A Rushing River of Dreams

11 January 2002

I am so fucking ironic about my country and all the implications of my citizenship. But really it just makes me want to cry. I am inseparable from its baggage and its actions. My irony is a weapon. I am grateful for the privilege of irony and I resent it at the same time. I know it protects me from ignorance. But it also makes me complacent, aware but numb. The sadness also protects me from ignorance and is much more likely to make me do something, anything to make this world a better place. I am so lucky.

[Later I recognize this as the beginning of a major shift in my consciousness – the pivotal point at which I began to articulate my need and desire to begin to act on my beliefs rather than just acknowledge and store them away somewhere to fester in my dusty subconscious. It’s an interesting moment when a person goes from being passive to active. In retrospect it is accompanied by a feeling of taking your finger out of a hole in the dam and watching in horror and wonder as the finger-sized hole becomes a rushing river of dreams, desires and possibilities.]

To Hanis and Vipka

we climb these high andes
huffing and panting like lowlanders
one foot in front and above the other
how many steps to the top

speaking of life experiences
we share the same air
some sense of self
rediscovered
life is lived one step at a time

being full to the brim leaves no room for experience
all experience bought and paid for in advance
empty we begin to feel
to understand the breath and feel
the pulse of the world

to catch one ray of sun or drop of rain
one smiling face or tear stained cheek
to find that one boundary never crossed
and then to erase it
brushing the pieces slowly
examining their broken power
their impermanence
then scattering to the wind

the earth and its movement
the only illogical logic
its inhabitants living within and against its beauty

Trash and chickens