XXIV.
These things which incessantly
I impart, and yes, there are
lots more coming – these details
-- these glorious and somewhat
bloated minutiae of my mind
and my perception – all stand
as proof of the thunderous
rapture of Purpose.
No beauty more perfect as
this fraternity can exist
as something so random as
the stumblings of a clumsy
God. No – this is all
but proof of Us. We must be
that which is perfect
creation; we are that
which is the Perfect Creator
-- for we see
-- and we taste
-- and we feel
-- and we love
perfectly.
These are the Actions
that take us to Knowing
-- and Knowing is Being
in the shade of these leaves.
XXV.
What has wisdom done to me?
Was it that lofty unction
or just a deeper ignorance
that has made every junction
more joy than even God deserves?
I’m stupid
with all of this bliss
(or this wisdom).
XXVI.
Desperate, I follow
your mornings – always
six hours behind you, I hobble
or glide through
your not-so-distant past.
Blessings and curses
mingle and morph and
brighten my way through your
previous night as you face
and you conquer the rise of
my morrow.
Wait for me there.
XXVII.
I’m numb with a shock
that’s nearly electric –
pained with the cosmic
tickle – I cannot
believe this thing I’ve been
given. Free reign – of
what – destiny, desire,
immortality, maybe – suddenly
now at 31. Not
suddenly – but this has not been
going on forever. Not like
this. I’m free and
beautiful and strong and
unstained again like
a newborn baby washed in Lethe.
The world has never been this
alive and in bloom. If you
listen you will hear the pulse
and feel all around you
the rush of the All.
I finally taste --
and taste of Creation
together at once
and that grace is immense
-- much of that is due to you,
my lovely man
and my jacaranda.
Your roots are deep –
too deep for rot
and God will not stop grinning.
XXVIII.
If I am a fool
for my heart’s constant
ramblings, forgive me.
They help me in
solving the riddle.
XXIX.
I hold above all this:
each facet of this
glorious thing –
each limb and ant on
the giant tree –
each occasion I form
the name of any one
of those souls that
I exalt
or have exalted –
must be seen and touched
and above all that
tasted and understood.
Forgive my absurdity.
It’s a proper gift
in these burlesque
times of truth.
XXX.
I cannot take you there
by hand – to truth. I can
only show the meandering
way I arrived at mine
and hope you have enough in you
to show me the way
to yours. The mirror is
plenty.
That bliss that comes
with time and love and
wisdom swallows the world
and reaches across forever
when bounced between
two souls.
Lovers, comrades, brothers –
Myopia will never strike
these visions when reflected
from the eyes
of those who share a truth
-- no matter how small or fleeting.
I will love you all
forever.
This is my way to the truth.
XXXI.
November 9, 2001.
3 days into my 31st year.
God, what an amazing spring.
We crossed the delta
of the silver river together
and followed each other
to Uruguay. This was
the day you taught me the meaning
of the Spanish “suspiro.”
The sweetest
example played on your face
as we stumbled through
the cobblestone calles
of that tiny village. I was
in love with everything
that day but time.
We dared to swim in
the filth of the delta.
The sediment was so thick
and foul you could taste it
in the air. We smelled
faintly of shit for the rest
of the day.
We didn’t care.
I brought back to Georgia
sand in my pockets from
that beautiful roiled shitty
river. I found it and smiled
at the memory of you and I
in a land that was foreign
to us both, drunk
on the world and
swimming in shit.
We were immortal.
That day belonged to us,
my friend – you and I
and God and the shit-stained
sands of Uruguay. The
day you taught me
that new word and I told you
in my land we call it
a sigh.
And I showed you
with your own example.
Distance was bridged
and time, understood,
on that day. Three days
into amazing spring.
And time and I are now
as friends.
I’ll see you soon
my jacaranda.
XXXII.
To that great swelling sea of
flesh. To every man born of
Human Mother.
You could all be
my lovers, my comrades, my
brothers; you have it
in you. I see it
looking through your eyes,
I see it floating above
your heads. Your very anatomies
give it away. Every one
of you that I pass
walking the sidewalks
of this city. Every one
I even curse from my truck
(that’s when I’m at my worst).
Each one of you that I’ve
served – assisted – offended
at work, all those
I’ve never looked upon, touched,
met or imagined. You
exist – and therefore
you have it in you.
If not for the cages
of time and of space
-- lovely though they may chance
to be –
I’d show all you down
to the single last man
exactly what in my ravings
I mean.
But bound as I am
to those two I can hope,
and for now only hope,
you surmise a great tree
-- until time allows me
to show you the scope
of World, Jacaranda,
Chance, of my
rants – and have you all
to your last breath
agree.
