BY JAN HAAG
INTRODUCTION +
POETRY
+
MUSIC +
ESSAYS
+ TRAVEL +
FICTION
+
TEXTILE
ART +
HAAG'S BIO
of exhortation based on an ancient Sufi form.
(in alphabetical order)
- D -
DEAR ABBY
1228 San Anselmo, before 1996
Long ago I saved a snippet from your column:
"I have two friends and
I hate both of them.
What should I do?"
I carried it in my wallet
for years,
thinking it quite the most amusing thing.
Then it
got lost, as Mirabeau would say,
"with all those things."
But it
stayed around to haunt the mind.
It is one of those quick
remembrances
always there for a giggle
when I begin to think
about
human beings.
O Devayani, today feeling blah, a bit
down,
but the sun glittered in the window
you walked out to get
material for a poem.
You walked out,
out into the rain rinsed,
sun bespeckled street
up the hill to visit your new friend, a
sprite.
She didn't answer your ring or your knock,
you kept
tapping on the glass of the door --
her car was there,
you had
just spoken to her on the phone --
until she shrieked, "Who is
it?"
"It's me," knowing she'd recognize my voice.
"Which me?" she
shrieked.
"Jan,"
O Devayani, I said, "Jan."
"I don't know any
Jan," she hollered.
I kept tapping and nattering,
wondering
what to do. "Are you okay?
Are you still alive?"
I had the
feeling she was in there shooting up,
dipping her mercurial
personality in depression,
flagellating her
sprightliness.
For she had left a trampoline
braced against
my garbage can
in the night,
and I had called to say I couldn't
keep it.
I had meant to say
I'd keep it for awhile, until after
her SSI inspection,
but the phones were full of static from storms
that
started a week ago.
I think she took it amiss, thought that
I had accused her of
dumping stuff on my doorstep.
But I
didn't.
I suggested she sell the trampoline, for she, like my
other new friend,
was drowning in possessions.
Drowning in the
abundance the universe provides to
those who cannot part with pure
gold
nor the trinkets of life.
You were laughing, for, O
Devayani,
you had been, even this morning,
going through your
files, packing them in boxes
to ship away, never to be seen
again.
They'll be someplace.
But you will probably never see them
again.
Even the things, that a few months ago, you thought
you
would never be able to part with -- into the box they go.
There's
an impatience, a knowing
you'll not look at this or this nor this
again.
Almost everything goes.
Just to have the space, the
light,
the light,
O Devayani,
how much you want the
light,
the lightness, not to be weighted down by anything.
Neither
Alain's gifts, nor possessions, nor her volatile presence
created by
drugs, possibly, and paranoia.
She knows at times she is a burden
to herself and others.
She hides.
Unwittingly I was asking the
forbidden,
for her to come out of hiding.
At other times,
most times, she is a sprite as attractive as
Athena herself --
charming, gay, radiant.
It makes my heart sink to my boots
to
think she might be able to survive
only with drugs.
Leave her
alone, O Devayani, let her be.
For your own peace of mind and for
hers.
You are old enough and jaded enough
to
recognize
meant-to-stir-guilt behavior.
And with your other
friend,
the new friend who wants an ear,
is desperate for an ear
in which to pour
two and five and ten hour analysis
of her new
male friends.
O Devayani, how interesting
to see --
after
all these years,
and having had all these addictions --
the
faulty underpinnings of friendship.
It seems to be about being
heard.
But only when and how you want to be heard.
My other
friend, Claudette, was,
the first night we really chatted --
along with Alain,
at a tea shop --
filling us both in about
the crack-up
of her relationship with an alcoholic,
his erratic,
non-coherent behavior.
There I sat, thinking,
though it was almost
too soon
to know it,
that here are
two
addictive
delights, looking for an ear, and an
outlet for compulsive
giving
not knowing that,
O Devayani,
you long only for the
light
the lightness of nothing
the nothingness of
light.
And some pleasant
friendship,
warmth,
delight,
and laughter
along the
way.
Another thing I did this morning was
stop at 28 Scenic
Drive
to inquire
if they had once had a
huge
rhinoceros
head,
with horn,
tacked to the
pediment
of their little
grey house.
The woman, laughing and charmed, said,
"Yes, the
people who lived here before -- for ten years --
had a rhinoceros
head.
They took it with them."
"O, thank God," I said, "I
thought I had
hallucinated it."
We laughed
and
laughed
DEAR ANI
After 5/10/96 from 5319, Seattle
O Devayani, you wrote to Ani:
"Save a space on your calendar for
me."
