The conversation tonight was about light. How temporal it is. Like body, like breath. Like how two people meet. Living, and then, also, leaving. Both. Always happening at the same time. This mad provision
we call here, now, what exists, merely passing in time & space, brushing, lingering, lingered, in transit, a longing, through the vastness this presence, phenomenon, is-ness, then gone, to where? from where? extending, to nowhere, elsewhere, liminal, between, nuance, distance, distances, horizon, eternal.
The commonest road has no name. It is a road that is not a road. It is light. That stretches. A beam, a bridge, crossing, reaching us at the selvedges, where we are on the folds of happenstance, wrinkle in space, in time, breathing each other, are you there? am i there? here i am. here you are.
1. I must tell you I met someone.
2. Named Gold.
3. Fire burning tight in a small frame.
4. Birdcage, voice box, body.
5. Skin supple, subtle to the eye.
6. I want to, but do not.
7. So much age, so much youth.
8. She laughs and she says.
9. I step back and hold myself back.
10. Half a hundred smiles.
11. Three hundred times of waiting.
12. I search for something else instead.
13. Try again patience, the kind that sees through the last of the ripples so the liquid surface calms again into a mirror of sky.
14. Morning, afternoon, night, the chairs and tables by the streets are with people, warm temperature in the middle of winter.
15. Spark, spark, spark.
16. I dream of the outline of her.
17. Search for something else instead.
18. Is it possible to call it mirror?
19. Translated into permutations: woman, night, flower, gold.
20. No one remains innocent, not after the wars folded in the years.
21. Are you spring cleaning?
22. I have two rugs and two wooden, folding chairs.
23. There is a list made into existence everyday and made to disappear everyday.
24. Am I waiting? Yes.
25. It is always the same woman.
26. In different translations.
27. The same.
It is raining now where I am.
The heater hums, the gray will not leave
until the weeks of winter will finally
exhaust themselves. In the meantime
the tea, the sound of rain, the days
in the calendar filling up
like things to do that march on and on.
I sense my right eye stooping now
like an old working dog. It means
the glasses will have to be changed.
In the meantime, how to talk about
translation? When everything
we manifest are truly incomplete.
A student, armed with practice and theory,
argues: translation is always a gain.
In time
one will know gentleness; and why
the horizon is what it is: something
perceivable, what we can move towards
eternally, as we would a dream,
as we would each breath. Always beyond.
There are many ways to live.
Even the one who ruminates drinks tea,
the bag possibly packed in a factory
filled with underpaid men and women,
children too, in some developing country
never far beyond.
All in an open circle.
Echos-monde.
The water from this rain.
Me. You. What the limitations I have
make of You other than the You
that you actually live. What we imagine
of ourselves, of each other.
To one another.
In the meantime, I write a letter
to a You.
Letter without postal stamp, physical
address, even a legible name. As though
believing the tangible is an organic case
always subject to decay, unable to contain
what we are truly trying to reach.
Landlocked, it is almost merely imagination
that island exists, where the bamboo wind chimes
hang above the door and sunshine spills
on the floor and still so much left share--
the entire island a lake of sun.
Landlocked in the east, I move the writing desk
closest to the window and place
the small pot of ivy on the sill. I watch the tree
standing at perfect distance, visible
from crown to base, turn to fire to charcoal.
Snowflakes come between days. I take time
to watch squirrels and stray cats and walk
afternoons in this country of dreams. Yesterday
the little bookshop at the edge of the town
put up their closing sign. Mostly, all is quiet.
I am coming to know again friends who are sad.
Some mad. Mostly sad.
These are not secrets. What is all over the news.
But what was I thinking about only four weeks ago,
standing at the edge of the west coast,
inhaling the Pacific?
And do you remember that poem by Gary Soto?
The one about a boy meeting a girl.
He held her hand, and on the other, he held
an orange, and it was bright, bright like fire.
what the minds says/ is altogether different.
i take walks in the morning, walks
in the late afternoon towards evening, evening late
the lights becoming/ is altogether different.
i have to keep remembering now, nearly
all the time what made the decision to keep on
this way beyond distances and times of day, past
the roads seen ahead/ what the mind says
is altogether different.
Something is happening next door.
Since the young woman with large hair
moved in, there has been cat sounds,
one time even a baby's. The young man
who grows edible mushrooms, dropped by
one afternoon to give home baked
brownies, still warm with
Brownies for everyone. Love Joe
in red marker. I never got around
thanking him, missed the chance to
when we briefly met.
I was opening my front door, he was
on his way to "the forest".
The weather forecast said rain.
Who am I to know?
The first sound of fireworks I mistook
for faraway gunshot. Not even
their festive lights bring me back
to childlike wonders.
The flowers are still abloom, yes,
but the gusts have come, leaves turning
slowly. I tell myself to return again
to the habit of running or walking
accompanying the self.
The young man next door has taken into
playing New Age music, early evenings
the young woman calls out a name
and a stray cat named Oliver appears.
and the professor says Hegel,
I understand, is a difficult
read, that
Derrida, afraid, couldn't
count the times he revised
his work on Hegel. Hegel
anticipating our responses
still
two hundred years later.
No change then, this
phenomenon that is ourselves.
What does it mean, this line?
The room remains quiet.
Graduate students now past
the courage of teenagers
(who saw futility
on first day and left)
wrestle within themselves.
Mostly looking away.
Karl and Mao, Fanon, Butler...
The professor, his
three translations
and academic German.
The room where empty chairs
outnumber the class
below the first floor
where one entire wall is
glass windows looking straight
at an unpainted concrete wall.
What does it mean, this line?
and the professor says Hegel,
I understand, is a difficult
read, that
Derrida, afraid, couldn't
count the times he revised
his work on Hegel. Hegel
anticipating our responses
still
two hundred years later.
No change then, this
phenomenon that is ourselves.
What does it mean, this line?
The room remains quiet.
Graduate students now past
the courage of teenagers
(who saw futility
on first day and left)
wrestle within themselves.
Mostly looking away.
Karl and Mao, Fanon, Butler...
The professor, his
three translations
and pocket German.
The room where empty chairs
outnumber the class
below the first floor
where one entire wall is
glass windows looking straight
at an unpainted concrete wall.
What does it mean, this line?
I can count now on one hand
The number of days left on this little island
Of sweets. Days the colour of turmeric.
(It rains just now, wet monsoon has come)
This is a place of hope, no matter
What its people say. More than half its year
The bamboo chimes hanging on my front door
Sounds of water. The shore half hour away.
When the breeze blows on your beloved's hair
And when you see grown men and women
Come out at downpour, play with their children,
You will know why
Tired white men find their way here
To rest at last from the world at large.
But I leave. By the cosmos' grace, I leave.
(An ant's work what we do. So little
To add to so much more.)
And two days before I leave, I shall ferry
Visit a spider woman in these islands,
Who wrote poetry of memory, being, becoming
It shall be a moment in her herbs garden
Where there will be no promise
Only a doing by understanding
This so much work, this so much work
More than an entire ant's life can do.
I can count now on one hand
The number of days left on this little island
Of sweets. Days the colour of turmeric.
(It rains just now, wet monsoon has come)
This is a place of hope, no matter
What its people say. More than half its year
The bamboo chimes hanging on my front door
Sounds of water. The shore half hour away.
When the breeze blows on your beloved's hair
And when you see grown men and women
Come out at downpour, play with their children,
You will know why
Tired white men find their way here
To rest at last from the world at large.
But I leave. With the cosmos' grace, I leave.
(An ant's work what we do. So little
To add to so much more.)
And two days before I leave, I shall ferry
Visit a spider woman in these islands,
Who wrote poetry of memory, being, becoming
It shall be a moment in her herbs garden
Where there will be no promise
Only a doing by understanding
This so much work, this so much work
More than an entire ant's life can do.
It must be primordial knowledge of this
Temporal state of being in body, this
Limited form, blood and flesh mere
Vessel of what we truly are--and what are we
(If what is such a definitive, limiting thing)?
Do we hunger, search for constant
Knowing we are fleeting mist?
I tell you I find comfort in the familiar.
Not one who easily warms to change, no matter
All these awareness of primordial states
And all the assurances of all being well
If not now, not yet,
Later will.
The universe cannot be not good.
For all these wonders to exist. Tangible and
Not. Such as this bridge we cross, vague,
To meet you and I nearly formless in space
Years now, and I hope, years more.
For whom is the goodbye? I ask myself now
Finally understanding why they all ask
My consistent refusal for despedida
No send-offs, I said, No one is leaving.
Even so I think of returns.
Knowing all these are leaving me
As I leave them.
I do not want to sleep, wanting only
To keep awake. Lengthen, possibly, time.
This Thursday night longer and longer still.
There is a date waiting for me. A door.
An airplane.
There she is again, the woman with a basketful of mabolo.
Velvet fruit that must be animal,kitten furry on my hand
Yesterday it looked at me with eyes that meow, meow, meow
Is what the kitten said meow, meow, meow. The woman said
Be careful. Kitten is small and so is the velvet apple
Like puppy head pat, pat, pat. Love, love, love woman said.
She is waving at me now from the other side. I see her
Smile waving her hand. She crosses the water, knee deep
Waist deep, too deep, she says I love you I love you
I love you and we are on a paper boat
She paddles and says Look! Look at the fish! And I swim
And my skin laughs because it is water, not
So loud, I laugh and laugh and flap about but I don't.
The woman said very good you can do it. I find my hands
Into a circle tracing dots into a heart, Who am I?