XXXIII.
Today I listened
to the music – those songs
we played and sang off-key
as we tripped through those
dirty streets together.
I hadn’t heard them since
I returned to my country
and got back to work
and began this discourse.
Hearing those lyrics sung by
our girl, I recalled with
piercing clarity the very
texture once again of
walls and floors and the faces
of strangers that we glanced
for one second or less
on subway trains or the
Teatro Colón or the Plaza
de Mayo by the Casa
Rosada. I felt on my skin
from 5,000 miles and some
100-odd days behind
my cold winter, the rough scratch
of the blanket you had
on your bed and that
ecstatic frustration I felt
at your door when the archaic
little key wouldn’t work
the lock for me.
Chapter I is alive and well.
Do things like this ever happen
to you?
XXXIV.
How long can perfect bliss survive
in a heart so used to the comfort
of stone?
It feels as if it will never die
and the solitary witness now
will never be alone.
I have caressed the violet bloom.
I have embraced the future.
I have laid with and loved
the favorites of God.
I have kissed and cajoled and
suckled the Muses.
Heaven has lavished on its
prodigal son its gold
and its secrets –
If death comes tomorrow
I still live forever.
XXXV.
After sundry lush lives
and half-lived half-truths
and the bombastic little deaths
urged by secrets of youth
-- once Mother moved out –
I returned to the womb.
Wounds were cauterized
and debts were repaid
as I slept and I swam
in the soup Sister made.
Bundled in that amnion,
in vitro, the metaphor,
the simile, the trope all
returned as I was drenched by,
and devoured by, and plugged
into the Possible.
What those past paltry deaths
or Lethe or Sheol should have
washed away clean, the fetus
I was rediscovered in dreams –
dreams set in Heaven
where autumn is spring,
where the moon hangs inverted
and the creatures have wings.
Specifically, one of those
fantastic beasts took the dreamer
across a dirty brown delta –
(but in Heaven even the muck
is pristine)
to a place north of Heaven –
close to Home – to a feast
and taught the little sleeper
who was holding the dream
to swim in a substance
that was more than it seemed.
Not the safety of stone hearts
nor detachment from that
which eschews blessed chance.
Not false wombs nor weakness.
Not submission nor fates that
exclude other worlds nor what
the earthbound can touch or
inhabit or eat.
A canon began – took form,
I should say – in the mind
and the hand and the heart
of the Clean One – the child
that dreamed. It was named
for the tree that grew rife
down in Heaven, where always
its spring and the maté tastes strange
-- at once sour and sweet
to the heart and the tongue
as the angel assured me was how
it should be.
I gave the angel, as well,
the name of the tree
and the Tree that is Life
and the Philosophy – however
cracked or flawed or warped
it may be to the ones who fear
wandering and have not slept with
the Dream. For the sake of
that irony I call simplicity,
all of these things I name
jacaranda.
Man, angel, tree and
Creation. Now that I’ve named
them, they all speak to me.
Exculpate, dear memory
of all of the things that came before
Heaven and angels and
Argentine spring.
I mean you no harm –
I know that these symbols
were more than a dream.
I’m not really a fetus,
though at times it may seem
to Those Who May Watch
or Those Who Are Able
To Decipher God’s Scheme.
But to those who are not,
I’m a man on a mission
to find, to fathom, to hold to
this thing that allows me
to conjure the Future in dreams.
XXXVI.
We do not love each other
for the distance between
and neither is this a thing we should
fear. Never have I known
a weaker demon than distance.
It runs away bawling whenever
I “boo” or swing a single bloom
in its direction. A childish thing –
more jester than devil. Afraid of a
flower! Imagine the fool!
XXXVII.
Separate existence and the space
between continents was, from
the time that we met (or conjured
each other), part of the method
that made the joy and the
cognizance so facile, my friend,
but that ocean and sea
and those miles between
our bodies no longer keep this love alive.
That was only true in those first
hours after we met. The mystery and
challenge of love from a distance
has become the simplest thing
my heart has endured.
If we were to share
a permanent home, a city
or such (as one day we will),
we will constantly quarrel
as is the habit of brothers
who share things (remember
the first night we shared
Buenos Aires?)
and we will love as fiercely
as souls trapped in bodies.
I have never known bliss
to be so symmetric.
Perfection!
The light of fraternity outshines
other raptures. It will burn
and enlighten after the bodies are
gone. The soul that knows
and understands will glow
with this joy like a sun
beyond distance and time.
XXXVIII.
The trunk defines and binds
the boughs – not the air
that flows past branches and
strokes the blooms of sweet
jacaranda.
