allegiance to beauty

"Perception...is a blood sport. Life itself sometimes hangs by a thread made of nothing but the spirit in which we see. And with life itself at stake, I grew suspicious of my eyes' many easy, dark conclusions. Even the most warranted pessimism began to feel unwarranted. I began to see that hope, however feeble its apparent foundation, bespeaks allegiance to every unlikely beauty that remains intact on Earth."
-- David James Duncan, My Story As Told By Water

downriver

Thanks to the creek at Big Tesuque


when wind first woke me with a whisper
time to leave the mountain shoulder
brave the boulder currents
join the ride downriver

I was unready to release my hold
small but anchored to a homeground
where I hoped to thrive not trade
connection for detachment
or a place for motion

yet she sighed me roots and all
screeing off my steep glissade
tumbling sliding sidling over
spring-fed mountainsiding fall
joining water's season

drawn reluctant from the verge
to spin and spiral and submerge
surge, resurface, pooling
spilling over each obstructing edge
again be running rapid

others find the current
skimming perfect likeness of the sky-map
still reflecting on the depths
leaf-mold algae lichen
sunparched needles aspen parchments
silt and sifted grains of granite settle
gaining ground one granule at a time
gypsy seeds alight where earth assembles
germinate convivial pauses where at last to
hold our ground where only water flowed before
now something starts to grow

you
catch on too as you scrape by
gliding homeward on the run
going with the flow
stick with me if I'm stuck here
drop what burdens we were ferrying
mid-watershed seed exchanges
decayed debris lodged with us
flotsam converts to fertile home
in drifts chinampas islands
and finally new shoreline
we recast the riffle then the current
then we rift the water
shift the stream by aggregating
far downriver from our origin
the offering of invisible mountains
where we first released into the flow

unkindled

one full season's memory of honey sweetness
embodied sunlight sings the deep kiss of vermillion flowers
the gathering work of a thousand slow and purposed hours
essence of greengrowing, nearly still alive
with care distilled from secret safety of the hive
purified and shaped while still spun gold, mutable

each light given its pair to shine with
twined to shared center potential
two radii turn hidden heat to radiance
only awaiting the strike of a match
touch flame to inner core

but now it's stilled, cool, quiet
solid where joyful dissolution should be
though they sing the sunglow's golden shade
the light within is hidden
this flame will not ignite
this fire is left unkindled

I too sleep on this quiescent shelf but
you still burn me to the wick in dreams
of flowergold and timeless blaze expanding
over all the gifts you shared but never gave
only in that other realm I shed -- my only hope --
superfluous exterior with each igniting
finally requiting weight of outer layers
leaving only sweetest honey smoke as proof

poverty3: past interest

Why in this world did I think it was a good idea to ask for more awareness of the world's poverty? Whatever was I thinking? Nothing. I was feeling. Feeling the planet's incredible injustice. And the undeniable need for more empathy.

In no way does my own poverty, if I can even call it that, compare to the world's.  But I have this dilemma in common with a part of humanity: while they don't create a dire survival mode, the struggles of my everyday are exactly complicated and distracting enough to leave little or no hope of forward motion.

Here then is what I got in the last two weeks, for that well-intentioned asking: a job that pays a wage so low I have been embarrassed to tell it to anybody. 40 hours a week for more or less the same income I had as a part-time driver. And yeah, I was spending far too much on gas before. But the days also had room to read, to think, to take care of the business of life. And now they don't. Working every Saturday and one Sunday a month means effectively giving up almost all the community events that makes living here worthwhile. And working for so little, I know from past experience, can quickly lead to paying for the past while you're still earning the present...

I asked for a quiet, peaceful home-space. And I got a place that's noisy, roach-infested, and has been under plumbing renovations for two weeks now, with no end in sight. (But yeah, it's all mine...) Every morning I rearrange the stuff that's not already piled in a heap, so the workmen have easy access to the closet, to the bathroom, under the sink. I try to do my stretches, make coffee, greet the morning sun while ignoring the holes cut in the walls for new pipes, the film of sheetrock dust on everything, the dirty tracks on the floor. I try to focus on the four tiny seedlings in the window-boxes, and the so-far empty pots that hold more wishful seeding, and not the barren, dry disconnect with the earth outside. I try to forget, every day, the house I was living in 3 months ago that had almost half an acre of garden, two wells, a chicken coop, and far too many earthy dreams for one weary, overworked, barely-grounded person to act on alone.  Alone in the company of 4 other people.

I asked, it seems, for another chance to deconstruct this incredible inexplicable tangle that, in my world, is relationship. And got, simultaneously, another yes and another frayed knot. Another round of all the things we're both too afraid to ask for, or too self-protective to offer, or too caught up in our own chaos to share. But also another try at friendship, and this intense concentrate-of-conversation which, hopefully, we can keep diluting to a drinkable strength.  Alright then. How many potential presents can one painful past sabotage? And how much not-quite can two people possibly create together?

Read only a few pages of The End of Poverty this morning. Sachs describes one of his investigatory travels as a consultant, to western Kenya. After yet another concise and clearly-detailed outline of the (very possible) actions that would bring this rural region out of its poverty, he offers a fascinating (and deplorable) pair of statistics (as of 2005, the time of the book's writing). Current international donor support annually to Kenya amounts to about 100 million dollars. And Kenya's current debt service amounts to $600 million a year. Can you dig it? It doesn't matter what well-meaning rich countries are giving, intending, or recommending. The people can't climb out at this rate. They can't even pay the past's interest with what they are receiving from the present.

...and, in the moment, I think know exactly how that situation feels...