Drink Of Life

Drink of life- like my mother did once.
Not alone in the bedroom, she opened and took and the pungent seeds of time spilled into the darkness of space alight with imagination and moans and shrieks and luminous suns.
Let the blackness talk and whisper the secrets of life eternal, but do not mistake the body as its only source.  The sky is full and traveling is not done only in carbon and flesh.
Drink of life like my mother did once.
Then drink again.
Water like my father did once.
Again drink.
Like my father.
Forever is not the end.
End. 
There is only eternal
Return. Again.
Eternal return.
Again.
Eternal return.
Again.

An endless loop of purple and black, we sit in this circle and live out the revolution.
Time shifts as this carpet accepts our weight. As the walls hold us in and the black curtains postpone the sunlight from our eyes. 
We go back into the dream state and journey through darkness and quiet spaces while the walls melt like jelly. We walk through them, licking the paint until our tongues taste like ocean water. 
We circle back and flow in and out of the speckled windows, hearing the squeaks and moans of cars rounding the corner and delivery trucks halting by the door. The walls hold us in, ever intent on their quiet role, their shelter against the demanding brightness of day.  
Grinding and sliding through the maze of our consciousness- like a serpent, the circle comes back once again. It is my turn to speak. 
Cycle.
The ends are woven perfectly together and for once the ends of our fingertips flow out and back in like wisteria branches. Perfectly pungent and delicate- we glow imperceptibly in the darkness behind the curtains. Eventually the walls take in our vibration and the light between you and I starts to move like heat off a desert floor. Though my eyes are closed, I dance and dance, hoping over sand and the scent of old gun smoke and greased leather.
What is this space? I hear my mind ask. Never content to let the eyes talk for us, to let time shift and strain and begin to rewind and then leap forward in a spiraling dance around the circle of our words. And back again, receding into the darkness between the black curtains.
Endless circles as our fingers and toes merge back into roots and trees.

Eternal return.
Again.
Eternal return.
Again.

In The Moment

She wiggled in bed. At some points she was purely wiggling, her body moving huge blasts of energy in unpredictable bursts from toes to fingertips and then back again. Other times she convulsed, her torso lunging forward with wild power that rivaled thunderstorms and bursts of natural fury. Her arms, legs and torso moved without her consent, buckling on their own, reacting to energy that had reached a peak. Her mouth opened, letting out sounds that broke the boundary between moan, pain and pleasure.
She had reached the mountaintop, a place that had once burst with rainbow colored hand gliders and parachutes. She used to sail down the rocky cliff-side on gusts of earth-scented wings, content to fall once again to the place she had come from. Now, it was the same mountain and the same breeze with its salty smell. It was the same place, but she was not jumping. She stayed at the top, holding hands with the man that had brought her there, holding onto him as the wind tried to push them over the edge and back towards the waiting ground.
And now she held back, holding onto the strings, breathing in spite of the breeze and the cries of energy that desperately wanted to move up and over, falling back to where she had once been when her clothes were on and the bed was still uncrumpled and her mouth unkissed. But she was here now, pulling tighter on the strings as the roar began and the convulsions started.
‘uuuuahhhh’ she let out a sound into his bearded cheek.
He lay still as her body twitched beside his, breathing gently, showing her how to relax.
She took in big gulps of air, holding them, forcing her body to breathe slowly, to do what she could feel was happening beside her.
Another convulsion.
Time passed, ones turned into fives, fives turned the clock until the birds sang outside his barred window and her breathing returned to normal. The hand gliders and parachutes melted back into her bloodstream, sitting eagerly on the edge awaiting another opportunity.
Soon she was getting dressed. Pulling on her jeans, her socks, stuffing her bra into her sweater pocket. It was probably cold out, as it had been when she arrived. She put on her jacket, her scarf and gave him a kiss goodbye.
She started her car on the street beside his house and began the short drive to her house which was just a few blocks away. The streets were empty and she began to think, going back to just a few moments before, back to the bed, back to the warm skin that was not her own, yet was. A part of her leapt away, once again wishing to be there, to be with him, not just kissing, not just touching, it was the mountain, the fall over the edge, the sinking into the abyss. She craved that, though they did not jump.
She spoke, ‘you cannot be in a constant state of orgasm, not like the kind you are wishing for.’
She guided her car down the small ramp beneath the subway platform. She remembered she could be happy. ‘Be here. You can be happy with him in bed, but when you are here, driving, you can be happy too.’
She looked at the road, at the subtle curve ahead. She sunk into the curve, putting her full attention on the shift of the yellow line. She turned the wheel of the car with her whole body, feeling pleasure as the car moved. Feeling the dark night coming through all the car’s windows. She smiled.
She thought about all the things she did, all the places she went, all the times she could just be happy if she just remembered to enjoy it. It was hoping for other things, longing for the bed, for his skin, ultimately for the mountaintop, it was the longing for something else. It was the torturous road she liked to walk.
She drove along the dark road, through the two lanes of parked cars. She could be there, in the car, driving, not wishing for someone else, something else.
Not needing anything to happen differently.
She felt that truth wash over her, she understood the source of her daily pain. Her body vibrated with the kisses from the mountain top while her body relaxed into the night around her and the slow drive towards home.

