waking up with no memory

It is the entanglements after. If there are any.
Most of the time, it is best

when both know it is nothing else. But that
spur of the moment--

muscles, adrenaline, the quickening of beats
towards cosmic release

before returning to the exhaustion of bodies 
and what is it that has always been there: our

own tired places in a slow and spinning world. 
It has been a long, long time

since.
Never quite losing sobriety facing passion.

Always steady to take the long drives 
and decide at least three steps ahead, as though

still playing chess with whoever it is across.
On better days,

I think myself in transit on a lucid boat
crossing an ocean called Weather&Time.

There has got to be a return or an arrival
somehow, although at the moment

my thoughts are only as simple 
as has she thought of me today.

The Act of Remembering

A dangerous thing, this act.
Betrayal to one's own mind who
once decided and precariously
ordered the will to 
severe part of itself, 
preserving most 
of what spirit remains.

And then suddenly this-- 
re-collecting, bringing back
to make as part again
what had been 
intentionally let fall away.

When still young, there was 
so much strength to push
ahead, against the gusts.
To keep forward the head
steady from not looking back.

Perhaps because the road
was still long, the young
eyes still unable to sense
what lies by the by, 
by the bend.

Our immortal's time.

Now here we are. Here I am.
The familiar autumn 
on my back. I try, I try
to push against the gusts.
To keep away from the act,
from surrendering to
remembering. I do not want

to say I am afraid that come
this winter, the bones will,
on their own, remember.











  

from a hut overlooking part of the ocean

After all, we share a common journey.
When traveling together, it's normal to talk,
exchanging remarks, say, about the weather,
or about the stations flashing past.

We wouldn't run out of topics for so much connects us.
The same star keeps us in reach.
We cast shadows according to the same laws.
Both of us at least try to know something, each in our own way,
and in even in what we don't know there lies a resemblance.

Just ask and I will explain as best I can
what it is to see through eyes,
why my heart beats,
and how come my body is unrooted.

From Wislawa Symborzka, "The silence of plants" pp 76-77

calm before storm

The people on this island who still remember
their indigenous science can tell
an impending storm is coming

feeling the absence of wind, despite all
sunshine, clarity, and birds.
The large ring around the moon tells them

remember remember remember to tell.
But the animals who need no remembering

sniff for wind, are listless and far 
from the pretence of sleep.  Blind, I can only

watch the forewarning swirling on the web.
A hurtle is restless, is angry, is coming. 

Remembering the count of one to ten,
I prune the sweet wilderness of trees.

pomegranates

do we still look for Virtuous? the tribe
has long vanished.  gone after its
last, and last farewell parade.  how 
they had come together, a flock 

merging from crevices of mountains 
wet mounds of rivers, wides from flatlands. 
i look past the large glass windows
of the 15th floor and wonder

was Virtuous ever real at all? or are they
as real as stories of nymphs
no longer believed and yet, men
dreamed in the kept hollows 

of their minds? do we still look for 
Virtuous? on the streets, there could be
a nun, a student, a lawyer,  a thief,
mother, father, children, aunts, uncles

a strange array of the Less
--this whole world--including ourselves
who, after having bitten 
the pomegranates of the underworld

attempts every day
to rise Virtuous above the self.

palimpsest

Perhaps the reason why we are not meant 
to live longer than we have to is the burden 
the weight of years, in incremental memories
layering one on top of another.  

Imagine
the skin of the world seen by your mind's eye
and the thousands more associations
only you can conjure.  How at times they come

and go only when they so pleases.  Such that
in mid of something else entirely, you remember 
the minute details of her and of the scene
surrounding her.  In a vividness that could

outlast the very strength of you, finally
grown weary with all the years.







