Detectives

We search, picking through the clues left behind- piles of letters in the mailbox and a fuzzy videotape that leaves more questions than answers. 
They have combed their mind for answers- praying, hoping for a final answer to the questions that keep them awake night after night.  It has been years now- years, and the nights when they should be sleeping drag out forever as they adjust themselves over and over on their pillows and twist their sheets and get up for another glass of water or a trip to the bathroom.  The nights last forever and the mind races, jumping, searching the corners for clues- something, maybe that one thing they forgot to tell the police.  One tiny little detail that will solve it all. 
Just what happened to them?  They disappeared like shadows. 
We saw them leave in the middle of the night and then their car turned up a few days later in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  Where did they go? 
The night is long and tedious as the questions rise up, over and over. There is no resolution.  The wonderful resolution that might be- the death to the constant struggle against wonder.  If only the night would end and the day would come and with it, god willing, an answer. 
We sit now, around a circular table, we draw out what we know, what we don’t.  We search and the more we talk, the less the lines connect.  A disjointed mandala appears before us on the tiled table and we tend to grasp at the edges, trying to bring it all around. 
Just where did they go in the middle of the night? 
My heart starts to beat, not pounding really, but with a slightly sick feeling as it interacts with my chest.  This body wants answers, how I want to be that lady who sees the rise of the sun at dawn, light bringing with it the death I seek- those eternal questions that the religions of the world attempt to answer. 
All the self help gurus and the multi-billion dollar industry cluttered with sticky-sweet titles like “Being Happy in the Digital Age.’  They want it, we want it- an end to the struggle. 
And then I look at my detective. A sly smile on his face.  How he skips, delights in the unknown. I follow him down the twisting path searching for clues. He walks slow, taking his time, enjoying the night.  The day might never come and he would still walk, soaking in the damp air, tasting it on his tongue, listening to the sounds of a sleeping world. 
My beautiful detective.  He looks into a hole and sees the endless possibilities, seeing not darkness, but a galaxy of stars.  Each one shines from another world, another story ringing behind it. 
We walk in the night, picking up clues and storing them in our pockets for safekeeping. And we walk, taking the turns in the path with as much delight as the little things we find under the misplaced stones in a driveway covered with tiny pebbles. 

Moon Water Heart

I was born of water. In its wet cave I sparkled to life. Within its slippery grasp I grew and formed a beating heart. On the full moon, I felt the pull and began to swim, towards land, towards a realm which distinguishes between day and night. The people of air greeted me with a slap and a gulp full of moist oxygen and I opened myself to their ways.
And here, on earth, the moon calls to me twice a month, calling me with relentless screams when the tides are at their peak. The arms of the cypresses point me to the waves, to the power that keeps coming and coming, stopping at nothing to reach shore. I stand ankle deep in the biting water, it tries to find its way in, searching for an orifice that will bring it to the center of my watery heart. “Try if you must, but know that we are the same, you needn’t yearn so much! I am here, brother, I am standing within you. Feel my beat, my lunar pull!”
The skies open and shower me with the semen of a bearded god. The sea rises in its nightly lust and coats me in its desire. The center of my chest pushes out, moving through every thin vein, reaching fingertips and tiny toes, trying just a little harder to extend beyond the barrier of flesh.
“We are here,” the tide murmurs, “you needn’t cry so hard! You stand amongst the waters of the womb, you rise tall above the hot liquid of earth and below the sweet tears of the sun. You are one among us!”
The night is without a moon and I run in circles around the boulder in the sand. I run til the water in my heart begins to boil and I run until my knees begin to drip. I run on all fours, chasing mountains of white foam and sheets of mist that tousle my unkempt mane. I orbit the rock like a satellite, speeding like a dying star, howling like a rabid dog.
I collapse in the arms of peaking waves. They hold me while the black sky kisses my eyelids and while the absent moon sends down crows with secret signals and while little bubbles tickle the sides of my cheek. The waters rise higher still, entering my mouth in salty rivers that carry news from the deep. Hold me my love, my brother, let me live just a little longer.