These things which incessantly
I impart, and yes, there are
lots more coming – these details
-- these glorious and somewhat
bloated minutiae of my mind
and my perception – all stand
as proof of the thunderous
rapture of Purpose.
No beauty more perfect as
this fraternity can exist
as something so random as
the stumblings of a clumsy
God. No – this is all
but proof of Us. We must be
that which is perfect
creation; we are that
which is the Perfect Creator
-- for we see
-- and we taste
-- and we feel
-- and we love
perfectly.
These are the Actions
that take us to Knowing
-- and Knowing is Being
in the shade of these leaves.
XXV.
What has wisdom done to me?
Was it that lofty unction
or just a deeper ignorance
that has made every junction
more joy than even God deserves?
I’m stupid
with all of this bliss
(or this wisdom).
XXVI.
Desperate, I follow
your mornings – always
six hours behind you, I hobble
or glide through
your not-so-distant past.
Blessings and curses
mingle and morph and
brighten my way through your
previous night as you face
and you conquer the rise of
my morrow.
Wait for me there.
XXVII.
I’m numb with a shock
that’s nearly electric –
pained with the cosmic
tickle – I cannot
believe this thing I’ve been
given. Free reign – of
what – destiny, desire,
immortality, maybe – suddenly
now at 31. Not
suddenly – but this has not been
going on forever. Not like
this. I’m free and
beautiful and strong and
unstained again like
a newborn baby washed in Lethe.
The world has never been this
alive and in bloom. If you
listen you will hear the pulse
and feel all around you
the rush of the All.
I finally taste --
and taste of Creation
together at once
and that grace is immense
-- much of that is due to you,
my lovely man
and my jacaranda.
Your roots are deep –
too deep for rot
and God will not stop grinning.
XXVIII.
If I am a fool
for my heart’s constant
ramblings, forgive me.
They help me in
solving the riddle.
XXIX.
I hold above all this:
each facet of this
glorious thing –
each limb and ant on
the giant tree –
each occasion I form
the name of any one
of those souls that
I exalt
or have exalted –
must be seen and touched
and above all that
tasted and understood.
Forgive my absurdity.
It’s a proper gift
in these burlesque
times of truth.
XXX.
I cannot take you there
by hand – to truth. I can
only show the meandering
way I arrived at mine
and hope you have enough in you
to show me the way
to yours. The mirror is
plenty.
That bliss that comes
with time and love and
wisdom swallows the world
and reaches across forever
when bounced between
two souls.
Lovers, comrades, brothers –
Myopia will never strike
these visions when reflected
from the eyes
of those who share a truth
-- no matter how small or fleeting.
I will love you all
forever.
This is my way to the truth.
XXXI.
November 9, 2001.
3 days into my 31st year.
God, what an amazing spring.
We crossed the delta
of the silver river together
and followed each other
to Uruguay. This was
the day you taught me the meaning
of the Spanish “suspiro.”
The sweetest
example played on your face
as we stumbled through
the cobblestone calles
of that tiny village. I was
in love with everything
that day but time.
We dared to swim in
the filth of the delta.
The sediment was so thick
and foul you could taste it
in the air. We smelled
faintly of shit for the rest
of the day.
We didn’t care.
I brought back to Georgia
sand in my pockets from
that beautiful roiled shitty
river. I found it and smiled
at the memory of you and I
in a land that was foreign
to us both, drunk
on the world and
swimming in shit.
We were immortal.
That day belonged to us,
my friend – you and I
and God and the shit-stained
sands of Uruguay. The
day you taught me
that new word and I told you
in my land we call it
a sigh.
And I showed you
with your own example.
Distance was bridged
and time, understood,
on that day. Three days
into amazing spring.
And time and I are now
as friends.
I’ll see you soon
my jacaranda.
XXXII.
To that great swelling sea of
flesh. To every man born of
Human Mother.
You could all be
my lovers, my comrades, my
brothers; you have it
in you. I see it
looking through your eyes,
I see it floating above
your heads. Your very anatomies
give it away. Every one
of you that I pass
walking the sidewalks
of this city. Every one
I even curse from my truck
(that’s when I’m at my worst).
Each one of you that I’ve
served – assisted – offended
at work, all those
I’ve never looked upon, touched,
met or imagined. You
exist – and therefore
you have it in you.
If not for the cages
of time and of space
-- lovely though they may chance
to be –
I’d show all you down
to the single last man
exactly what in my ravings
I mean.
But bound as I am
to those two I can hope,
and for now only hope,
you surmise a great tree
-- until time allows me
to show you the scope
of World, Jacaranda,
Chance, of my
rants – and have you all
to your last breath
agree.
