Me, Undone

It was placed in your hands. Not when or how you wanted it. But it was there. We coded meanings with our tongues. Carried laughter in our bellies. I kissed the ink scars of your shoulder blade. Call like the moon resting so lovely over you. We readied ourselves for private communion on that holy day.  With sacred wash and nectar I produced an offering –-my flesh. It was there and all for your taking.  Feeble hearts but fumble and throw pearls mistaken for trash to the ground.  Trash blows in the wind.

Goodbye, Saturn!!! I am free. Finally free. I walk closer to the shore with sand packed between my toes. The wind on my back. The sun against my breasts. Water runs around and through me--a cleansing for my next transition. Deliverance.

you yes, you reach inside of me pull tendons from muscle suck marrow from bone chasten my flesh arrest my mind

I am outgrowing her. Fast and furious. Trying to slow down. She is in the distance. I grew tired of holding her up to the light. My arms gave way. She is tumbling down to earth. My heart blown open again. I imagine her lying there bruised and bloodied. Everything in me begs to go to her. Pick her up from the floor of the earth and stroke her scalp. But descent to earth means forfeiture of flight. The slow and bitter atrophy of full grown wings. I risk capture. Engulfed by the trickery of the ordinary. The veil of comfort. The curse of the unfulfilled.

I live on the water. For two straight days, helicopters have circled outside my window searching for the bodies of two tourists who disappeared in the tragic ride the ducks boat accident. The noise from the propellers is deafening. It is a constant reminder of life lost. A reminder that there are two set of parents on planes to America to retrieve remains. They found the girl this morning. My sensitivity is heightened by the fact that I just returned from a trip abroad. To think, to imagine, that something so tragic could of happened. What do I do I with this feeling? I’ve let fear creep back into my life. It has stolen my sense of wonder and my ability to live without hesitation. We always think we have so much time to get things right. But you and I both know there is no such thing as time.

How do I describe the sounds, the sights, of such a far off land? My trip, literally to the other end of the world, was magical and intoxicating. It was an epiphany, a culture shock, a fascination--a twisted cultural musing. I stayed in a villa in a small town called Ubud. Ubud is known as the cultural oasis of Bali; the ride from the airport, or a quick stroll through the center of town reveals a mass of batik paintings and hand made woodcarvings. Ubud and its surrounding areas are also home of the beautiful rice paddies.  I lived among them. Every morning I woke up to see workers tilling the land, bending to the morning sun. Entering the grounds of the main villa was like entering the Garden of Eden. The villa complex sat perched on the Ayung River. Some days I sat by the riverbank, listening to the sound of rushing water as I read. In the evening, I watched children playing in the river and women washing cl...