(This 3-part piece opened up some dialog with significant others in my life, including a written correspondence with my mother over a couple years. It all spurred me to think more, and write more, about other relevant matters, even up to today. I'm working on improving the poetry for future efforts. In this piece, I just used some poetic devices to try to bring thoughts and feelings alive: In Part I, there is loss of love, and a love letter; In part II, a reply to the love letter; In part III, a look at a small sliver of reality and a hope for the future. Please feel free to comment.)
my
“secret life/wife” -- its demands and agenda (written in three parts in late
1997)
how
could i explain it to her?
i
thought of putting it all up for grabs
(for
her/for her love)
for
a moment i thought of this
because
i had been
plunged
headlong into abyss
yanked
off the chasm's edge with heart in tatters
flailing
like a ghost against a hurricane
yet
hanging on
with
all the faith i could gather
i
managed to slow my descent
the
more i laid it all bare
and
spread out my arms --
and
i never hit bottom;
(how
close did i get
to
being shattered beyond repair,
beyond
recognition,
beyond
one i so desire to be?
that
was some chasm!
never
seen no shit like that before!)
her
letter of love found me in this turmoil
of
cross-current winds
and
swirling fogs --
it
healed
it
etched a scar across me
i
pull myself back onto the precipice
scrapes,
bruises, shakes and all
i
stand on that ledge,
glance
back down into that milieu
of
conflict and wonderment
as
it roils and tosses
even
the most steadfast
with
challenges of a million lifetimes
and
i breathe in deeply
(so
that's where and how big questions
get
posed and concentrated!
well,
i'll be a blue-nosed gopher!)
i
grasp her letter,
clutch
it,
turn
from that ledge
and
go running after her:
“hey,
darlin'!
wait
a minute!
i've
got some things to talk about!”
Part II
(from
her letter)
....”Yes,
I have even wished that we could partner up in this life and take it on
together. That meant that I was wishing to not be as I am in certain
fundamental ways, ways which would clash horribly (for me) with ways of
yours...These 'ways of yours' are your 'secret life/wife' --its demands &
agenda. I have made no secret that I do
not believe in the agenda, nor that I am not unlike most other women and could
not tolerate its demands. It is trying
as a friend. It would be impossible as a
wife...”
(A
reply of sorts)
How
can I explain it to her? Some of these
things I thought of as my hands moved over her back one day, massaging,
rubbing, stroking, caressing. And as I
sat her back and saw her eyes were closed and there was serenity and calm upon
her face, I felt I had helped to bring some peace to her. And I found myself thinking...2,000 years
from now (or maybe 1,731 years, or more, or less) if earthlings still walk the
face of this planet, I can only imagine and desire that a few simple things
would have come to be. It would,
however, be their world, and much of it would be of their own
making. Yet, maybe it be something like
this--
Maybe
it's Lin Yi, or Gabriela, or Zhodwa, or Milos or La'shon arising, stretching,
inhaling, exhaling, peering out windows and doors, then with a laugh, stepping
out, jogging to gatherings where everyone (dozens, scores, everywhere on earth)
would be buzzing about the latest controversies, advances, breakthroughs,
obstacles, or astir with news of a new art form or theory of space travel or
better ways of growing food or producing housing, or ways that people in all
their diversities could mix it all up in more exciting fashion. Or, maybe a group of youth has somewhere on
earth brought a new dance to the human table.
They'd be talking about it, whatever it is, over their meals, at work,
whenever... They're all friends here, family of the closest kind.
Wherever
they walk the planet rocks, and everyone works about four hours a day, doing
what's needed (And going to work is the most fun of all because what's done
there is for the good of all, and for no other reason!) How incredibly tuned in they all are (to needs
-- to the needs of the whole world and everyone in it). It's that conscious, and that real. And even thru arguments (in the fields,
factories, streets, schools, labs, studios, anywhere) - disputes mild or heavy,
over right or wrong, over possibilities, amid soul-stirring battles for truth
ripping through all reaches of human life - they confront with “tender
ferocity”, so freed up to take it all on and keep raising the level higher.