Her tall form appears
in your mind's eye,
gracefully
enclothed in the smooth
brown robes of a Tibetan nun.
Ani the
lovely.
Ani the wise.
Ani who travels a world
of amazing
spiritual adventures,
dedicated to truth and the wisdom of the
world.
A Rumi, forging connections between
the mundane and the
mystical
gently, day by day,
who made wooden crosses from the
beach
until her Catchatoorian manifested
as a lion of infinite
charm.
Gracefully settled in life,
Ani helps others come and
go,
expanding the definition of peace,
the meaning of
serenity,
the delight of stretching the body into
yoga,
contracting the energy into Chi Gung.
O Devayani, you'll
miss her
living a thousand miles to the north.
But, O
Devayani, keep in mind
there will be another time and another
place,
maybe even on this earth, where
we'll talk again, and
laugh
and gently mind the business of transmuting
moments
into eternity,
and eternity into time.
"Save a space on your
calendar for me.
Devayani will be in San Anselmo between September 10
and 25.
Part of the time at 457-5903
SHRINE
OR
DEEP IN KRISHNA'S SHRINE
1228 San Anselmo, before 5-10-96
O Devayani,
the possibility of nightmares so hideous
they live
with me in the day...
The terror so deep
the sunshine shines
through the jungle enhancing it...
The face of my God strewn across
the wall,
everywhere:
in the glance of an eye, in the bough of
a tree,
in the lace of the curtains, in the strange bird's
song,
in the small golden pyramid,
in the immensity of a palm,
cut, trimmed, robbed of its limbs
and now forty feet
tall...
Only the Washingtonian is native to America they say
--
it grows in the desert.
Why am I not there? -- in the
searing heat of the sun,
in the sand, the dust, the small
pebbles,
the wind blown grit --
where nature dries you out, wrings
you
free of the moisture of fear.
O Devayani,
is there
perfection?
Why does the question terrify you so?
And after
you have witnessed perfection?
There are nightmares to return to
every hour of the day:
his face with the laughing eyes,
the lines
of his age and his worry and his distress
made young with
laughter,
the compassionate laughter that knows
when the sun
comes round again
the day-mares, the terror, the heart piercing pain
will pulse delight.
O Devayani,
shut your eyes to the
sunshine,
to the glitter and the gold.
Terror belongs in the
dark,
beneath your silent eyes,
within your shadowed heart.
Open your ear,
open your heart. (?????)
(Line probably missing CK)
DID YOU KNOW,
155 San Anselmo, before 5-10-96
O Devayani, that the diversity of the world is one?
One is the
diversity of the world.
Did you know that the way to wisdom is
through diversity,
that the many equal the sum, and the sum is
one,
and one is the diversity of the world?
O Devayani, did
you know that to be right
is to serve the many, to serve the
diversity of the world, to serve
the one which is the diversity of
the world?
Shiva is one and he danced the world into
existence.
Shiva is the diversity of the world.
Do your dance.
Honor the one and the many
Be right, be righteous, honor
the
one which is the diversity of the world,
honor all the diversity of
the world for it is one.
DIWALI, PALIMPSEST IIIa
11-28-97
Tomorrow, the new moon, invisible, will begin her waxing, O Devayani,
look into
the
the darkest night of the year, know that the year
begins again tomorrow, after the
darkest
night, when the sun rises
tomorrow, sheds its new light, taken from the
flickering
night
candles, a million lamps to illiuminate the
dawning year, the coming of the moon-
of
light that will
shimmering in your heart, in each heart opened to the young year,
O
the
new year, the lights, the candles, the lamps, the glow of
amber golden flame in the
year,
the new years, O Devayani, night
after night you will watch the moon, silver in her
festival
of
lights, rise from the darkest night, when even the stars dare not
glitter, blackness
of
absence, announcing her presence, the
eight hundredth time in your life. How many
lights:
O Devayani,
how many lights of new moons waxing, olds moon waning, the lights
of
Diwali
numinous in your heart, O Devayani, celebrate Diwali, Om Shanti,
Shanti, Shanti-ee.
DIWALI, PALIMPSEST IIIb
11-28-97
In
the
fall
each
year on
the night the new moon,
invisible, begins her waxing, O Devayani,
the darkest
night of
the year, know that the year begins after the long,
endless
night
when the sun rises, sheds its new light, takes on
the flickerings
of
candles, the illiumination of a dawning year.