Reminder

The TV was on and its volume was turned very low. I watched the bright Technicolor images move across the screen though eyes that were almost ready to shut. Letting my body melt into the plush suede cushions, I held the remote in one limp hand, ready for another attack of toothpaste and car insurance ads.
In front of me, people in bikinis and board shorts were furiously diving through a pool of mud, frantically rooting through the mess for little bags of sand in an attempt to reach the blue finish line ahead of the pack. As the screams of the contestants came through the living room speakers, I heard a faint sound from the other room, something foreign to the sound of cheering and sloshing that came to me through electric magic and science, or science that was so amazing, it was magic. Aiming the remote at the cable box, I turned the volume even lower and strained my ears for the sound, had I heard something?
Waiting…fixing my eyes on the hardwood floor…waiting…there it was, a little cry.
I left my embedded place on the couch and opened the door to the babies' room, where two dark wooden cribs sat against opposing walls, perhaps clearly defining the roles they would one day assume when they were grown men and left their wooden cribs and baby blankets.
Jonas, the six month old and the younger of the two, was crying. As I looked into the crib, I saw him on his back, his little legs wriggling in his sleeping bag-like-jumpsuit that covered both his legs. His tiny hands were balled up in fists.
Reaching into the crib and pulling his little body towards mine, his cries came up to envelop me. He was unable to clearly say what bothered him, but something was not quite right. Was it the lack of light? Was he lonely in his crib surrounded by only darkness and tall bars? I brought him to my chest, covering his body with my arms, stroking his head of thin silk hair, bringing him as close to my heart as I could.
I remembered the song practiced years ago while standing in a circle of three in a dimly lit room, it was the melody I strained to reach when it leapt up the scale. I sang it here now, in this dark room. I sang it for Jonas, ‘nothing ever has happened, nothing ever will happen…”
Over and over, the two line song came out, reaching up and then descending only to start over once again. He stopped crying quickly and I held him in front of me, propping his jumpsuit covered legs on my stomach. Jonas looked at me with alert wide eyes, eyes that were quickly turning from baby blue to a metallic brown. He wiggled slightly, his body bobbing and moving with currents of electricity and unanswered curiosity.
I stopped singing and looked into him, seeing nothing that can be explained, defined, or understood.
“You know,” I said clearly, “nothing has ever happened, nothing ever will happen.”
His eyes widened. We went into each other then, me looking into him looking into me. I understood it. Him looking into me looking into him, understanding.
There was no woman, no baby, no crib or parents at a party. There was no game show on a television in the other room and no sore muscles from a day standing in the sun.
Here the words made sense, in a chamber of feelings without words. In this place, we were the same thing, two parts of the same fabric, not separated by bodies and memories or contorted into a canvas of unequal shapes and designs where egos dance.
I had spoken and we both had heard. His sudden jolting was mine as well. Oh yes, nothing has ever happened. Nothing ever will happen. Nothing ever has. Nothing ever will.

The Beauty Of Loss

I see thousands of pretty sights.

There are lush and delicate weeping willows whose long drooping branches blow gently in the hot September breeze. I glimpse them as my car continues along at 45 an hour on a newly paved street. I smile, seeing the contrast between the long green branches covered in tiny leaves and the dried up hillsides in the background. I know I will never be here again.

Each vision is beautiful and ephemeral, slipping from sight just as fast as I look.