The
same would be the “currency” in any endeavors (individual or collective),
cooking up stir-fry challenges, feeding each other's fires for the cosmic
advance. And, every individual is held
by all to be a part of this. You see the
children everywhere, also a part of it all.
They could be anyone's, could be everyone's. You see the elders everywhere, also a part of
it all (could be anyone's, could be everyone's). They're all friends here, family of the
closest kind, wherever human heart pulses.
And with each glimpse, you'd see so much - the pride, the knowing - and
maybe it's Lin Yi or Gabriela or Zhodwa, Milos or La'shon (they all know so
much in their time of work, in their time of leisure—this is about their
life) and the pride, the knowing that anywhere on this planet, humans behold
one another as their own, behold their earth as a home that above all must be
tended to and passed along thru the human dance drumming life pulse of
contentious harmony thru time in a spiraling (upward) search (together) into a
universe in flux - the stars, the atoms, themselves.
Every
day they arise, stretching, inhaling, exhaling, peering out doors and windows,
then with a laugh of libertad, bolting out under that sky where every day
wherever they are, that constant reminder (even written on the very air they
breathe) - “This is all yours, yes it belongs to all of you. Treat it all with care and with your vision
to the farthest horizons, the generations to come. Take responsibility for each other/the whole,
the future distant.”
This
would be the only “currency”. This would
be how “human nature” would create itself.
And
on the crest of the waves of song and celebration at the end of the day over
ice-sheathed summits/sweltering tropic rain
forests/grasslands/deserts/towns/farms/sunset-moonrise, contented and anxious
for the coming day, maybe it's Lin Yi, Gabriela, Zhodwa, Milos, La'shon
stretching out to touch each other's faces, and with powerful embrace, turning
to look back, maybe 2,000 years (or maybe 1,731 years, or more, or less) to
their ancestors (ourselves, now) and the world we were born into...
Where
millions starved, were driven into shantytowns, trapped in prisons, ghettoes,
barrios, went homeless, and died of illnesses even while the means were at hand
for all to be fed and housed and made well.
Where
wars of plunder and domination shed blood across a planet divided into
“nations”.
Where
governments of nations propped up their systems of exploitation with brutal
force.
Where
women and children were raped, abused, demeaned.
Where
some nationalities were enslaved, oppressed, brutalized by others.
Where
poison by-products of “progress” and “development” nearly destroyed the planet,
and natural resources were laid to waste.
Where
hopelessness held too much sway; resignation to all the oppressive workings
buried deep within; dreams and visions deferred and lost.
Where
so many people were so alienated from each other by the workings of
things. Often able to connect with each
other solely thru exchange of money (and there was a price tag on everything,
and even on people), and so many people had so little or no money with which to
procure the means to live.
Where
“look out for #1” was the cold, cynical “human nature” called forth, propagated and promoted by systems, structures, methods which had only “profit”
for “raison d'etre”, lifeblood, motivating factor. Where all the vast and powerful means and
forces to resolve all these insane realities were owned and controlled by a
handful at the helm of all this - a handful that appropriated as “private” all
that was produced collectively by the billions who “slaved” for them.
And
as Lin Yi, Gabriela, Zhodwa, Milos, La'shon might look back to us and all these
unspeakable workings that shape our world, so destructive, painful, twisted and
obscured, they likely would hold close to their hearts their namesakes of our
time and millions and billions of people of our time who went up against these
workings in many daring and powerful ways.
And
they no doubt would hold close to their
hearts those of us who struggled mightily to envision them and their
world, and who felt impelled to take responsibility for the future, and who
determined that taking such responsibility could only mean (with our vision
cast to the farthest horizons, locked in our hearts and the cores of our
beings) preparing for and carrying out mass revolutions to shatter all those
existing relations and their ideological props and begin to bring into
being something entirely different.
