rivers till i reach you

AmeriCorps Graduation [more on goodbyes]

Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened
like winter, which even now is passing.
For beneath the winter is a winter so endless
that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.

Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.
Climb back praising as you return to connection.
Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.

Be.  And, at the same time, know what it is not to be.
That emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate
in resonance with the world.  Use it for once.

To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in nature,
add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost.

-Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, part two, XIII

the layers / stanley kunitz

There is more to say about Blue Ridge, harder stories, but it might take a while for me to say it.  For now, this poem:

I have walked through many lives, 
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind, 
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will in tact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
''Live in the layers,
not on the litter.''
Though I lack the art 
to decipher it
no doubt the next chapter 
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

Especially this little guy, him of the Timbaland boots and scratchy voice and ''half-Indian'' origins, who ''doesn't speak Spanish'' and laughs at the reindeer he thinks look Chinese (so bad, I know....), but who is smart and tender at times and interesting and very aware.  Who sucks his nostrils into slits like a snake and makes outrageous faces and is one of the smallest in the class, dressed like a gangsta, who misses his mom all the time, and who I constantly have to remind, ''Teacher Cari, not just Cari.''

Yeah, this one basically represents how I feel about that entire out-of-control and sweet and off-the-wall first grade class.  And that is always the hardest thing about leaving...

dream nights

The road south out of our village, if you could call it a road, the one my neighbors used to take to Tegucigalpa before the highway was built, was one of my favorites for walking.

The land to the south was rocky, green, hard: almost more like English moors except for the maiz y frijoles, platanos y San Juan Primavera growing.

Here in WW, it is harder for me to find space outside to be alone. Small town living has me feeling a bit stifled at times, though I love using my feet instead of car; the deciduous tree-lined streets block out my craving for open sky. In Santa Barbara, Honduras, the Upper Columbia, even San Francisco, I could always find the open and steep spaces to be alone. And sunsets from the Thames were so incredible the lack of ridges was almost forgivable.

The Blues are here, their lit snow-capped ridges, but I am not daily in them, the way my body needs mountains.

One day walking out on that gutted old road, we could smell rain in the air, hear far-off thunder. Storms move so much faster in my old village than any I've seen in the West. We pressed on, not wanting to sacrifice the walk. Soon the rain started, about 45 minutes walk from home, and we turned back, climbing the ruts in the road steep from where it dipped into valley.

Llueve became granizo, large stones pelting our bare arms and legs, and we turned our backs against the force of it and walked backwards for protection in the openness. Reaching the farthest house of the village, a relatively nice ranch owned by a family with a car, we turned in at their welcome, standing on the porch as rain poured and light faded from the sky, water funneling off our glistening skin.

The rain didn't let up, but was no longer hail. The wind blew. We thanked them and left, and while S. and L. walked in flip-flops, I ran the last thirty minutes home, pouring rain, rivers on the road, water above my ankles making currents across the dust. Lightning lighting up the west and the occasional villagers running past me the other direction, both of us laughing, buenas noches.

How I miss my village, that lonely and beautiful night, the sense of homeness I have found further south. And the mountains, the mountains! Their peaks filling my pupils, their precipitous earth under my feet.

trabajador de la madera

Yo sé es la verdad, que estamos lejos (me la siento la distancia tambien).

Pero cuando nos vimos, te miré afuera y yo pensé que, yo espero que puedas platicar con un consejero. Espero que tu estás sañando. Y ya, espero que un dia, podrás entenderme y comprender (seguir) la mapa de mi vida como puedes.

Pero ahora, te necesitas entender mis límites nuevos. Es el razón mismo yo no puedo regresar para navidad. Contigo tambien, yo los necesito. Esta es una cosa bien importante en mi vida. Yo no puedo hablar contigo una vez más hasta hay un cambio.

Tambien oro para tí a menudo. Bendiciones.