 

cape town

if you come to visit a city, do so not as a tourist.  
else there will be many things you will miss.  

the tourist is always asked to see
the many beautiful things,  

of course he is also asked to see
the beautiful only.

mirror

it  struck me, just as i was about to leave the office, in the restroom, looking up after washing my hands, and seeing myself on the mirror, with the indistinguishable light from the very very late sun mixed 

with the onset of dusk.  how i folded my crisp sleeves at the elbows, the wristwatch half glinting, how, while the rest of what i own shades of white and blue, the only pink shirt so suddenly reminded me.  

a moment, when the face on the mirror is of someone older, a once-upon-a-long-time-ago childhood hero.  wasn't i told many times how we could be so much alike.  the smile, maybe, other expressions 

on the open face, two left feet, an awkwardness when dancing, humor, carefully tempered temper and impatience, a proud sharpness when angry...how i carefully reminded myself to constantly remember

how he was so i would not follow.  consciously not follow and be better.  like a constant keeping of distance from a dark corner shadow.












  

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. 

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.  

if you see the world a reservoir

how no love is ever lost



who was it who said everything has to go somewhere.  that nothing disappears.  in this world, in this cosmos.  even the chromium and cadmium may find themselves in the bodies of weeds, absorbed by plants, long after they are disposed on garbage heaps.  how nothing disappears.  no matter the ephemeral.  every thing a palimpsest.  even this world, layer after layer of events, known as histories, known as peoples, also known as love.  do you believe in energy? in warm thoughts, as well as warm bodies?  do you believe in the vast-ness of this universe, in the minute-ness of atoms, in the indefatigable force that binds us all?

         

today in the middle of nowhere

Today in the middle of nowhere, I held your imaginary hand
the van was dark, crowded with strangers familiar with each other  
the ride, long.  We did not talk.  You looked outside the window
I tried not to listen to the news, public television blaring too loud.
South of this country, men are shooting each other over religion.
Up north, there is talk about plunder.  Somewhere, three men
raped a twelve-year girl, who had fallen asleep with her homework
before she was carried off to a rooftop.  Neighbors thought
she was duffel bag.  Her mother cried, the media feasted.
I wanted to bury my face on your hair.
Heave my burden.
But then you turned and smiled a weary smile,
the van was crossing the bridge and the city lights
looked near from a distance.




shane

bench at the park by the river

how does a conversation between two humans in their bodies begin?
in awkwardness and in pretension.
pretend the body does not matter.
nor the face.  the length and color of hair, of eyes, of skin.
the kind of smile, the crow's feet around the eyes, the even-ness
of teeth, the lips, the lobes of ear, curve of neck, sound of voice.

in conversation, the two humans list on walls of air
their life's achievements:  the various ways they have survived
the onslaught of years;  the ways they have carried on
all the weight of accumulated disbelief; all the personal
histories seen, felt, or otherwise.  how the body
tends to hide behind the eyes.

if the conversation is long enough, it ends with coffee
together with a hundred other things known
on how to keep bodies afloat on the surface.
 
if the conversation is not enough, the two humans, body-less,
stay on the bench at the park by the river
souls talking to each other, both facing the waters.

the places where i imagine us

The Places In Which I Imagine Us




I'm not sure how many of them exist. 
Like that cabin in an unexplained clearing
in an island off the coast of Nova Scotia.
The fireplace sounding like a page
of sheet music being eternally crumpled,
as if to say to us: Sit down. Read a little.
The bed is made and we’ll make a bet
to see who gets to ruin its serenity
first. Then maybe I will kiss you.
Then maybe I will step in the shower
and explore the lengthy chapters
of the book of happiness. Then maybe
I’ll get out and lie down and whisper to you
the thousand feelings I cannot name
zipping around my body like molecules.
I will ask you to tell me a story
about your childhood, or ask you to look
outside at all the trees we don’t recognize.
All the colors we didn’t know existed.
All the while I cannot say where you are
in the cabin. Or outside of it.
I have stopped trying to imagine
the entirety of you. Or at least trying
to fit it into a poem. But still on rainy days
I catch myself dwelling there
on the drifting island of my heart, imagining
that somewhere, you are practicing
all the words you know for longing, as I am
doing in the language of poem,
very rarely spoken outside its country
of sorrow. But maybe happiness as it is,
and longing, and love, can make it.
Can be a good poem. Or maybe you have ruined me
exactly the way I wanted you to.