I am sitting in front of a bread bowl of clam chowder in Monterey. My parents and sister share the wooden table of the restaurant with me. I look up through the front of the restaurant which only has a wide-open roll up door, there is no barrier between us and the foggy day outside. There I see her, walking on the worn wooden pier. A young woman with short dark hair and dark eyes. She’s wearing a low-brimmed hat from the 20s which covers her eyebrows. For a second I see her. She’s smiling brightly, her eyes revealing flirtation and mischief as she turns to someone behind her and smiles even more broadly. She looks like a painting, like a vision. Her body keeps moving though her head and eyes are focused on something behind, a young man, I imagine.

I see thousands of pretty sights. Each vision is beautiful and ephemeral, slipping from sight just as fast as I look. Each worthy of a photo but I can’t even grab it fast enough.

I’m on a train weaving through the Italian countryside. It’s fall and the sky is heavy with gray clouds. As we move at seventy miles an hour, I catch a glimpse of lives beyond the train window. Women hanging up their laundry on old cords between barren trees. Huge persimmon trees with bulbs of orange fruit hanging like Christmas lights on a dark fall day. An old woman walking with a bramble of sticks balanced on her head.

I see thousands of pretty sights. Each vision is beautiful and ephemeral, slipping from sight just as fast as I look. Each worthy of a photo but I can’t even grab it fast enough. They roll in me, through me and pass by just as quickly.

There are people sunbathing on a long cement wall buffered from the Mediterranean by a few dozen feet of large white rocks. I watch the hundreds of sunbathers through the tempered glass of an air-conditioned bus. On my ears are large headphones pumping the hard beats of a Bjork song. As each beat drills into my ears I match it with my eyes, jumping from one person to the other. The tan lovers, the older man laying down his towel, the group of girls sweating in the sun, the mother and toddler. A collection of people moving past me in perfect rhythm to the sounds in my ears. I quickly grasp the moment, feeling its preciousness slipping with each second. The song will end, the cement wall will not go on forever, the bus will change lanes. Soon it will end but as I watch I am struck with each moment of beauty. They mark me as I pass, weaving their way inside without even seeing me inside the bus. I wonder how I could even look at them without the music, they fit so perfectly together. But as the song ends, coming artfully to a close, the bus shifts and the wall ends. Tears rush to my eyes.

I see thousands of pretty sights. Each vision is beautiful and ephemeral, slipping from sight just as fast as I look. Each worthy of a photo but I can’t even grab it fast enough. They roll in me, through me and pass by just as quickly. I gasp and cry, letting salty tears pay the price for the beauty that moves past, forever marking me, for a passing moment, making me remember.

Fading Light

I lay on my bed as the last of the sunlight fades, giving us, this small little planet, its final heroic effort of the day. In a dim room, bright orange light streams in through the window, hitting just three different spots on the walls. I lay on the bed, just minutes out of the shower, my hair now wet and cold. My pale legs are covered in oversized black sweats with jaggedly cut ends and a man’s thin striped pajama top.

I look at the last bits of light, feeling suddenly aware of the calm chamber.

My hands rest on my stomach, my feet are extended, supported by a jumble of three blankets that cradle them. Tiny gurgles call to my fingers below my pillowy stomach skin.

“Just be here,” I think to myself.

My chest fills with air, then deflates slowly.

I look to the wall on my left, the wall my bed presses against. There is a rectangular orange-gold piece of light, like a bright framed piece of sunlight on the wall. Cutting through the center of the light is the dark shadow of a cross. I stare.

“So pretty, I should get my camera…” But I don’t move. My hands stay on my stomach, my legs remain in the folds of soft blankets.

The cross, such an intense symbol; a torso and head, two arms extended, two feet pressed together as one. I see Jesus on a hill, I see myself in the morning, just after 7. How long did it take for people to realize the shape could be used for killing? For the structure of torture?

Perpendicular to the wall is the French glass door that leads to my kitchen. The top half of the door is bathed in soft yellow light, though the top-center of the door is glowing orange in the sun’s last rays. I realize the light is coming through my small window (parallel to the wall with the cross), hitting the doorway, then the glass is reflecting the image on the wall.

I look back and forth between the wall and the door, not needing to turn my head.

To the right of the door, directly in front of my body, on another small section of wall, are a few fragmented pieces of light, long jagged rectangles and bent circles and little speckles.

