and you are welcome.

May your Spring song

sway and glide with my dance

and your gift shower this path

with petals in the colors

that blend together and leave us

in awe of the near-indistinguishable

frontier between your skin and mine,

your dreams and my waking

lucidity.

she does the scales on her new mandolin

I lay in bed with furs draped over me

heavy and warm

keeping me dry as the yurt’s little leaks

show themselves.

Water your orchids with rain water

says Annalise with the rose gardens.

And the fog creeps up again from the valley below,

onto the deck

through the little cracks

of exquisite imperfection.

No to P

No to the past, to the story, to anything my body does not claim as hers.

No to Ego, to the undoing of the past at today’s expense.

You do not understand me, you may never do so. But you are inside and until she releases you, you are our guest,

and you are welcome.

A cocktail

of vodka and pears

but we’ve run out of pears

A cocktail

Of grey goose, a pinch of pear juice

and cranberries that will give headaches

allergic reactions

A cocktail

of faint traces of guilt and the now-familiar silence,

persistent distance that will rob you of sleep

and serve as a reminder: honesty will be

a challenge, a cross.

A cocktail

of poets and double dog dares

that mirror back to you, the unmentionable

the spectrum of extremes that you jump between

looking for balance

avoiding the middle.

A cocktail

of biting lips, modern exiles and insatiable urges

where excitement and wonder once lived

and fast motorbikes now ride,

without expectation

or gratification.

A cocktail

of resistance and enemies inside the inner circle

the ones whose genes you share, whose children you carry

in those little spaces within the cracks

of your impenetrability.

A cocktail

of the desire to coast down the twisting mountain road you paved yourself

or brave into a new one, with a sun-stained rear view, little chance of survival

and even less chance of safety.

A cocktail

of words

of freedom

airplanes and helmets

none of which will bring peace

when you need it.

none of which will hold

in the crash.

-November 23, 2009 (Alaska flight: Long Beach to Seattle, listening to N&M & Gilberto Santa Rosa)

I woke up to sincere, passionate words from beautiful men. And felt grateful, and full. As I prepared myself to shift gears and head across the bridge to seriousness and pragmatism, I walked into a room in my house with peacock feathers brought into the space while I wasn’t looking. The details of my dream came back to me in a flood of warmth that started from my toes and traveled slowly, like Heinz Ketchup leaving the bottle and traveling at 25 miles per year, up my spine.

In the dream the peacock feathers were being harvested, mutilated and turned into slivers and dust and strewn on the ground, on concrete, on human surfaces where the color and the iridescence didn’t belong. In the dream I raced to stop the damage, and lamented what I saw. The colors were everywhere, the birds were nowhere, the devastation palpable, and my lament over powering.

As the images from my dream came to me I wondered about the peacock, and found this: http://www.bahaipeacechair.org/peacock.htm

Peace.

firehorse, beauty, dance, meditation, strong winds, silk pyramids, skyscapers, songs, resistance and alchemy.

November 16, bigger than you or me.

Bodhisattva

the yellow paint

on her toes

is nearly gone

the bags remain

unpacked

clothes strewn

everywhere

help anchor her

sense of disorder

her comfort

with crooked lines

and the uncertain

the distances

seem greater

the words

more distant

the story moves her

of lives like hers

spent making bridges

where bridges

cannot hold

violence

everywhere

but all she craves

are words

words in flight

as condors sweat

and exquisite

hummingbirds

hum in ecstasy

words that say

everything

poetry about lead

into gold

what we are

archetypes

and indecision

swords that cut

through her

through him

tonight she’ll dream

of Salish seas

where the water is warm

and deep.

I have been pushing myself into a mold that has been stretched and morphed as far as it can. The elasticity of what exists already can only go so far. The limit is here. While I know time is on my side, it’s also true that “time is a sword” and it cuts away at opportunities. Those words from Dunya cut through the quiet fatigue and resonated in my body the way few things have. Meditation is supposed to quiet the mind, no? And here is my teacher, the one who has, in fact, quieted my mind…lighting my fire once again and reminding me about a sense of urgency. Are urgency and quieting of the mind compatible? What is this warmth I feel, this sense of nurturing and a tangible experience of being fed in a way I’ve never been fed, in a place I didn’t know needed feeding. There is music, and the canons Shamsi saw readying themselves are getting restless and close, close to bursting out with something larger than me. As Ana Maria said, musicality comes not from practice or repetition, it comes from “flexibility of your whole personality”; the ability to hear multiple voices, first as free standing individuals, and then as one beautifully integrated whole, together, the way Beethoven heard it in his head, without the noise that comes from ears that hear and timing that is fixed and inflexible. “The world should function like this” she said, the world should be like “a jazz ensemble, where the flexibility is what dominates and not any single voice or time”.

A confluence of worlds is happening right under my nose. I feel currents and waves crashing into one very specific epicenter, and I am here, witnessing it happen all around me. While I’ve learned about being a witness, and the challenges and growth that it offers, at some point the music shifts and it’s my turn to move, my turn to be witnessed.

Watching The Red Shoes I connected with only Boris. There were brief moments where I wondered if I had my own red shoes and if I was racing through life too quickly like the Victoria character. But my heart belonged to Boris; wanting to create something out of nothing, seeing things in people, places numbers, notes on a page…bringing elements together and having the result be a kind of alchemy. His was a burdensome alchemy and it consumed him and others. It was destructive. But does it need to be? Like my house, is it possible to create without having to destroy? Are there not plenty of little spaces in between things to make room for this explosion that’s leaning over my shoulder and whispering into my ear, “I’m ready.” It’s ready.

And that place inside me that startled me this Saturday on West 27^th, is it ready? Do I keep pulling the reigns in a little or do I let go? But then who’s in charge? Or like the jazz ensemble, does no one need to be? Maybe it’s not a question of push or pull, maybe it’s about the flexibility of doing one, then the other, then neither. Dunya and the clapping hands of my sisters reminded me that the one enjoying all this better, first and foremost, be me! And so I allow myself to enjoy, and to blush at talk of flowers, vulvas and orgasms that will soon birth something. Something that’s “ready.” It’s ready.

I am an alchemist.