 


by Gian Lao




                

strangers

one of the interesting meetings i've had was meeting at random someone named Albert.  this was in a bookshop cafe while i was waiting to meet a lady friend.  i don't remember anymore how the conversation started; although i do know i didn't start it.  the man was at the next table, one of those extrovert types who, when they find themselves alone, are easy to begin conversations and find common grounds with strangers.  

we found we were both temporarily in the city: his flight out was the next day, he said; mine was that coming weekend.  that also, surprisingly, we were both from the same university; graduates of different years.  the world is small.

we swap university stories:  student organizations we participated in; university places; graduate scholarships.  how we moved forward since then.  when i noticed the book titles he was holding, he said he had done service: twice in Afghanistan, he said.  said he was now in the UN.  told service stories.  noticeable how his books were all about the war; and even though i wondered why he would care to read more about these when he's been there himself, i didn't ask.

so he said he was also once married.  to a jewish woman.  that the divorce was not messy; that they remained friends; that he would still meet her between now and then and give her gifts between now and then; that he once gave her an antique-something because she collects antiques; etc.

my ladyfriend rang, said she was close, walking her way to the bookshop.  i said i'll meet her at the door and wrapped the conversation with Albert:  how we might happen to meet again, one in a hundred, maybe five, given the crossing of latitudes, but who knows? haha! 

she was by the doorway when i saw her.  she must have seen the man because she asked who i was talking with a table away from mine.  and before i could answer, she said, "a military man?"  not entirely wrong, not entirely correct either.  i asked, "what made you think so?"

she said, "obvious from the way he looks."


 

you are rain

waking up midnight at the sound of summer rain...



you are rain.  secret in the middle of the night, in the middle of summer.  like an apology in the dark, in the night, like passion without words, after days long of summer heat.  months dry white torrid scorching.  you are.  rain, at last.  draft through the windows left open, fluttering the curtains.  unexpected, relief.  a welcome, a handful familiar of contours on the palms of my waking.  here, the sound of rain, hard and gradually.  coming to gentleness.  to becoming sound.  of drops, random, spent, and cool, like kisses, finally, easing themselves, sliding, from the bush leaves, to the soft blankets of night grass.






















    

through the looking-glass

photo by K. Kwe

someone read me cards.  i have always been half afraid of taking a peep into the future, like a cheat.  in the same way i try to never spoil a movie or a book or a story, even if told in midst of a conversing circle, how things will inevitably turn out in the end.  in the same way when i travel, with a luggage or a backpack, or when i run to get to know a new city, or new corners in the old city, it is always without definites in mind.  we all know astrology, sure.  and there are always the horoscopes in a page of any newspaper sold around the corner, sometimes even left on the doorstep, if not the yard.  no matter of great genius there, to connect cause with consequence, and to plot possibilities given the circumstances.  what is young will grow old, what is borne will die, and good times can turn bad, and bad, into better.  one can say it is all inevitable.  and yet.  these all do not stop us from loving and from growing children, from caring dogs, from planting perennials.  from collecting memories as if they were dimes, pennies along the pavement found in secret by little children on way to the market or the grocer, holding mommy's hand while crossing the street.  with a happy thought.  who knows, by chance, something pretty and special might just be there.  and we've got a few pennies in hand.

early morning run

when you run, are you running to? or running from?
or running, changed, to come back again?





 

I Learned That Her Name Was Proverb

I Learned That Her Name Was Proverb




And the secret names
of all we meet who led us deeper
into our labyrinth
of valleys and mountains, twisting valleys
and steeper mountains-
their hidden names are always,
like Proverb, promises:
Rune, Omen, Fable, Parable,
those we meet for only
one crucial moment, gaze to gaze,
or for years Know and don’t recognize

but of whom later a word
sings back to us
as if from high among leaves,
still near beyond sight

drawing us from tree to tree
towards the time and the unknown place
where we shall know
what it is to arrive.






by Denise Levertov