July 9, 2020
Thursday 4:40 a.m.  (excerpt from journal entry)

And the thought again is to write of my coat of many colors, and should title it our coat of many colors.  Since I have memories, of who I portrayed over the centuries, and have written of my dreams, seeing who I was through some of them and have had the emotions of them, but no verification as to when I can only assume a knowledge of them.  But my poetry depicts them and memory serves me partially.  Perhaps only the humanity of them, but it is enough for me.  It answers my why of who am I also.  A big answer for me to life is everlasting.  Only partially but Jesus said my father’s house has many rooms.

And where those rooms are is conjecture at this point but will be knowledge again.  Planets are found all the time having suspected life as we know it.  But perhaps many support life as we do not know of it.  Jesus said seeing we will not see and hearing we will not hear.  We see variations of that all the time on this planet.  I wonder all the time did I really hear that?  Or did I really see that?  Does he listen to the words he is saying?  And when you see behavior that mystifies or cannot be understood,  did I really see that?

Everyone is at different stages of understanding.  It all eventually makes sense where we are in growth and maturity.  Technically we can be savvy but emotionally or psychologically immature.  Different aspects of who we are.  We can speak the words but meaning eludes us.  We simply do not know what we say.  Jesus said, father forgive them.  They simply do not know.

I harbor the woman in the cold, the black woman with a basket on my head, the Arab man who is harvest for the flies, and the Polish woman kneading her bread.  My gnarled fingers are the hands knitting with smooth sticks in the tent house circled in the firepit drinking some kind of brew to keep warm.  I have to keep my focus right here and right now else I walk into that time frame of who I am.  It becomes a problem for those like me.

 

 

‘Each lifetime lived adds to the cumulative sense of loss.’
                                                                                                the teacher

All Who I Am. . .

I feel the pull of the Polish one bent over her bread board,
pounding, kneading, smoothing the egg dough
into a satiny mound.  Raisins, like eyes, half buried
in the fleshy loaf, stare at me, daring me to absorb
her rhythm into my blood.

Her aching restlessness I breathe already. 
Her utter frustration to make new whips me to
a working frenzy, a woman possessed.  She delivers me
to my bed in agony.  With memory splintered, glinting
off the corners of my eyes, I find me.  And awake again
to a morning promising me no relief from her visions.

                                             II

My brow furrows, forming ledges to shield my eyes
from a sun that beats unmercifully.  Sweat pours to drench
my body and nausea routes its way flooding
an overloaded circuitry.

The wandering tribesman leading the camel favors one foot.
Calluses shoot pain into the moon calf of his leg and I limp.
The tart taste of yogurt in his mouth washes clean
the sand out of mine.

Each step becomes a mile in length and his laborious effort
throbs in my temples.  I will be harvest for the flies. 
I cannot bear the heat anymore.

                                                    III

The air, sharp as a cut lemon, washes me.  The children race in
their overlarge sweaters with roses painted on their
faces smooth as milk legs.  Lace fringe curtains entertain
the visitors agape at the starkness, the simplicity,
the square picture.  I am at home.

The arctic terrain beats my blood to a froth with exuberance.
My sturdy body matches my earth.  My love shields me,
woos me and I am as cherished as a milch cow in a land
of sparse grasses.  To each other we are the heavy cream
poured on a dish of skyr .

                                                         IV

How far back do I dare reach to uncover all who I am? 
Is part of me racing, black skinned and hot, basket overflowing,
precariously balanced on my head and heart beating
outside my skin?  My loose breasts clap-clap in pain 
against my rib cage as I hurry to make up time spent chatting
with my sisters, fearful of the masculine outrage brewing?

I sit at my desk, surrounded by the present essences of
today’s people, today’s commitments.  The air is spicy with
fomenting earth.  My brow does not furrow from the heat yet. 
Summer’s dog days will arrive too soon.

I ‘ve reached backwards and sideways and tasted portions of lives
both palatable and unpalatable.  But altogether rich.  Is my
fatigue of genetic empathy, perhaps imagination gone wild
or an accumulation of too many lives lived, too many
sorrows sorrowed, too many dreams dreamed?

                                                            V

The answer will be mine.  With my departure I will take
the sum of my days, the loves loved, the dreams unfulfilled
and all who I am and walk again the cosmos.

And because of my love for me I will create another world.
Due to my cumulative sense of loss. . . . 

There will be no more loves aborted.

 

photo by John S. Hallissey
of art by veronica