Category: Writing

Eleuthera (the Bahamas. Winter 2012.)

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I was born as lightning struck the Atlantic, during an unseasonable January thunderstorm.  The whole thing had groupers and houndfish cocking their heads to the side in unfamiliar motions.  The ocean was sky blue and clear, but the sky was choppy with swells.     Raindrops fell from the sea into the clouds.   The Sargasso Sea paused its churning, leaving seaweed suspended without shores.    Eel larvae hatched all at once and bathed in the stillness as turtle hatchlings poked their heads above the waves to watch.  The sea sang siren songs to Ayacayia, who delivered me to my mermother.  The bottle-nosed friends of my father gathered round to congratulate and speed along the loggerhead who bore me to the shore.

I landed on the islands among sea biscuits and beach glass.  My sargassum hair held mermaids’ purses and unborn sharks.  My skin sparkled with the pink sand that held centuries of periwinkle dust.   Queen conchs and horse conchs alike exploded with the pink noise of the oceans they held, sending coral-colored stars into the sky.  As the dawn came, yellow hibiscus opened gently, turning orange and deepening into red before falling into the ocean, in a microcosmic mimicry of the sun.   Inland, you could hear potcakes howling at the strangeness of the winterstorm and roosters who could no longer tell the time of day. Hermit crabs came together to perform a junkanoo, which raised me from my sleep.  I had always been able to swim, but it was time to begin to leave footprints in the sand.

The 366th Day (Leap Day 2012.)

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February 28th was like every other day, until midnight, when nature, reassuringly, fell apart.  It seemed that the powers-that-be drew their heads between their shoulder blades and sheepishly conceded that time was not as sane and stable as you’d been told.  The year was out of line to us sun worshippers.  Five hours, 49 minutes, and 16 seconds out of order, give or take.  And for that, every four years, except every hundred years, but not every four hundred, the calendar needed to be slapped with an extra day.

But this isn’t just any extra day.  This day boils with the possibilities of being outside of time.  Clocks and calendars hold their breath as they wait impatiently for the sun to catch up.  The planets and stars saunter slowly across the sky as alarm clocks hold in their ringing and watches repeat the same ticks over and over again.  It almost seems that the sky is teasing Earth’s timepieces, moving in slow motion and even pausing, just because it could.

It was on such a day that she came to you in red petticoats, dressed all in white save for the scarlet blooming from beneath her skirts.  She bore a crooked smile. She was daring you, even before she spoke.  Her irises seemed three-dimensional; as if her pupils were planets whose gravity had attracted rings.  She was decked out in emeralds, on fingers and toes, and somehow it never occurred to you to wonder where they had come from.  She murmured something about Irish traditions that you knew you were not meant to hear and suddenly her hair flashed to crimson.  Just as suddenly, it was black again and indistinguishable from the sky.

She takes your hand and she leads you to the river.  It is silent, as if the water has stopped flowing. It’s too black to see them, but you are almost certain that boats are rooted in the current.  And just when you mean to tell her that you’ve got no time to give her:

“Marry me.”  It was not a question, but it was a proposition.  In the thick humidity of the night, the sky paused long enough for you to wonder what that would mean.  If time would continue its mundane march through schedules.  Or maybe, just maybe, the gravity of this moment would bring the spirals of galaxies to a halt.  Maybe a leap made on a night like this would cause the rest of time to hold its breath, head cocked, suspended in a date that did not exist.

You know already what would happen if you refused.  You would owe 12 pairs of gloves.  One pair for each month in the wobbly year.  One glove for each hour in the faltering day.  They would be worn, again and again, hiding ringless hands.   And time would continue as it always had, orbiting a sun that did not seem to care.

And yet… in just this instant there seemed to be a way out of Big Ben’s repetitive clacking and the 10,000 Year Clock didn’t seem like such a bad idea.  The only movement in this moment came from the flickering of stars and the challenge in her eyes.  In this present, with the universe frozen to a temperature that was livable, the Long Now almost seemed possible.

Is that a chance you are willing to take?

Thank you to http://www.flickr.com/photos/telstar/ for the photo of the 10,000 Year Clock prototype!  Hooray!

You can take the girl out of Florida… (Thailand. Spring 2009.)