The beginnings of
each year, the festival
of lights, shimmers deep
in your heart, each heart opened to the
glow of golden amber from
the flames, candles, lamps, the fire
of the lights, of
Diwali!
O Devayani, night after night you will watch the moon,
silvering with
her light, rising in the darkness, where even the
stars dare not glitter.
Absence announces her presence: the
eight-hundredth moon of your life
is celebrated.
O Devayani, how
many lights of new moons waxing, olds moon waning, the lights
of
creation, desolution, decay, how many new risen, newly born moons
and rising suns
will shine upon earth, arcing across the blue-black
cloudless sky, inciting luminosity
in your heart, O Devayani, how many? Celebrate Diwali! Om
Shanti, Shanti, Shanti-i
DON'T GET UP
5319 Seattle, after 5-10-96
O Devayani,
the sugar rides high in the blood,
despair rides
deep in the toes,
the world crashes around with
cataclysmic
bliss.
The sun's gone out of the sky.
There's no one to talk
to or cry.
O Devayani,
A jet roars overhead,
perhaps
taking off for the moon.
You would go, too,
to the moon,
go
off to the moon with the goony
decoctions from grey matter,
O
Devayani,
dreams, hopes, soporifics,
that put you back to
sleep.
Leave it alone, leave it alone,
leave it
alone.
Dance in the moonlight, sleep in the sun.
All will return to the quark.
DO NOT SEEK TO BE RIGHT,
155 San Anselmo, before 5-10-96
O Devayani, for it is a concept as thin
as a negative, as blank as a
void, for all is right
all the diversity of the world is
right:
every moment of time and the sun and shade,
every
moment of warmth and coolness, and mist,
every moment of the
incandescence of desert heat
every moment of ice and the glacial
snows,
every heart beats and is right, every rhythm taps to the
beat
of the dance. O Devayani, do your dance
follow your heart,
love the beat of all the dancers.
Whirl, Devayani, whirl to the wild
rhythms of the dance,
and stop.
Sway, O Devayani,
melt to
the left, melt to the right,
sway to the lilting slowness of the
dance,
become one with the currents of air.
Do not seek to be
right, Devayani,
for righteousness is a negative concept.
Let
things be as they are, Devayani.
Describe them if you wish, O
Devayani,
but do not judge them.
Describe them as they
are.
Each described tree and each undescribed tree
belongs in the
forest.
Do not be righteous toward the trees.
INDEX
- B -
Beauty, before 1996
to
Burning, 05-06 before 1996
- C -
Cardamom, 01-01-98
to
Cyberspace, 01-14-97
-D-
Dear Abby
Doris, 12-20-97
Dour, 12-12-97
Ecstasy, 11-16-97
Frost Mourning, 01-30-00
Empty, 12-22-97
The Empty Page, 12/18/97
Entertainment, 06-29-97
Etruscan Goddess, 1997
Every Human, 01-12-98
Father, 01-14-97
Fed Up, 11-02-97
Feeding Frenzy, 1995?
Gifts, 1989?
In A Judeo-Christian-Islamic World,
05-04-00
India, 1995?
Interstellar Space, 07-05-97
Khajuraho, 06-11-97
Lets Look At The Old Films Of India,
12-18-97
Little, 12-25-97
Lung-gom-pas, 1984?
Micro Paleontology, 04-24-97
The Nafs, 12-26-97
Next, 11-03-97
No Constraint,
1-14-98
Not, 12-23-97
Nothing, 1994?
No Words, 1-10-98
Of Spiritual, 1-11-98
Other, 12-21-97
Palimpsest (Ecstasy), 11-16-97
Palimpsest I (Sphere), 11-17-97
Palimpsest II (Diana), 11-22-97
The Place Between, 1-3-98
Point of View, 7-5-97
Ranked, 1-2-98
The Roaring Silence of God, 4-3-95
Roots, 06-27-97
Ryoanji, 1985?
Said, 01-04-98
Silence, 01-17-98
Solstice, 12-21-97
Steady Drizzle, 04-28-97
Two Tomatoes, 1995-96?
Sun, 00-00-97?
Then, 12-20-97
The Woman Who Had No Necklaces, 10-26-97
Work, 12-24-97
Yesterday, 2-10-98
Copyright © 2002 Jan Haag
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Jan Haag may be reached via e-mail: jhaag@janhaag.com or
jhaag@u.washington.edu
BY JAN HAAG
POETRY +
MUSIC +
ESSAYS +
TRAVEL +
FICTION +
TEXTILE ART
INTRODUCTION +
HAAG'S BIO