I think about the photographer I used to work for, Emily Payne. “It’s called the sweet light.” I can hear her say it, holding her big black camera in her hands. I imagine photographers around the world waiting for this time of day, waiting till they have the ‘right light.’ Do they stay indoors like inverted vampires, waiting only for a special hour? How many moments do they let pass? Is everything overlooked until the sweet light emerges?

I look up to the cross and the door. Has the light changed? It must have, the sun is fading by the minute. I search the color of the door. It’s just a bit paler. Still bright, but lacking intensity. It’s fading in front of my eyes and I can’t even watch it, I can’t see its fading unless I look away and then look back.

I turn to the wall. The cross has lost an arm. It looks like a T on its side. I should have gotten my camera. I could have written something about this and I would have had the perfect pictures to go along with it. I stay in bed. It’s too late now. “Just watch it, it’s fading away.”

How often had I missed this light? Maybe it would be the same tomorrow. Or nearly the same. The earth would not tilt too much in one day. What if I had not laid down? Would I have just sat at the desk, doing something, oblivious to the light around me? How many times have I done that?

I look up again, the light is dull.

“Just be still and watch…” I keep wandering away, I can’t even watch the light change for a few minutes without drifting.

The cross has become a single vertical line. The French door creaks open, pulled by the crack of the open window 15 feet away. As the door comes forward, the cross shifts, creating one solid black line, then another slightly lighter shadow line behind it.

Then the door creaks closed, and a single line emerges on the cross once again. The door’s bright orange light has faded almost entirely. I know that soon it will be completely gone, maybe then I’ll wonder what happened, how it left so fast.

I look over at the speckles of light on the wall perpendicular to the cross. The light there has faded too. Watch it. “Don’t take your eyes off it, watch what’s left.” I hold my eyes. Its fading…but a part of me cannot believe it. I realize I can barely watch it straight on. It’s almost painful. Why can I only see something changing if I look away?

The door is now dark. The cross is gone, and just a few sprinkles of light remain on the wall next to the door. I watch them, intent, finally holding my attention fixed as they fade. Dark, darker, then they are gone.

The phone rings.

The Seed

The rain clouds had parted and the small patch of earth was damp, emitting a scent that only some knew how to enjoy. Those close to the soil, with orange leaves in their ruffled hair and thoughts of worms and horned beasts. It was a smell they both relished, unlike anything they could find in clear glass bottles. It was not the smell of elegant women, nothing like men in dark suits and slick hair. Nothing like glass buildings or sterilized hospitals. It was a forgotten odor, like the medicinal pollens and balms that had been burned and stuffed into floorboards that swelled with age. It was earth, birth, death. It was change, decay and rebirth. They knew the smell, they sucked it into themselves. It was time.

The two young sisters slept with their windows open. Sleeping with the moon, awaking with the sun’s first kisses. Winter or summer, they dreamt with the elements, living with the constant changes.

After months of wetness, the clouds had parted, like they always eventually did.

It was time. A new season had come, taking its first look at the new world. It was ripe.

The girls gathered the few tools they needed: a shovel, the small yellow watering can, and a basket full of seeds. They entered the narrow yard overgrown with weeds, their eyes shaded by the thin brim of their pink and yellow floral bonnets. The sun warmed their pink cheeks and lips, urging them forward, giving them a bit of encouragement with its heat. They inhaled deeply, at the same time, each one listening closely to the sound of the breath beside her.

Without words, they moved together. Clearing weeds into a tall pile, turning earth with the wide shovel mouth, carving out shallow trenches. When the trenches were prepared, they each took a handful of seeds, scattering the seeds every few inches and then covering them with dark soil.

They worked for hours, planting chamomile and foxgloves, lettuce and sage. The girls looked into the sky and began gathering their tools, they could smell rain.

Big, giant drops of water came, fertilizing the soil and each newly planted seed. It was the Father, the tidal force of dominant energy coming to give the little bits of information what they needed. The girls watched from their tiny second-story window, watching as the skies opened and water poured. It was essential, it was right, it was the way.

When the last bit of moisture disappeared into the soil, they ventured back into the garden, checking every day for the first sprouts. Wide eyes marveled at the birth process. The seed was information, the soil was the womb, the rain the sperm, the sun the food. Each one worked together, seamlessly, a merging of forces that would give birth to something new. A new life. A new plant. A little bit of information, a seed. It needed all the right tools, all the elements.

All the little seeds that had stayed dormant for so long, just waiting. Maybe the moment would never have come. Would they have known, could they just have sat for years on the wooden shelf, never moving, always in the same form, the same little bit of information contained in a thin shell, unused, unchanging. Did it know? Did it want to grow? Was there consciousness in that little seed, or something that could only become consciousness given the right conditions.

That was what they both had been. A little bit of DNA, a little bit of information. Each one of them had needed the right conditions. The right elements had combined, creating two little girls. Each thing that grew and died, that took a breath and pulsed, it had all begun from a tiny seed of information. Something that could be, manifested potential without a present or a past, eternal design waiting for time to come and press it into service.

Labyrinth Walk

I stood on the border looking in. There was a great circular labyrinth in front of me and I stood on the edge, where the stone edged path began. Should I go in? I wondered. Is this the time? I wondered. Will there be another opportunity? My mind was clouded with thoughts, tinged with self conscious doubt and human concerns. As I whirled in the pro and cons and brain activity, I felt the moment closing. It was moving past, rushing like a slow current, but definitely moving…drifting through my finger tips as I stood there debating. The moment moved as would the stream past a rock, unafraid to leave me in its wake. I could feel the three women behind me squirming slightly, their bodies preparing for departure, ready to move up the hill and begin our lunch. I felt it all passing. I knew it was leaving, maybe forever.
A small bird chirped in a nearby tree. A soft breeze blew wisps of hair across my forehead. Without a thought, my foot took a step, my first step on the labyrinth. And as my foot took the step, my mind was surprised. It had been left out of the decision. It was being taken for a walk. I thought, "oh, I guess I’m doing this." And my mind was shocked, but willing to go. I looked down at the path directly in front of me, at the narrow bit of dirt outlined in gray stones. I remembered myself. I remembered what to do. My right foot touched lightly upon the path, I felt the earth beneath me, I felt the heel as it made contact with the earth. Each step was slow, each movement deliberate and noticed.
Nearly thirty steps in, my mind started to dart. "Was this a good time for this? Will they be mad? Did I mess up the space? This is probably taking too much time!" And then, a calmer voice, another "I" said, "you’re doing it now, you can’t turn back, you’re in the middle, you made the decision…so do it as best as you can." My hands were swinging, the air drifted through my curled fingers like soft kisses on a journey. My left knee bent as my body prepared for the next step. I turned the corners carefully and slowly, watching the ground as the outlined path turned back on itself. "This just keeps going!" I thought. I put my attention back on my feet. I felt my arcs stretch with the forward movement of heel to toe. The breeze touched me again and tousled my hair.
When I had started, I heard the voices of the three women on the outside. I imagined how they saw me, how I looked from the outside. They kept talking and I felt safe in their neglect. But when I was focusing on my feet, somewhere along the way, their voices had dropped away. The space was silent except for the rustling of nearby leaves and the occasional car tires swishing on the asphalt of the road below. It was me and the labyrinth. Me and the elements. Me and my effort. Perhaps me and their attention.
The rings were getting smaller, I turned corners more often until I reached the center. In the small round center was a mosaic stepping stone that had small stones and beads upon it. I closed my eyes. I saw small sparks of electricity playing on the canvas of my eyelids. I raised my hands out to the sides, opening them wide then raising them above my head and finally bringing both hands together in front of my chest. Oooooommmmmm, the sound was not as pure as it is when I intone it sometimes, alone in my bedroom, but I noticed that fact objectively and I held my attention on the sound and my diaphragm, even as the sound cracked slightly. I pulled my stomach in as my rounded mouth continued with the elongated sound. I stood in the center, feeling the soft breeze, feeling the sun, hearing the sound of birds, feeling quiet, yet electrified and alive. My ego had fallen and I was overcome with a sense of lightness.
My body turned back. I took a step, I raised my leg like a solider, placing it firmly on the ground. I took another step, a very short one on the tips of my toes. I walked back through the rings, sometimes emphasizing the movement of my hips like a supermodel, other times walking erect and with a sense of formality. Other steps, I glided. I alternated between movements, improvising each like a chaotic dance with my attention as the thread of consistency. And the more I played, the more alive I felt. My smile increased the more I played and I shed more of myself upon the soil.
There was nothing else. My past was a distant part of my imagination, the future was never coming. There was only each single step and the thousands of movements which seamlessly created it . The labyrinth and I were playing. We were lovers in union. Dancers intertwined. Actors upon a stage. Beings in a living void.