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The pull of the swamp is unbearable. As if there is muck in my marrow. The brine I sweat has alligator gar swimming through it, snaky and smooth. It is a cycle that follows me even to Asia — too much grows, it chokes itself, and it falls to die in the water. The gases of decomposition lurk behind cypress knees and tamarind trees alike. They haunt the air and shimmy up to my nostrils. In my lungs, it is wet, it is safe, and it is warm. The perfect place for growth. The perfect place for rot. A steamy warmth for alligator eggs, filling my mouth and forcing a pearly grin. Small cracks and mucus begin to appear as they tumble off my tongue. The birth of baby predators, so cute, falling from my lips to the slippery algae below, is so much more than words.

Many thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielproulx/ for the picture.  Also, check out the other things on this flickr profile, because they are super cool.

I want to feel (Colorado. Winter 2002.)

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I want to feel

your arms

spinning me as we dance

until the sun rises

and we must

fall as autumn

rays sneak over mountain tops

and caress our faces

lulling us to lay down

in grass sweating dew

 

I want to feel

your chest

sleeping pressed

against

my back

assuring

me of your presence

with no sheets between us

as I tell the secrets

you knew when we met

 

I want to feel

your hand

cradling my head

tangled

in my hair

so that he cannot leave

until my strands relax

safe

and let him go

Agaonidae (Thailand. Summer 2006.)

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Part I

It began with the fig. It will end with the fig as well. She was my mother, the womb from which I was born and she is my home. She gave life to the forest, feeding gibbons and hornbills, civets and barking deer. But only I am of her.

Before my time, she attracted a body swollen with eggs that soon would grow into me, my sisters and brothers, and him. This swollen wasp body forced her way home, losing antennae and wings in her struggle to enter the fig. They danced together, a dance which would end in death; which is to say, a dance ending in new life. The wasp would not make it out alive. She implanted her eggs into the flesh of my mother, knowing all along it was only a trap.

Part II

I had barely opened my eyes and he was there. It was my lifes first movement to reach for him, tiny legs reaching for his tiny gentle body. Though the fig was our womb, it was he who gave birth to me. He had eaten through the walls of the egg holding me in. For now, I could stretch my wings, and now I knew of a world outside of myself. My wings wrapped around him, enclosing us both, creating a tiny screen to shield from the hundreds of other wasp bodies performing the same frenzied ritual. The flowers of the fig caressed us and showered us with pollen, the holy water of creation. There was no such thing as close enough.

and i left him there

Part III

And just like that everything came undone. My whole world exploded in spirals of starry pollen, glistening with the reflection of a sun I had never seen. The powdery gold coated my abdomen and legs, turned my black hair blonde. Rattan palms turned their fanned gazes upward. Macaques tilted curious heads in my direction. The butterflies all were still. The whole forest held its breath as it watched life’s fairy-dust rain down from my mother fig.

Under these vigilant eyes, my sisters and I fly skyward, the new dilettantes of the forest, in a synchronized ballroom-dance search for purpose. Fig-pollen for lipstick and rouge, we shine. Our lacy wings make us the angels of new life. Drip-tip leaves offer their hands in marriage, strangler figs try to tie us down. But we know we are meant for more than that. We are swollen with the children of the forest.

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/jingleslenobel/ for the amazing picture!

Even in Florida (Florida. Winter 2005.)

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Even in Florida

it gets cold enough

this time of year

that the leaves are pulled away

from their trees

with the acorns and pinecones

to explore the world alone.

The trees are left

with Spanish moss

as their only garments.

elderly left naked,

except for the gray in their hair.

The wandering leaves

make a cushion for my barefeet

as the lake fills my thoughts.

The water comes lower than ever now

and the lake looks still, tired.

Fall(ing) Breeze (Colorado. Fall 2002.)

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I

 

This autumn wind is gold tinted

from the dust, remains

of a dry summer floating

in the air, pulled

into my nostrils, and settling

(for) on windows that have not been

opened in months.

 

Or maybe the wind is

doing his own interpretation

of the yellow wilting leaves

of trees happily surrendering

to sleep, well-earned, long awaited;

for these aspens have not slept in months.

 

But it cannot be –

the wind does not sleep and

he does not happily surrender.

 

II

 

The leaves are tossed

in a migrating gust

letting go to dance in a breeze

that could take them anywhere.

Let go, for even the ground is better

than someone else’s limbs.

 

How can these fair-haired leaves

dance freely if someone else

is spinning them?

Say goodbye to your tree.

The restless wind is calling you.

 

 

 

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/vbenedetti/ on flickr for the photo! Grazie!

Apsara (Thailand. Summer 2010.)