XXXIII.
Today I listened
to the music – those songs
we played and sang off-key
as we tripped through those
dirty streets together.
I hadn’t heard them since
I returned to my country
and got back to work
and began this discourse.
Hearing those lyrics sung by
our girl, I recalled with
piercing clarity the very
texture once again of
walls and floors and the faces
of strangers that we glanced
for one second or less
on subway trains or the
Teatro Colón or the Plaza
de Mayo by the Casa
Rosada. I felt on my skin
from 5,000 miles and some
100-odd days behind
my cold winter, the rough scratch
of the blanket you had
on your bed and that
ecstatic frustration I felt
at your door when the archaic
little key wouldn’t work
the lock for me.
Chapter I is alive and well.
Do things like this ever happen
to you?
XXXIV.
How long can perfect bliss survive
in a heart so used to the comfort
of stone?
It feels as if it will never die
and the solitary witness now
will never be alone.
I have caressed the violet bloom.
I have embraced the future.
I have laid with and loved
the favorites of God.
I have kissed and cajoled and
suckled the Muses.
Heaven has lavished on its
prodigal son its gold
and its secrets –
If death comes tomorrow
I still live forever.
XXXV.
After sundry lush lives
and half-lived half-truths
and the bombastic little deaths
urged by secrets of youth
-- once Mother moved out –
I returned to the womb.
Wounds were cauterized
and debts were repaid
as I slept and I swam
in the soup Sister made.
Bundled in that amnion,
in vitro, the metaphor,
the simile, the trope all
returned as I was drenched by,
and devoured by, and plugged
into the Possible.
What those past paltry deaths
or Lethe or Sheol should have
washed away clean, the fetus
I was rediscovered in dreams –
dreams set in Heaven
where autumn is spring,
where the moon hangs inverted
and the creatures have wings.
Specifically, one of those
fantastic beasts took the dreamer
across a dirty brown delta –
(but in Heaven even the muck
is pristine)
to a place north of Heaven –
close to Home – to a feast
and taught the little sleeper
who was holding the dream
to swim in a substance
that was more than it seemed.
Not the safety of stone hearts
nor detachment from that
which eschews blessed chance.
Not false wombs nor weakness.
Not submission nor fates that
exclude other worlds nor what
the earthbound can touch or
inhabit or eat.
A canon began – took form,
I should say – in the mind
and the hand and the heart
of the Clean One – the child
that dreamed. It was named
for the tree that grew rife
down in Heaven, where always
its spring and the maté tastes strange
-- at once sour and sweet
to the heart and the tongue
as the angel assured me was how
it should be.
I gave the angel, as well,
the name of the tree
and the Tree that is Life
and the Philosophy – however
cracked or flawed or warped
it may be to the ones who fear
wandering and have not slept with
the Dream. For the sake of
that irony I call simplicity,
all of these things I name
jacaranda.
Man, angel, tree and
Creation. Now that I’ve named
them, they all speak to me.
Exculpate, dear memory
of all of the things that came before
Heaven and angels and
Argentine spring.
I mean you no harm –
I know that these symbols
were more than a dream.
I’m not really a fetus,
though at times it may seem
to Those Who May Watch
or Those Who Are Able
To Decipher God’s Scheme.
But to those who are not,
I’m a man on a mission
to find, to fathom, to hold to
this thing that allows me
to conjure the Future in dreams.
XXXVI.
We do not love each other
for the distance between
and neither is this a thing we should
fear. Never have I known
a weaker demon than distance.
It runs away bawling whenever
I “boo” or swing a single bloom
in its direction. A childish thing –
more jester than devil. Afraid of a
flower! Imagine the fool!
XXXVII.
Separate existence and the space
between continents was, from
the time that we met (or conjured
each other), part of the method
that made the joy and the
cognizance so facile, my friend,
but that ocean and sea
and those miles between
our bodies no longer keep this love alive.
That was only true in those first
hours after we met. The mystery and
challenge of love from a distance
has become the simplest thing
my heart has endured.
If we were to share
a permanent home, a city
or such (as one day we will),
we will constantly quarrel
as is the habit of brothers
who share things (remember
the first night we shared
Buenos Aires?)
and we will love as fiercely
as souls trapped in bodies.
I have never known bliss
to be so symmetric.
Perfection!
The light of fraternity outshines
other raptures. It will burn
and enlighten after the bodies are
gone. The soul that knows
and understands will glow
with this joy like a sun
beyond distance and time.
XXXVIII.
The trunk defines and binds
the boughs – not the air
that flows past branches and
strokes the blooms of sweet
jacaranda.
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