Birthday writing, Sept 1 2017, Well Bred Cafe, Biltmore, Asheville NC, with Aile Shebar
I wrote to you, Aile, on the evening of my birthday to say, “look at the clouds!”
I was on the lookout for them, the memory of our write night last year with the shelf of clouds—impressive, ominous and awe-inspiring—this duality of non duality clash and uprising. Is something hiding there? or just
the feeling—TOO GREAT, must be something behind it—
GREAT, maybe something else AND
just the beauty, the great-ness the
simple combination of
super powers—air, water, wind, light. Something SO HUGE, so mystical
and ordinary.
My heart is calling me toward the color and the form— of
cloud, sunset, tree, leaf, stream. My eye is alerting me to
WATER. WATER. WATER.
Like a timer going off.
Many memories pop up in my brain like an alarm WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKE UP.
On my birthday, I sought the pool that is the color of my eyes.
Sitting, feet and hand in the water, praying,
asking,
Mother, what can I do, Mother,
what can I do for you—
singing.
Silently at first and then with voice,
(here I am starting to grip my pen closer to the nib)
singing. a breath. another breath.
Mother—
what can I do for you?
Please.
And like a wing beat the answer came into my body
you can return.
you can come home.
When I am singing
songs of longing,
longing for you,
you, you
I am waiting here always for
you
you
you—
like a drum my heart finally started beating
FOR.
ITSELF.
FOR.
MYSELF.
I have been waiting for
you you you and
you are right here.
I cried. I let the hot tears fill up and spill out. There was maybe one other person there, I don’t know if he was on the rocks and observing a part of this ritual, this silent, crying faerie in the sometimes sparkling water//A small woman crying with her feet in the pool, under a shelf of boulders.
I made the pool for myself, blocking the views other than birch and rhododendron and water and rock. With my feet I observed the small flows tucked back into the rocks. The undersides trembled a little bit.
I put my right hand in the water, to hear.
I cupped my left hand to my heart, to hear.
And I listened, until the question came,
and I listened, until an answer was there.
And then I listened to the heat in my tears and to the shush of the falls and to the color and the shapes in the rock sticking up in front of me and to the green, green leaves filling my vision.
Mother, I am here.