Life and Death are of Supreme Importance
It disintegrates quickly
what does it feel like to wake up now
When I fall asleep, tomorrow is a prairie
I see the yellow fields marching endless
with the sky
The breeze is roiling
The hairs click and clasp, sliding grass
bodies against each other
In the prairie behind me I imagine I am the
pigeon perched on the corner of Sabine’s roof
I sense the space around me, wings slate by my sides
Being a pigeon feels like being drunk, it’s
normal to hop from this roof, to dip till the
air catches wings, to float up
The relationship between air and wing is one of friendship:
(1) friends for a long time
(2) friends because it is meant to be
(3) friends without questioning why
When I flap the air moves with me, we never speak only lock eyes
What pigeons know is that above everything
is another landscape
open and terrifying, sky meeting sky
meeting sky
It takes a pigeon to reveal the old structures of my life as supine
Are you planting, is there harvest tending
who is the sun, who is the moon
do we hold hands at dinner time
Tomorrow a new moon darkens the prairie
a body slips into the strands, snaking
warm against cool, ribs pattern the ground
turns round and forward and round
There are movements that know there are no obstacles
A body coursing out into the ocean,
beneath the waves and above the sand
will meet no one
will meet no one and there will be no moon
Dark blue night prairie picks off a palm callus
shreds apart the cells and flicks the pieces into the sea
small creatures hug the dead skin
it hardens and seeds into the ground
If you must know what the prairie feels like,
blow on your open palm
long and cool
Do you find that you are an object in a body of water
are you the land that holds the water
are you certain of your structures
When I wake up I am in the prairie, am the skin
beneath the callus
New to the air, we see each other for the first time
A movement that knows no obstacles will not be lost
will only share space
will smooth on across molecules
and germs
Don’t forget
above everything there is another landscape
and on above there is more
That was a long lost shred of writing from March of 2020. I don’t remember writing it, which is unusual because I tend to chew on words for a while, imprinting them in my memory. If it hadn’t been saved as screenshots in my phone I would have never recalled it. The images surrounding the screenshots are of the first weeks of the NYC Covid shutdown. A nauseating six years ago. There are pictures of friends in the sun, Ben holds a rock, green grapes dangle from handlebars, Yeoul in a tree, grapefruit seeds sprout, cat in a window, dandelion. Precious bits of life.
I remember, prior to that time, many people in my life were expanding in exciting and positive ways. There was lots of personal and emotional growth happening all around me, and a sense that we were all vital and alive and growing together. It was beautiful, the winter was thawing, we were emerging.
Then it all got tamped down, all that growth. Like a new shoot pushing out of the ground, drinking in the sun, and along comes a cinderblock.
That era is so illustrative of the tension created when expansion meets suppression. I mean that in more ways than one.
Spring is the season of growth. All winter long we wait, everyone, rummaging around in our nests, burrowing pathways to the car, the mailbox, the job. We sit with ourselves and keep warm with people we love and flesh through what it is we believe in, what it is we want. Then, wonders never cease, the snow hints at thawing, the birds start their mating calls, frogs have sex,
the air implies change. Mouths salivate at the thought of seeing something green again. And it aches, to still be cold, to still have more night than day, to sense that the sun is one iota warmer than it was the day before but you still have to wear your (expletive) winter coat. Yearning.
Late winter into spring is pure yearning. Every atom is ready to expand and you just have to wait. Then it comes… the first warm spell, the Snow Drops, the Maple sap, the Crocus and Skunk Cabbage, pointy Daffodil leaves, the equinox, we are alive!
Now we can expand. The spaces we’ve been occupying all winter open up, windows crack, pores relax in the warming air, shoes get left on the porch, hair feels the sun. Seeds get planted, gardens get their backs scratched, bears eat the Skunk Cabbage, the first spring greens are tasted again. We become more social, sit outside and watch babies learn to walk, gather rocks, talk to each other in between doors, no longer rushing to get through them. We watch the maples turn red, the ground green, the sky blue, skin gets ready to darken. Eyes look up, our chests expand, yell to a bald eagle making circles.
Who are you
what are you holding
What are you reaching for
Who do people see in you
Now is the time to emerge. To harness the winter brooding into outward growth. To act. To eat bitter foods and delicate green leaves, to cleanse the winter from your blood and take in newness. To not be tamped down by cinderblocks, but to be voracious and wild and intentional. And if you do get tamped down, if emergence is painful, if you feel impatient, angry, tense, consider Skullcap, Chrysanthemum, Self-heal, Chamomile, Dandelion root, a nibble of Motherwort. Consider moving your body like the breeze, poke a toe into a stream, sing loud and be with people who make you laugh. And don’t forget, above everything there is another landscape, and on above, there is more.