The Poet Knows My Dreams”
I heard whispering in the next room which gave way to wind between two
shadows, (a body of dark water, and the rock inside my chest that would one day soon
form a column of light shooting up through my head).
Curtains rippled like the waves in the wind that blew through pine trees.
The strong wind made the birds stand still in mid air and then fly backwards. Time
moved backwards. Everything was backwards. Things were in reverse, such as an
upside down sky, tree tops that pushed clouds down upon the horizons of fields,
and ocean that did not spill. Someone took the color away, and that is what hurt
most. How could the day be black and white? How could silence become harsh?
I wanted you to walk back towards me, but your heavy footsteps carried you
the opposite way. You already know this path is contrary to the ‘us of us’ that has
always made you sing. You are supposed to stop in your tracks right then and there,
and turn back, and to top it off, smile right into my eyes. You had not even turned
your head back towards me, but instead turned it upwards, accompanied by that walk
of yours that announced your largeness. At that angle the back of your head looked
flat. As you turned the corner and were out of my sight, a tear of silver formed in
my eye, which then took time to drop down my cheek. I wanted to run after you, grab
you, grab your shoulders, and call into your face, “ I am right here!” Instead,
only the cooing announcements that I ‘would’ have made remained, and what I ‘could’
have done, but I’d only have to cross water to go back, to find you all over again,
to the place where the sound of the wind in the trees would outlive us both. The
oldest sound is the hymn of the ocean, you of rhythm, knowing full-well that I am
water, almost drowned not once, but so many times in life’s unexpected strong
current, but still I stay near, to be here to fill each hour with color, and with
you, who are my largest sound.
It took three days, but I cooked a spicy fish stew with yellow peas,
barley, tumeric, cumin, ginger, scotch bonnet pepper, accompanied by excessive
amounts of garlic, ginger, lemon and saffron. I set the table right in the garden,
and served it to family and close friends. An eagle flew right over my barn. It
was beautiful... expansive, close to the clouds, then nearer to the tops of the
trees, and then it turned back upwards to go behind trees, and now I keep looking
for the eagle nearer to the clouds. He left wings that grew roots, which would take
flight again soon enough. It was I who still had to untie the many layers of knots
that we formed over years, from deep within the earth.
Finally I slept. In the morning I wore white, picked a bouquet of ‘lily of
the valley,’ and cast my eyes up to the clouds, before I would touch color again for
the day.
I heard whispering in the next room which gave way to wind between two
shadows, (a body of dark water, and the rock inside my chest that would one day soon
form a column of light shooting up through my head).
Curtains rippled like the waves in the wind that blew through pine trees.
The strong wind made the birds stand still in mid air and then fly backwards. Time
moved backwards. Everything was backwards. Things were in reverse, such as an
upside down sky, tree tops that pushed clouds down upon the horizons of fields,
and ocean that did not spill. Someone took the color away, and that is what hurt
most. How could the day be black and white? How could silence become harsh?
I wanted you to walk back towards me, but your heavy footsteps carried you
the opposite way. You already know this path is contrary to the ‘us of us’ that has
always made you sing. You are supposed to stop in your tracks right then and there,
and turn back, and to top it off, smile right into my eyes. You had not even turned
your head back towards me, but instead turned it upwards, accompanied by that walk
of yours that announced your largeness. At that angle the back of your head looked
flat. As you turned the corner and were out of my sight, a tear of silver formed in
my eye, which then took time to drop down my cheek. I wanted to run after you, grab
you, grab your shoulders, and call into your face, “ I am right here!” Instead,
only the cooing announcements that I ‘would’ have made remained, and what I ‘could’
have done, but I’d only have to cross water to go back, to find you all over again,
to the place where the sound of the wind in the trees would outlive us both. The
oldest sound is the hymn of the ocean, you of rhythm, knowing full-well that I am
water, almost drowned not once, but so many times in life’s unexpected strong
current, but still I stay near, to be here to fill each hour with color, and with
you, who are my largest sound.
It took three days, but I cooked a spicy fish stew with yellow peas,
barley, tumeric, cumin, ginger, scotch bonnet pepper, accompanied by excessive
amounts of garlic, ginger, lemon and saffron. I set the table right in the garden,
and served it to family and close friends. An eagle flew right over my barn. It
was beautiful... expansive, close to the clouds, then nearer to the tops of the
trees, and then it turned back upwards to go behind trees, and now I keep looking
for the eagle nearer to the clouds. He left wings that grew roots, which would take
flight again soon enough. It was I who still had to untie the many layers of knots
that we formed over years, from deep within the earth.
Finally I slept. In the morning I wore white, picked a bouquet of ‘lily of
the valley,’ and cast my eyes up to the clouds, before I would touch color again for
the day.
"Pianissimo Yellow"
"Drowning"
Lorna Ritz
Pianissimo In Yellow
"Sky"
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