INTRODUCTION +
POETRY
+
MUSIC +
ESSAYS
+ TRAVEL +
FICTION
+
TEXTILE
ART +
HAAG'S BIO
INSPIRED BY
NISARGADATTA
ENTR'ACTE II
04-25/06-04-02
"Impalpable bells, transparencies of sound. " Wallace Stevens, An
Ordinary Evening in New Haven
Well, I approach this with blank mind
and a dream, fully awake but
bemused.
Spring warmth in the bird calls, breaking
light from the
horizon bursting into my
heart. Pink toward the north, blue toward
the south and the mountain, at last,
glimmering -- a shadow of a
ghost letting
light catch its skirt, its head stately,
its snow
thick, frosting-on-the-cake
of life, the sweetness of life seeping
into my lemony soul, the pleasantness of
being tap tapping at my
logarithmic brain.
In my dream I wanted to move.
I can connect
this dream with nothing.
In the very corner of the window,
reflected in my computer screen,
like an
idea of magnitude, the rising sun aims
a beam through my
room -- into my
eye. I shall rise, scream with delight.
I shall
not mind the glare of
the light. The dancing suns make it
impossible to see screen or thought, impossible
to know what is
written. Impossible. What
should I write? The brilliant background
plays
with the leafless tree printed on my
screen. Its twigs
reach toward my heart.
What was my dream? Move where? How?
Into
a whiteness whiter than here? Where?
There was a crippled mind to take
care of there. The sun was gone
from my window, risen into the light.
Here in the north, it
circles as
much as it rises. The plants respond.
They grew as
much yesterday as they
did through all the later days of
winter
-- as if waiting for spring's instructions.
The ginger stalk fell.
Broke. The tef,
its weeping grassy blades expanding and contracting,
mirror the tears in my heart. Who
is this unseen Quasimodo I
don't mind
comforting in a world as bright as
pollen? Why would
I move from paradise?
There was a shaded swimming pool, more
cupboards (as here) than I could
use.
Was it here? -- and the helpless wretch
my unborn kitten? -- my
white, longed-for, dreaded
and purring companion who might wake my
heart from its somnambulant peace, its ennui,
its sleep? I lie in the
darkness
of paradise, listen to a motor whir,
decide it is the
refrigerator, wake slowly
in the dawn. Am I sitting on
the
windowsill, discalced, exercising my fragile, nascent
wings? -- little,
dark, sparrow wings? -- not like
the mighty whites of angels. Thoughts of
the migrations of small butterflies sustain me.
Here I am careening through sky, circling
around the sun's rim, growing
warmer. Ash
from volcanic explosions circles the earth from
time to
time, darkening the life-sustaining light,
killing earth's creatures. As
the cinder fog
clears, with the new dawning sun, others
flourish.
The earth will not weep at
our departure, nor will the sun weep
when
its light goes out. I close
my eyes. Evolution breeds in the dark.
#37 BLISS