The woman asks. She is crossing the waters and there is
Ripple behind her, there are sounds, there is a car
Brooom, brooom, brooom it is loud and the triangle
On paper is sharp I try to cover it blue, blue, blue
Because it is noisy and loud and sharp and bright
I squint my eyes and see the line and clench my teeth,
Hold the pen, fingers like this, catch a fish, want
The wide and flail my arms but I don't. The woman said
Very good you can do it I love you I love you I love you.
There she is again, the woman with a basketful of mabolo.
Across the water across the table there are sounds
Something moves at the corners of my eyes, it is breeze.
There are suns on my paper and we are on a boat.
Who am I? she says. She opens her hand and there it is
A mabolo, velvet kitten puppy fish circle dots heart.
for An
Soon, he knows, he will start writing about stars
the sky being a single dome under where they all are.
Not very original, in the same way at one time
someone wrote it is the same sea where they were
wading their feet together merely few hundred miles apart.
He doubts writing about stars would help.
He doubts poetry helps.
Suspicious of words now, finding them out
self-entitled ants proclaiming able to make anything
better: soul, world, future. Who listens to them, poets?
The heart has finer than fine a multitude of strings
Does poetry even matter against the literal onslaughts
to the body? Real bills, real houselessness, real hunger.
He doubts poetry;
doubts himself, a fool.
But the stars were, are, will still be there. Themselves
mocking the ephemeral fears of his temporal body.
Consider a room with two doors
One facing east the other west
Both meeting at the same
Room where one meets another
Where there is no Other
Where the floor between is
A border that is not---
A space undefined
A place familiar
so we are patient with god
who has own time
mysterious
something neither one can
measure by logic
affection
longer than mortal patience
length of time
by breaths
or by turn of tides seasons
revolutions of peoples
planets...
some parts of this country
god is a child
who laughs
is good is teasing is letting
us run afraid of our own
limitations
I no longer say "Bless me, Father
For I have sinned." I have left
A long time ago. Not anymore
The same child who read the bible
Every afternoon, cover to cover
For the stories of unbelievable
Faith for a beyond admirable man
Or god; in my life there
Are stories in middle of stories
The ones I do not dare have light
Or air on them--for what use?
They are the silence between
My god and me.
I have keep my peace with
Men and women claiming closeness
To god whom they seem to know
Up close: we are entitled to
Our own brand of delusions. But
I do not say this, let them be.
My own is that god and I
Are this: cosmos letting me be;
My own weakness leading me--
From time to time--to becoming
That same child again who
Has nothing but faith and fear
And faith: all to be good again.
I don't mean the flowers, I say, when I meant how the day was. We were at her little yard, a patch of grass trying to populate in spite lack of water and too much sun; it has a few herbs here and there, spots of turmeric and also what resembles dill. Not too long ago, I helped tend her basil. The jasmine tree, flowering this time of the year, has a series of firefly lights. Twinkling now and making mellow glows, making being in the yard feel it is those years again. Letting some part of the evening seem to wait for the sweet telltale scent of pot.
She brings a dainty white pot of oolong tea; on her other hand, a book she is about to finish: about a man proving evil in the world. I am cynical about it: evil needs no proving; but keep peace anyway: she most likely is as cynical about poetry.
I think instead it is quite an evening. Remembering the time we had wine and talked--while embers used to grill the fish for dinner slowly turned to ash--about things forgotten now. What did we talk about?
This evening it is about a possible trip to C: the guide says white sand beach, waterfalls, springs. There again the pictures of sunsets, horizons and outrigger boats. In essence they mean leaving. I notice the slice of red watermelon on a plate placed on the table for me and the palm-size local papaya for her. I think about what I might not have for a long time soon. What we try not to talk about.
The slight headache I have had earlier returns. A breeze passes and the bamboo chimes on her doorway make their water sounds. I pet one of the dogs. It is quite an evening. I shove the rest of the papers and things to do in a full drawer in mind.
I think it is not fear of death itself as much as
Fear of dying; death is a given, the psyche
Attuned to it since time beyond memory: all
Archetypes of travel (companions, fellow solo
sojourners, boats, terminals, stop-overs...)
Everyday, departures are what have come to be
known like the pace of one's own breathing--
But who can tell of true arrivals?
Everyone has ideas, some more convincing
Than others; what may be more fearful is
Living: that very long wait, so long
We become desperate lovers of life itself.
If you were to decide, would you want to be born
into exactly the same way you are now?
There is a correct answer and there is
a truthful one. The correct answer is
always a Yes for all believed-to-be moral
reasons including resignation to fate.
The more truthful one, far from it. Why
would you choose again exactly the same
circumstance that led you beating your own breast
calling out to a universe that does not answer
why all these senseless pain (war-torn refugees,
hunger, true hunger and true abandonment) while
others worry more wind to sail their yacht?
The young people at the university yesterday
organised themselves and came to the streets
raised their fists in claims of revolution.
Some of them took their poetry and slammed,
invited me to come and speak (with them).
I could not place a word to what I feel.
Perhaps I have grown too old:
I still want to believe, but