Jaclyn5 Comments

Hidden beneath an alluvial sunset

and longtail-tossed waves,

she gives herself to the Mother Water,

sinking into riverweed and muck.

Bejeweled with leeches and crabs,

her hair is tangled with water

hyacinth roots and as their leaves

become sails, pulled by the wind, so she too goes.

Rice barges swollen with freight

pass overhead;

the riverbed darkens and glows,

darkens and glows.

Her lotus-leaf eyes emanate green dew

as her fingers flit up and back

telling the story of fountains and gusts

through the silted sweet-water.

The rocking hulls of boats above

tap out the rhythm of the Grand Duke’s dance.

Openbill storks sing along as the dusky light

begins to fill with vapor and lightning.

As the percussion quickens,

so does her nymphish undulation.

Her hand runs over a freshwater ray,

lightening its warrior’s load.

The River of Kings is stirring

and the air becomes thick.

The lines between waves

and falling droplets blur.

She spins her epic daily dance,

mesmerizing gods and algae alike.

Her shimmies scatter wriggling bubbles

eroding the cares of  heroes and prawn.

The downpour erupts

into an orchestra,

whistling through frangipanis

and strumming succulent vines.

She careens with water monitors

as her bracelets chime and her silky skirts rise.

She fingers orchids floating

on the co-centric ripples of the Chao Praya.

Mangosteens drop

and dragon fruit roar.

The cacophony of the monsoon

coaxes pregnant trees to bear their fruit.

Banana flowers quake in the wind

and watch as her forehead crests.

The freshet pulls her upward

and her eyes meet with mangoes.

Veils rise into wings.

Air and water merge.

She is the estuary below.

She is the storm above.

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/7147684@N03/ for the photo!

Resurrection Ferns (Florida. Summer 2005.)

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It never did rain.

The ferns waited,

their spines hooked

over themselves as they knelt,

trembling and praying

that the sky

would not be afraid

to open up

to them and weep.

They lined themselves in rows,

a whole parrish

clinging to an oak

which could not resist

the pull

of a soft bed.

The resurrection ferns

held their spored breaths,

waiting for the day when

the oak would itself rise.

They repeated their visions

amongst themselves:

the oak will ascend and lead and guide,

pull himself free

of the nails of gravity

and escape death

for he is more than a man.

Yet all kings fall

and the ferns may wander,

seek out their own

source of water.

Or they may be still

kneeling, praying, waiting

for a rain that doesn’t fall.

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/deanaia/ for the beautiful photo!

The Weight of Bangkok (Thailand. Summer 2006.)

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It was a small splash, the first time the Chao Phraya River touched her skin. It collected itself, making a rivulet, its own tiny clone, and slithered from her shoulder, down her back. It was easy enough to brush off at the time; her attention was focused on ochre-colored robes of tan-colored monks and the smell of sewage. The busy-ness of Bangkok is enough to distract even the most worldly of travelers. It would caress her often while she tried to wrap her mind around the city. She often mistook its gentle droplets for her own sweat. Little by little it seeped into her clothes. The algae would get invisibly caked in her hair. Bathing only made it worse, since it was the same snake that came out of the faucet, running in tiny streams down her legs and nesting in her drain, just waiting for the next time she would stand above it. It brought all of Thailand into her room. The sweat from the bathing mother. The piss of the Ko Kret buffalo. The decomposing rice leaves. The acrid saliva of Asian Open-Billed Storks. The ashes of incense from Wat Pai Lom. The river left them on her eyelashes, resting on the shelf of her belly button and curled in the ques of her pubic hair. In less than two weeks time, she was drowning in it, tangled in water hyacinth.

The combination of water hyacinth and wet heat left me with dreams of the Amazon. Before long, each day was laced with ayahuasca. My stomach ached for and wretched with the newness of each experience. My appetite left me completely, and food became just another beautiful band in the rainbow of the life around me. Piranhas nibbled my toes as I walked down streets dusty with the resin of car exhaust, curry-laced smoke, and incense cinders. Vipers strung themselves from telephone poles and carried the secrets of the city from Klongsan to Phra Pinklao. The sky let loose a constant rain of wet sunshine. Even at night, nothing was dry. The moist fervor of the city covered my body, making it a struggle to keep my hips still.

In the end, it was the weight of everything which finally drove me mad. Every blanket was too heavy to sleep under. Just thinking became dangerous because one could get smothered under the weight of a simple idea. Each thought that went into the air collected condensation and dust, becoming more and more tangible and visible, until it finally dropped to the ground in a puddle and actually existed.