gardens in smaller quantities as new beginnings.

existential anger

When you peel away the layers, you will find
at certain times, the anger
throbbing like an unhealed, hidden wound.
Alone, in an otherwise beautiful night, you
wonder why the only genuine affection
comes from dogs.  Why
no one sits outdoors to look at the full moon.
And the mind has never any breathing space
while the body is in outgrown places.
Somewhere in your marrows, you ask for sea
or cans after cans of beer with conversation
expected to end into something else.
Maybe a consuming night of uncontrollable
passion, the way you still remember.
Or falling, at last, into a deep well 
of sleep.  Dreamless.  As when you were
so much younger.  When did you realise
the world is not going to get any better?
At fifteen, a nun brushed away the answer
to your question.  At ten, you kept yourself
awake on guard.  And learned restraint.  
Also how to keep surfaces from imploding.
When you peel away the layers, you will find
at certain times, the familiar anger
throbbing, an unhealed hidden wound.
And alone, in an otherwise beautiful night, 
you wonder of genuine affection.  Why
no one is outdoors to look at the full moon.

obligation

the obligation is always compassion.
years and many things else have taught
scales and angles change
relative to the perceiving eye.
what matters little to one, matters
a world to another.  who is really to know

the lesser or more than of things:
we need to believe someone must
if only to keep the collective world
aright.  or is it
only our too often unarticulated need 
for the sense of anchoring ground?

blindness

Because you are sitting at the same seat
at the same corner in the same pocket
of the universe, the angle is the same.
Unless you try to see.
Or ask the breeze, brushing momentarily
at the broad banana leaves, for a lift.
Gina comes over from New York,
bandana, chemotherapy, shaking hands
and all.  She wanted to see the aftermath.
A childhood in an entire city sluiced down.
And talks about a kind of seeing.
Even from an ocean and two breadths away.
Even with an IV, these days she's reading
little known memoirs of wars, what is kept.
Still as political as ever, against an enemy
headless and constant.
Confronted, rewritten, killed, and revived. 
An ongoing battle until one sees the other
dead.  How her hand shakes now,
holding a pen, her sword.  And her insistent
voice grown hoarse.  The indefatigable.
Because unlike fiction characters, you and she 
are real, are weathered now by the constant 
confronting and writing---no matter where 
you sit or what corner in the country-like 
universe you go, the seeing will exact its toll.
But no matter now.
Merlie the poet returns after an exile
to her island home.  You promise her a visit.
And Gina, Gina has taken her flight.

April 7th

At a certain angle, one can see the hours
stretching in an attempt at eternity.
The breeze prods, so does the sunshine.
The sound of water always never too far.
So, too, the sounds of conversations
between strangers attempting kindness.
Only the dogs are not disturbed.
And perhaps, too, the little children 
sitting on toy carts, the wheels rolling.
They are as aware of eternity, 
lounging contentedly at the front yard, 
as the weeds themselves who, seeing 
the gardener, keeps on growing anyway.

idgee

I have been looking at my little dog's ears a few days now.  The ears have to say pink to be healthy.  They cannot be quiet as a white.  These days, the little dog has been on the floor, a furry mop.  More quiet than his usual.  He has always been the self-effacing one; nearly lost at a few days old, and nearly broke a leg in few months time.  Now grown, but considerably smaller than the others.  Shy, too.  Always in the background when any one is around, at my feet in quiet affection when I work or read alone through a long dark night.  Only last night did I really really notice.  He did not greet me on arrival.  Nor got up to greet this morning.  I carried him outside for our morning ritual of fresh air and sunlight.  And he gave in to the prodding, if only to stand with the breeze on his face, maybe to not disappoint.  His eyes were quiet.  The med kit says it lacks the more important pill.  I give him what at the moment can be had.  My sister calls to ask about a sofa and my having breakfast.  I say sofa next week, breakfast none, that I worry of the dog.  She says the breakfast is for me, not the little dog.  My sister with her newborn girl named Sky.  I remember a formula for when they were still puppies.  I am getting up to make one now.