This
then is that era/stage of human history in which we take beginning, concrete
steps and leaps to destroy exploitation and oppression, free humanity, and save
our planet. It has begun. These are the “years between”, the “years of
transition”.
Thru
victories and defeats, reversals and mistakes, successes and liberating
transformations, it can be seen: A
better world is in birth.
And
here I stand amid the whole wrenching process, and I can only say: This then (yes!) is my agenda (and
certainly it is not just mine). It is
not a “wife”. And how could it possibly
be a “secret”?...
...So,
these things I thought of some as my hands moved over her back one day...And as
I sat her back and saw her eyes were closed and there was serenity and calm on
her face, I felt I had helped to bring some peace to her. And I thought: There is something else of hers that I would
love to massage, caress, stroke and kiss to set her loose all aglow and radiant...(it might
even melt all the ice and the snows of winter).
We
have to love and care for each other while keeping our “eye on the prize”,
while preparing for and playing our part in revolution. Otherwise, we'd never get there. But we must keep our eye on the prize. It's all toward the same horizon.
This
is how I had chosen to live. For today,
tomorrow, 2,000 years ahead. And,
darlin' you know I want to “be with you”.
I'm calling, reaching for you to “be with me”...the rose, the dance...
Part III
(The
Future and a Bag of Chips: Does a Young
Girl Have Any Choice At All?)
she
was eleven or twelve last time i saw her -
my
best friend's neighbor...
(my
best friend has walls decorated with crayon drawings
by
11 or 12-year-old neighborhood kids
which
have huge hearts and declare:
“we
love you, theresa”)
...whose
name is “lala”
whose
parents drank
whose
house had walls crawling with bugs,
who
had to look after a kid brother
(and
her parents as well)
whose
clothes were rags
who
was just an eleven or twelve year-old girl
who
laughed and played
and
whenever she touched those crayons
the
pages sang with color and design
she
made the pages radiate and sing and “draw you in”
with
all she had to shoulder
with
all that beset her
with
all the mood swings and frustrations
and
inevitable dysfunctions --
when
that sidewalk stepped up to her chalk
and
that page turned up to her crayon
the
planet rocked..
patterns
of particle/waves
broke
on dull gray shores
striking
radiant chimes of almost
deafening
cascades of color --
this
much any fool could tell
but
living in this world can sometimes
smother
torch and ember
and
soon she stopped sending
those
solar-strength flares
i
asked theresa to encourage her
and
she said:
“that
girl can't see beyond the bag of chips in her hand
...much
less the future”
and,
yes, well, all-right-then,
who
hasn't from time-to-time had trouble
seeing
beyond that bag of chips?
i
can only say: don't despair
some
of us out here have
sworn
our lives to
set
loose the spirits and inmates
from
their cells
so
they can wreak havoc on a world of wrong
and
bury it under megatons of
killer
roses, lilies, daffodils (and plum blossoms!)
and
we will help the little devils of today
to
catch a good glimpse of fleeting figures
just
beyond that bag of chips
figures
that look a lot like
lin
yi, gabriela, zhodwa, milos and la'shon
dancing
like a riot on a rain-soaked day
no,
don't despair
and
don't act too surprised
if
one day you inquire after lala
and
find that she went “down by the riverside”
(to
lay down her bag of chips
and
to pick up her crayons
and
her sword and shield)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(Writer's
note:
The
reference at the end of “The Future and a Bag of Chips...” to going “down by
the riverside” is a play on a song (spiritual/gospel) I learned as a
child. I believe it was named: “Study War No More”, in which there is a
verse which goes: “I'm gonna lay down my
sword and shield down by the riverside...and study war no more”. This would (hopefully) be the reality for Lin
Yi, Gabriela, Zhodwa, Milos and La'shon (future people). But in these days, these times, we (present
people) in our millions/billions, must arm ourselves with everything it will
take to make that dream a viable possibility.)
