as it should be

I cannot think today
not of the odd, cut face in the mirror
not of the branches dragging over the roof
not of the hands pressed on the screen door or little jars of paint
dried sideways

not of deer unseen on the lawn
or the church key lost in plain sight
or the pillow how it murmured
as we woke from our naps into that part of our history

I do nothing today

I cannot think
not of waking to real voices
even then
or watching together the news
a respite, no matter, from the life we were living

i hear laughter,
the first time as his ghost's,
from earlier than that,
and the clinking of glasses
in the traditional family feast.

public art

not a complete narrative here, not because it didn't exist. just don't have the time.

_____ (a different ____ than the last ____) has paper of various sizes laid down across the public sidewalk. on those papers are women, some dressed, some not who are creating painting marks by rolling and turning on the paper. I think, well, this has been done before, but still, I'm impressed to see so many participating. To get where I'm going - down the public sidewalk, I need to cross the paper. I get on my knees, drag my leg through a pool of ink, put my leg forward, bent, and make a bent mark with it. I sweep my hand in a circle and leave fading lines. I go forward in this way across to where I need to be, look back and think, "okay".

(much then about my house. the remodel. the sandblaster that removes grafitti and paint and all from 30 feet.)

later though _____ is giving a talk. he says 'I'd like you to look at the five brown flames. ...I always am. It's just how I am. And I'd like you to write whatever you feel like writing about them." I see what he means - there is a candle set in an area of the room. The soft umber light it creates, the ambience it evokes, brings back somehow perfectly the luxurious hours we used to know so often of long evenings, winding rich conversations, privileged peace. Everyone seems to be engaged, writing, appreciative, and I'm stunned that he can take people back so directly to that feeling I can barely recall for myself. But before long, bit by bit, the light gets more harsh, flourescent. There are distractions, people talking about other things, moving tables, acting stupid. The candles don't seem to evoke much anymore. The moment, and whatever I was going to write about it, has been lost in the unfocused, irreverent noise and glare.

forgive and forget

It begins to rain. I am in my garden, hiding from a thin, old man who is lurking out front. Though i am aware i am dreaming i want away from him and go to my brother's house that i know is also dreamt. I am impressed therefore that ____ (someone else) knows to find me there. It is exactly as it is in real life and I am busy gathering together lost items from a long time ago, so only my brother's things are there, as it should be. ____ comes in and though i've forgotten most of it, I see my sister there too, meeting him, assessing him, approving, clearly. I put on my winter boots and am pleased they still fit. She tells me, don't I see that he is coming forward, trying to make things better, that he's trying to get past whatever has happened? She kisses him, oblivious to all else, as if to show me how to forgive.

Vati

How long since I've written that name. Or spoken it.

I travel back today, my father's 80th birthday, to Mexico when, at 40, at his last decade mark, he went alone from Guanajato where we were staying for the summer, to Moreilia to load our blue VW bus with furniture - strapped leather benches for us to sit in and chairs with big, black brads in which we, still little, and for the forgotten autumn afterward, remembered back to mexico, the cathedrals and clouds, the donkeys and firework trees, the handmade boots and the hilarious bad back roads he taught us to always take. Not much to that story - I just remember him saying that on a birthday one should take a journey on one's own for one's family. And how he looked, turning at the corner and how I worried for him alone on his way. Then to me, oldish, like a father just is but now than I am older than that myself...oh, my, so young, really and with so little road left.

And today then. A little journey back through that long, long tunnel of time to your Birdsy. I think I'll go see you now.

How the world needs your eyes.
Even more than I do.

I am still half you though.
And right now, still nine, with the lights of Guanajato just beginning to sparkle in a deepening twighlight and my whole, beautiful life ahead of me.

Thank you.
Vati.
my Vati.
Happy Birthday to You.