Osmosis

i'm outside
taking this great biological ground of mine
for a walk.

the landscape blurs in its banality.
rush, rush, rush.
yuck.

i do not want THIS.

what i want is to get THERE
but THERE is inside -
contained neatly within my body's protoplasm.

i wake. i sleep. i step. i move.

my feet feel the jungle beat
the cosmic heartbeat
the rumble tumble pulse
of cellular reverberations

i am pushed through the transparent membrane
and PLOP
i am the outsider come in from THERE.

the ground is blanketed by winter moss
and i want to roll around on frost
that crackles and splinters beneath me.
taste the manna on the ground.

i cry.
arrival, it seems.
give us this day our daily wish.

Stagnation

click
click
click

i pound into the concrete
with three-inch jack-hammer heels
and diffuse disappointment
of another day spent on a wheel that refuses arrival.

a shitty frequent traveler program,
i decide, as the

tick
tick
ticking

of the second hand reminds me
that as time moves
so must i.

Lessons from the Small

Salamander

in santorini i notice a small salamander resting in the crevice of cooled bricks.
it is brown and green and gray and seems content in its rest.

taking advantage of its immobility, i lay on the floor,
stomach adding heat to tile,
and investigate.

i am freckled by the sun.
is this enough camouflage to disguise my presence
or do my eyes give me away?

likely the latter.

i try to slow my blinking
but it is hard to stop my body's automaton response
honed over 32 years.

the salamander is uninterested with me
and my one-sided babble of inquiry.
why do i feel the need to hear my voice?

rays of sunshine reach me and i grow tired of trying so hard.
i fall into waking dreams of
folgers coffee containers holding anxious amphibians
and of newly learned greek superstitions surrounding fire and these creatures.

i blink and my companion is gone
and i learn a simple lesson
of the wisdom of gathering heat to move
and of surrendering to stillness in the meantime.

Travels in the Wine Dark Sea: Greece

Parthenon, August 2009

"...whose land have I lit on now? What are they here--violent, savage, lawless? -- or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?"
~ Homer, Odyssey, 13.227-29

I dream of olives now that I've returned from my travels in Greece. Olives and tzatziki and Mavrotragano wine. My Converse sneakers still hold dust from climbing Santorini's volcano and pebbles from trekking to Homer's Tomb in Ios. It seems wrong to disturb these stowaways before more walking naturally displaces them.

Ios, August 2009.

"The highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic
and more despairing: Sacred Awe!"
~ Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek.

What wild sensuousness is Greece! Never has a country made me feel so much in such truncated time. Total elation and awe to sit at dusk and take in the Acropolis and witness its entasis for myself. Losing myself in Athens' overly heated labyrinthine streets and feeling the deep effects of the Meltemi winds. Sailing choppy Aegean seas with vigor and child-like glee. Tasting and tasting and tasting: salty air, perfect olive oil, sweet crepes and bitter Retsina. Listening to Italian vacationers' non-stop revelry, the whir of motorini and ATVs, donkeys braying in cool night air, cruise boats bleating last calls in Santorini's cauldera. And the color, it is useless to try to describe it. It simply IS.

Imbibing Santorini's sunset, August 2009.

Odyssey

careening cliffs and departure --
i wheel into the cement vortex
and watch birds circle in the updraft.

seven there
moving with unfamiliar motive
and i feel a compulsion to point to the sky
and shout out interpretations:
"portent!"
"message from the gods!"
"sacrifice!"

but there is nothing with which to acknowledge these signs
but words and they feel inadequate.

what to do?

i reach into history and sit,
imagining temple priests reading entrails and offering explanations
through the smoke and the smell which homer never describes.

i drink wine.

and like odysseus,
i follow the gray-eyed goddess home.

Oia, Santorini, August 2009.

Barnacle

i push my kayak to the cliff
and examine the barnacles which cling to the salted rocks,
establishing residence there.

this frontier existence begs study.

do they sputter for breath with each wave?
i pull my ear closer to investigate
but hear only the sea's rhythmic drone and sigh.

encrusted, calcified, persistent.
rough to my hands - sharp and determined shells.
hard to chip away so i don't try,
seeking to remain above the line of life's cruelty.

not often but lately i turn myself
to the rock hard chest of a lover
and cling hard during the certain uncertainty of life,
gasping as i go but resolute to survive
in this breath and in the next.


Sunset, Santorini, Greece 2009.

copper speckled light finds me
and i burst to dance and come out of myself.

one snap here and my foot stomps
in an alien rhythm of expression.

snap, snap.

i have no choice but to move
and to wheel and to follow
the mandolin in one
continuous splendiferous motion
of stacatto movement.

opa!

More from Mary Oliver

A good friend of mine sent me this poem of Mary Oliver's today to remind me that geese fly and that people can too. Thank you, L!

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Return

I've just returned from my travels and am preparing a lengthy post about my time overseas. In the meantime, a friend sent me this Mary Oliver poem and there is much here with which to sit and chew. Enjoy!

West Wind #2

You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me. Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and your heart, and heart's little intelligence, and listen to me.

There is no life without love. It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks -- when you hear the unmistakable pounding -- when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and steaming -- then row, row for your life toward it.