vol. iv: birthrights (hiding)
It disappears in an exhale — a world obliterated — made new by the intake of oxygen and sense of relief that washes over the crowd of beggars, borrowers, thieves; the caricatures from a long-lost epic. Impossible, implacable, blind. Don’t become them; become you, love you, take care of you.


#e24361[The Blue House]

I have arrived and found much unchanged; this place is resistant to the movements of the earth — I have left behind shifting sands and craggy cliffs on the rocky shore of my consciousness. I find myself among my memories, among elders, the plants which have witnessed more in a season than I will in my whole existence. My mind and heart are shifting, finding their place alongside hers, in our expanding universe. 

•••

#e24365[Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge]

The sadness I feel is that of a graveyard visitation. When last the sunlight of my homeland warmed my skin, I was mourning, troubled by the death of my heart. The winds here are not so tempestuous — they are slow to shift the sands of time laden with memory. This too cannot last; I see the future encroaching — the acceleration has tragically begun. The land I walk is but an apparition, a shadow of its former wonder. But now is not the time to re-sow this soil; ash still coats the sward, a forgotten battlefield. I must move on, clear the table, re-pack my bags, face westward, and close all the doors the past may slip through. This place is not ready for me, not I for it — all things in their due course; I mustn't fall prey to the whims of hope, of fear, of past, of future.        

•••

#e25013[The Blue House]

I must move with intent and purpose — losing focus is a lapse in memory. I intend to live fully within the bounds of my world, this body, to feel the cold ground on bare feet, fire in straining muscles and empty lungs. To know the smell of barren earth in wintertime far from others, those distant impossibilities that no one dares dream of. I am standing in my own way; I cannot tarry where I don’t belong, where I feel myself age precipitously as time slips between my weakening grasp. 

I am learning, perhaps simply remembering, how to see; I am once again inspecting life’s intricacies, overcoming a lackadaisical attention that brims with conceit, making solid an ever-moving flow; ice remains thin, brittle, and fractured, glistening with the shedding of tears. I am learning, loving the forms I assume; my body changes with the season, the moment, the hour. Smooth skin reminds me to check — how long? Not yet another day passed, yet my hands are unknown to me, as though crafted in an instant through time un-experienced, unlabored. Perhaps my place is to listen, to relinquish, dream in deep slumber, to plot in playfulness, invite unconsciousness. 

•••

#e25002[The Blue House]

I wish to give due consideration to the capabilities and needs of my mind and body, to respect the extent of my power through practice. I wish to build, to nurture, to grow, to create and consume in the same breath, to tell and hear fantastic, impossible stories that I might one day know which words would bridge a rift or heal a wound. I want to feel, to experience in exquisite detail the cries, hymns, and hallelujahs of my flesh — the heavens and hells of existence — so that my children might know the strength, love, and kindness that hides amongst spires of hatred in this world. I wish to love with reckless abandon, to lose myself in the wild and enchanting landscape of her being, to uplift her spirit and serve her with the totality of my being, to remember home and all that is good in her embrace. I have won the game, I have lived well and fully — from the deepest pits of despair to the delirious peaks of ecstasy, I’ve known much and loved all.