The Apple

I walk through the garden. Light steps. Walking gently on a narrow path of crushed rocks. Fine as gold dust. One clear objective shines like a blue jewel between my eyes, lightly beaming from my smooth pale forehead. To the left, my eyes wander. To the right I look, searching for that one piece of fruit. That one bright and shinning red apple, aglow and pregnant below the bright eyes of the sun. I hold it in my mind, a perfect image, a treasure waiting for my hands and kisses. Calling out for adoration. Red. Alive as all things are. Red like the rivers of blood moving through thin arms. Red like this throbbing pussy that awaits its sword.

I walk with one objective, one bit of reality taking over my mind. That round and sweet fruit. Red. Nothing stops me. Not a warm breeze smelling of jasmine, not a curious flower with twelve soft pink petals and a perfume that smells of the moon and death.

I walk with an ever-present determination, my eyes scanning the sandy ground constantly, looking past the ground up sparkles, searching for the color of deep life. Breathing. A mouth to be kissed. Each step is a new lifetime, another chance. A glance down another path that leads to the sea. Tendrils escape me. I let them go, flying like a curling explosion of laughter and song. They extend to the clouds, sweeping in armfuls of mist and the hopes of air.

I let them go, my eyes searching the dark secrets of trees. Their caves, their shadows. I look, hoping for contact, a gasp escaping its leaves. Will its gift be mine? Will I bite into pale flesh, dripping with desire and sugar, both of us, wanting to be planted. Consumed and turned into something beyond imagination. We will leap past the stagnant shapes of squares and circle, journeying to a place of layered dimension, places undescribed. We are the same. Red and round, ripe and waiting for knowing hands, rough and dirty, full of rain.

I sense that the sun has shifted, that my brother calls my name from a far off field. I can see the white fluffy sheep beside him, herds of cotton and simple stares. The softness of those blades of green, the electric blue of the sky, burning above him like fire. But this shifting, I sense that the air has turned sour, that my brother calls me with a different voice, sounding more like drums than bells. I search the sky for clues, looking, pulling apart clouds with the precision of a hungry animal, pulling limb by limb, bit by bit and muscles tear and bones crumble beneath the force of my hands. I search, hearing my body move like the clocks I left in an old shop. Left and let the door shut quietly as I walked away into the bright daylight.
I hear it once more. This reality is nothing if not the senses, my beating heart, the thump of its call, the sound of its opening and closing valves. What am I if not a beat? A tone in the drummer’s wail…a sound in the dark countryside. What am I if not a blip on the manuscript sheet, just one tiny note, one life.

I am having the clouds for dinner, they melt on me, my tongue and lips turning them into bright colors and words of nourishment. I suck the marrow out from them, sucking like a dog that claims no owner. I am the master. I am the leash. My choking is the grasp of my own hand pulling me in a thousand directions. I am the fire and the pull of the leash, my own master, the dominator of all that is fur and flesh and love. Undying love whose call covers the hills like a thick blanket. Can you hear me brother? Do the sheep flick their ears with my bright call? My message of love which surpasses human ears. It is us, those of fur, those of the earth and dirt, those of the whispy clouds that move like brushstrokes. The night is clear and I am no god. I am the footprint, stamping the earth with my laugh, walking as though there will never be another. I am the trees, the fruit which I seek. The red that covers us in life and sparkle… there is no other. No ground. Perhaps no brother. No fruit. These are my fears. And am I right? I look into the garden and see nothingness. Where is the sheep? The eye that stares without feeling. The eternal colors of green and white, covering me, denying me pleasure, denying me pain. Where is the needle, the cock that sends its message in rhythm… am neither here nor there, a thousand years have passed and I claim no knowledge. Another turn of the path and I wander past the same footsteps, yearning for my brother and his soft sheep, the call that has turned from bells to questions.

They have all shifted with the search. The dogs have turned to mice. The cats above claim the sun as god. Clear minded once, now I dream about other things.
The play has ended and a pile of red roses are at my feet. I search the dark crows, seeing only halos of lights and a roaring of hands. Who are all these people who stare? Light covers them in a fine sheen, but they are only shapes, circles and lines and rivers of blood. There must be blood, an army of robots could not shine like them. But I wonder.

A single clap rattles my spine and I see the apple. That skin for which I have searched. I have walked on soft grains of sand and compact earth. I have walked for so long, finding only more light. Finding clouds that have turned to night and brothers that have faded into memory. I have left all that have walked before me, left them to die in their tatters and murmurs. I took their thoughts, turning them into me, moving them through every part I move. Throbbing, I feel them all. Each dagger of pain, the thrill of ecstasy.

