warm stones gather the rainfall
speaking a gray language
i've tried to imitate.
i read books compiled
from anonymous scrolls.
i eat their dust
hoping to trace
the steps to heaven.
--from ": Looking For Buddha" by Jaime Jacinto
He cannot seem to stop trading one ocean for another. Back and forth, he rides different waves. One day, a gentle wave with warm surf depositing him by a green and orange fisherman's boat, overhead a sunlit blue. Another day, a squall pounding against the face of an implacable cliff, no sun in sight—and he is clinging to a slippery boulder, shivering. Either way, he cannot sleep in a room whose window does not overlook water. He notes, I am my own bridge.
Once, she dropped out of the world by joining a caravan of students traversing Siberia towards Lake Baikal. It was November and the River Angara that fed the lake had thawed into shifting pieces of grey slate. But the lake remained frozen, like the endless bank of clouds she had stared at from her airplane's window. A stranger had clutched at her arm, whispering, "I am inexplicably afraid our plane will drop." The lack of fear in her eyes over this possibility provided no relief, she knew, but it was the best she could offer for consoling a stranger's premonition about life. The stranger's fear evoked Lucifer. But she did not question why she held a false memory of witnessing this angel's fall.
He asked her to accompany him on one of his transitions towards the direction of a country whose people can never control their arms from enfolding invaders against their hearts. She replied with sorrow, I can be myself only in exile. He did not look back as he departed for an ocean whose salt he already could taste, whose embrace he already could savor against his naked back and whose sun he already could kiss with his uplifted face. Both knew she will wait on the other side of the earth that he must continue circling until he is felled to his knees. And, when on his knees, he still will continue moving forward, she will be the altar that will halt his travel, make him stand, then stay.
For this fable, there are no words. There only is the Breaking (of) Silence: the evenings of solitary grace in a dim room, at a desk a piece of blank paper spotlit by the beam of a lone lamp and, yes, one more attempt with the wake of yet another day.
*****
from Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole
