Sifting...

May 23, 2011

Driving through town today, I glimpse a tan car with a bike rack on the back and a tall, slightly bewildered guy with long hair loading fuel beside it.

For a moment, I am paralyzed, shock and fear creeping over my skin like a shadow. For a moment, I am lost on a vast wave of an unnamed emotion...unable to tell direction, unable to recognize myself.

Flashing back to reality, I realize his hair is blond and wavy.
Different guy.

And hesitantly, not trusting my own eyes, I breathe again.

Then a feeling of sorrow surfaces, the memory of a strong love inside me. I gave everything I had and this is where it led. Emptiness.

I feel a twinge in my heart of longing for acceptance. Then, somehow my thoughts shift further back in time, to a memory of another love, far deeper than that one, which somehow lives on, inside me.

This love is more innocent, with the purity of untouched youth and the integrity of inexperience.

I pull up to the post office to retrieve my mail for the first time since coming back home. The first person I see before me is my one remaining link to the actual person, (now mythic in my mind), who was the reciprocal of all that early love.

"I think he's supposed to get back today", she says casually, as we say a quick hello and then goodbye.

(He is real?)
He is real.

Instead of terror, this news gives me comfort. He belongs here. Just as I belong here.
I am glad he continues to love and return to this place.

And again, all these years later, I am swept away by the remembrance of that love that was grounded in the earth-but was so full of fire that it consumed us-till we finally tried to put it out.

Yet it undeniably lives on inside of me, like a constant flame that I warm myself by from time to time.

I don't know the person any more,
but I still love the spirit, no question.

And I can feel its mutuality. I, in turn, can feel that I am still loved.

It has that quality of forgiveness
regardless of circumstance.

And puzzling as it is, with odd pulls to the heart at unexpected moments, it's both unsettling and comforting to realize that it's still there, unchanged by time.

Next, I go to the market and buy a newspaper with my picture in it.
I stare at the picture, wondering how it might look through his eyes, after all this time between us...

Who is that girl?

In the black and white photo, I am in the background. There is a shadow over my face, yet somehow my teeth still look crooked. My body looks slim and my arms look strong, but my face...somehow it seems odd and ugly.
I guess that's how I still feel about myself.

Staring at the darkly shaded picture of my face, my life seems strange and obscure. I look like a grown-up. Who have I become?

I look so inconsequential, so average, so nonthreatening.
Has anything about me changed?

Shattered Pieces

May 18, 2011

It seems parts of me
have gone missing again.

Every time I turn around
I divide into fragments
and some of them escape.

How is it that these dreams I had
are now only broken pieces shattered
like ancient pottery
in the tracks of dust
I've left behind?

Such beautiful dreams they were
of so much brilliant potential
overflowing
with love
success...

But now, cold shadows
and broken clay
and
even
this poem
sucks!

From the Heart

I realize it's been awhile since I've posted, but that doesn't mean I haven't been learning, processing and writing. Sometimes the art of bearing your soul can be intimidating...and takes a little time passage to warm up to again, when at last you realize how much you long for the humility and intimacy of self-effacing honesty more than the comfort of being safe inside your shell. I have some catching up to do on experiences, memoirs and moments with dance, travel and cuisine. So, I will try to share with you the recent or semi-recent ones that I feel will be most insightful and meaningful. Here it is, from the heart...

Waves

About a month or so ago, I wrote 2 new poems. Here is one:

Sometimes I dream
that I am a landscape
an earthy shore
pummeled by the waves
of a vast
and mysterious ocean.

Waves of sadness
waves of joy
waves of fear
waves of laughter
waves of confusion
indecision
waves of knowing
wisdom
Crashing up against me
when I least expect it.

But maybe
I am the ocean.
Washing up against the shores
of another
only to find
my own waters
darkened
with envy
desire
outrage.

All my life
I’ve made waves.
Sometimes intentionally
but mostly
unknowingly.
Stirring up the anger
the untold stories
and denial
of others
more fearful
Than I.

Maybe I am the landscape
and the ocean.
My body and experience
Comprised of all the elements:
Earth, air, fire and water.

Maybe every part of me
every particle
is a wave
in one form or another
changing
impermanent
unsatisfied.
Perfect in its
refusal
to be still.

-Cara Cruickshank

And here is the other (which was written with a friend)...

She is not a ghost.
Because I know her
and I am not a ghost.
At least, I don't think so
though sometimes
in lonely evenings
I wonder.

Every day she wanders
quietly through
the parking lot.
Once in awhile
she tiptoes
into a nearby field
and secretly
lies down
in the brown grass
not seeing
that another ghost
is watching
from across the pavement.

She is almost transparent
her pale skin
and dull maroon coat
fading in and out
of the bleak landscape.
She searches
for a bit of color
a sign of life
in the deadness
all around her.

Is she a ghost?
I keep wondering
in the filmy haze
of the barren parking lot.
Or is she flesh and bone
but mostly shadow
like me?

Her soul has gone missing.
Maybe that is what she searches for
in these moments
in the dimming horizon
and the dried grass.

Maybe it was stolen
in the suffocating embrace
of a possessive lover.
Maybe it ran away
from the insatiable criticism
of a doting mother.
Maybe it fled
the lusting gaze
of a distant uncle
who took something from her
she had never offered.

Like me, her unseen observer,
she has just enough life left
to get herself to work each day.
But later
invisible
in the refuge
of abandoned earth
she searches
for the fragments
of the soul she once had.

I am not a ghost.
Because I know her
and she is not a ghost.

-Susan Cruise and Cara Cruickshank