The endless road moves forever forward, I feel the grains of earth below each toe, calling me by every name. And I know theirs. I know each one. This path is mostly the same, though slightly different. But mostly the same. One different shrub, a flower out of place from the last time I licked its pink. It is endless, beyond words, though I continue to try. I grasp at the edges, looking for more. Finding books and poetry and readings by men in white beards. I stroke each tiny strand, loving the feel on my fingers.

Beyond the rim of my eyes I find the desert left for dead. Without rain, without one orgasm to wake it from sleep. This is the reality of dreams and nightmares. The path from which I have stepped forth, naked, covered in tattoos and a few wrinkles and spots of blood that decorate me like a birthday cake. I am clear, a walking mirage, still searching for the fruit of life. The thing that will spring forth like a pool, the burst of life that will live inside me like an eternal fetus, forever sucking and feeding, forever giving of its dreams. It will not be born, not into the air, not to the trees and the men who would create a god. It will be here, a change without eyes, without language. I will know it, it will be my nature.

Night Time Garden

With reluctance the wooden door opened, swollen from days of rain, it releases, moaning like a woman. From the safety of the garage she looked into the deep black of evening, not daring to step past the doorway.
The night was more than black, it was thick as ink and high fog passed through the bare tree tops like spirits on a mission. Calm and secluded, hidden under silky wings of darkness was the sacred space of the garden.
Silent to her ears, but not at all empty. There were worlds within worlds in the rectangular enclosure.
Times that both began and ended, that moved up like a whirling dervish into the atmosphere and destinies that spun though five thousand dimensions simultaneously.
Rationally, she recognized it as the space she was used to working in, but her heart felt the reconfiguration.
There was a new form and entity at work. It was in use.
Although the shrubs of sage and tall trees were barely recognizable silhouettes in the dark, she could feel the fullness of the garden.
There were dancers and chants.
Drums and daggers.
Worlds, universes, beings eternity.
It was all there, held beautifully within the sacred chamber. Swirling fire gods and people of stone. Maidens and magicians, people and forms with no name that travel among time like hidden black birds of evening.
Assembled, each working separately and as one.
It was no longer a realm for the human, and she knew.
She smiled. "Beautiful", she thought.
There was singing she could not hear and low rhythms she didn’t dance to…but it all came in, like a well pointed laser to the heart.
She turned around in awe and caught his smiling eyes, "yes" he said.

Collaboration

There is a beautiful collaboration in progress.
It shifts from hour to day, from spring to winter. An extreme work in progress, the challenge of the garden is divided among many forces, hands and critters.
As with all group work, we move and create as one being. The garden is our body, our manifestation. The sun works simultaneously with the vegetation, the rain collaborates with the flowers and earth . Many plump worms till the soil, creating open spaces for roots to dive. Visiting birds spread seeds with their partners, the bees. A jasmine curtain along the western fence perfumes the air and fills our senses with delight. Human hands structure the plots of earth, giving shape and maintaining a sense of order, while cats visit for the psychedelic foliage, planted for their benefit. Singing birds come to eat and bathe, casting their melodies freely.
In an obvious way, the garden is one thing, one unit. But it is also a huge cosmic collection- a manifestation of many, many elements- human, animal, and energetic.
No specific piece could work and function to its fullest potential without the effects and efforts of the other parts.
Every group is made of elements-working together to create a living and vibrating whole.

Invitation

My little cold hands snip the overgrown jasmine branches. Purple-gloved fingers, covered in the fine sediment of earth, pat into place freshly planted succulents.
The sun has not yet lifted itself above the house and thousands of petals hold droplets of moisture like sweet offerings to the gods.
Each morning we leave our gifts as well, a small gesture that sparks the sacred.
Quiet rituals speak to the greater elements, and I remember my place.
We invite them in. This is a space for them, for the unseen, for the small, for the waves and wind.
Come.

We have created this for you.
Subtly colored and resonating.
Magnetic fields and solar blips. Treasured like a ruby secret, the energy of the garden spirals upward, leaving streaks of green and white.
Alien structures sit among mountains and valleys.
Sage perfumes the air while the singsong of small birds provide the acoustics.
This is for you.
We maintain it as a gift for forces that can only be felt with an open heart.
The beautiful space is our invitation- where there may be war and love, rest or play.
This effort is for you.