Every afternoon, I followed the scarred dirt road
rutted and dry, or else water-logged, thick with frogs,
an eighth of a mile from my front porch
past the houses of my neighbors
(and his house, the one for whom I left)
until the road turned right and became a trail.

I crossed the stream, water supply of the village,
where the trail began to climb and became La Culabra.
La Culabra: wilderness behind my house.

I memorized that trail like the ridges of my own dry heart
I have no photographs but memories
of greeting Justa, Marlon, y Marí, breastfeeding her newborn as she climbed
The men with machetes, sometimes drunk.
Buenas tardes, I would sternly tell them, trying to glare them off from any ill intentions.
I love you, they would say back in English
Once I came across one in a fetal-position in the middle of the trail;
he was fast asleep.

The rising trail offered a topographical look at the village,
the Great Rubber Tree marking one of many forks.
My favorite wandering place in those mountains had a view like the Rockies
shale rock, the river below, miles of sky.
I would steal away there and cry, sing, pray, sit in silence
until the light was almost gone and it was time to stumble down the mountain in the twilight.

Well I have hiked four times this week, and I am grateful for the steep, quick paths; the wildflowers and vista rewards,
the familiar land of my birth.

But it is nothing like La Culabra.

And I miss La Venta, the earth, the students I dream of nightly, the warmth of a language and a body next to mine
and I grieve the separation and loss of this 23rd year.

'So we glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame.'

on things too great for me to understand

I held the hand of the old man ever since he went blind
then everything changed, nothing is the same
but I never left his side

I´ve seen the walls, and they all fall down
I´ve felt the wind, its whipped us all
if you have give a coin or two,
if you don´t, a smile will do

Have mercy on me
Have mercy on me
Have mercy, have mercy
Have mercy on me

(thanks Trevor / the way much)

was it birth or was it death?

she sings she sings she sings her soul
even when she does not know the song

i will look you in the eye when we are talking
dearest darrelle taught me that,
and also a boy i know

"congratulations, class of 2006" (wasn't i just hearing that last month?)
what do three years mean?
days like this it seems the torah was literal in recording ages and years
"not one woman's life only, but a lifetime burning in every moment"

i only just met dr. delaney
he just convinced me to major in english
(and to think it felt so radical at the time!)

but tonight, it was goodbye.
goodbye, last undergrad essay
goodbye, london
goodbye, dr. delaney
goodbye (again), westmont.

~

"Ashes to ashes," a friend writes, "and all of life is leaving it. All of life is leaving it to find it again in something else. 'See,' Jesus says to me, 'don't I make all things new?' But what he means is, Don't I destroy all things to ash? Just when you're learning to love, don't I take it away, burn it, and smear it on your forehead in the shape of a cross?' "

Ashes to ashes. So we grow up.

[sunsets say goodbye: you've brought me this far]

in me like wire
you have grown, santa barbara
but i suppose this [east mountain walk, vineyard community, mission eve, jasmine]
is (really, for now)
past

difference is time / the mystic valley band

"Well, call me if you want to talk
There's a telephone on your wall
And the reasons are many and not too far apart
If there's some blood left in your heart

Difference is time
It's the best prison waiting in line
Difference is time
It's yours and it's especially mine...

It's hard to stand on my feet
With this weight of vagrancy
I've been trying to tell the difference
Between the road and my street..."

growing up

Addendum: we were evacuated a few hours after the last post.

But Graduation happened on time, and we celebrated among the ruins of carefully laid plans.

Because there is gratitude even in [our weak] adversity. And because yours truly now holds a Bachelor's of Arts in English. Rejoice!

ghosts teach caution, disappointment reservations
you & me are no stranger to these things

and in cryptic little poems, and barer letters with no addressee
insignificant confessions whisper
mostly, i like the way you move me

eucalyptus along barker pass,
palms by stearns' wharf,
mission lit skies in foggy rose gardens:
goodbyes come hard upon hellos

this much we know.
but we learn to stretch out our arms, anyway.