I know these streets
Their names
Which run east-west,
Which stretch north-south
Which of them intersect,
Which die as a dead end
Yet I feel lost
Where are the parks
I knew and played in
So long ago?
And the buildings—
They are no longer
Familiar, full of memories
I know these streets
Yet I am a stranger
In the town of my birth
And I wander lonely
Searching for what
Now lives only in memory
You were not ever truly welcome, were you?
Too big, too awkward, too loud—
You were not welcome at our table
Unless you could learn not to intrude,
Become a presence easily overlooked.
Too often naïve, or too innocent,
Too inexperienced—
You were not welcome to our secrets.
We never hoped for yours.
Too smart, too talented, too sharp,
Too quick to see
What we never meant to share.
You were not welcome as the mirror
Reflecting back our pain,
Witnessing our shame.
And yet, in spite of all this,
You were liked and even loved by some.
Even so, you were not welcome to be yourself,
But must come to us in some disguise,
Or not at all.
It was our revenge and our defense
To keep you locked outside.
You knew that, and we knew that—
This was our pact, the truce
That allowed us to co-exist.
Through it all we took your joy
For our own,
Borrowed your laughter
When we had none
And gave back as little,
Or as much, as we dared
To nurture the keeping of the pact.
Too silly, too deep, too moody,
Too shy, too kind, too uninhibited,
Too thoughtless,
Too everything we could not want—
You were not and could not be
An intimate, a close friend of ours.
No, you were not ever
Truly welcome, were you?
The destroyer waits in all of us.
Some never know the black night
When all of joy and love is lost beyond remembering.
Yet some wander into that murky darkening,
Never to return.
Others, blindly searching
From some other world, more perfect,
Stumble into that abyss of ever hate and fear
Only to quake, shivering into sanity shuddering?
When kind fate lifts twilight mists
To reveal the mirror of hell—
The image of what we can become.
If we have seen the hell we are,
If we find hell within ourselves,
Can we not perhaps find here, too,
The door to paradise?
May we not find there, perhaps.
The door to paradise?
I was awakened
perhaps by animal sounds
outside our cabin
perhaps by the brilliance
of the full moon
lighting up the room.
I lay there listening
to the whispering breaths
of the others sleeping.
Then in the nearby bunk,
My friend turned
And her breathing harshened.
The other sleepers began to stir
Disturbed by the sound,
The noise, of her breathing.
As I touched her, just enough
to break the pattern,
the moon slipped behind a cloud.
She awoke in the dark,
turned and reached out blindly,
laying open her hand for me to take.
I placed my hand in hers
in answer only.
She held it as though
I had asked for companionship—
comfort in the night.
When I lifted away my hand.
she turned back into her dream.
In the morning
She would not remember.
But I had lain awake, listening
to the night quiet sounds
to the soft gentled breathings,
pondering the truth
of that one simple
unconscious gesture:
a reaching out…in the dark
offering…opening
so generous…so trusting
…so vulnerable…
Assailed by a brilliance
Painful in its clarity
Ambushed by flavors
And sounds
In a sneak attack
Far, far from their source
Assaulted on all sides
Even by the touch of air
As subtle barometric shifts
Bear down on me
Driven inside to home
To one room, to a space of mind
For relief, a bit of quiet
In a concentration so deep
The world beyond shatters
Unheard, unseen, unfelt
Almost forgotten
Thus pursued from earliest
Childhood I find
It strange in others
That they seek out the extremes
Of awareness and mourn
The loss as their experiments
With hallucinogens
Relinquish them
Into moments, days, years
Of muted, past knowledge.
“I am old,” said Mother Williams
while she sat on the bench
beside the jogging trail
as two youths sweated past,
“And I do not want to jiggle
and jounce my bones
and innards like a horse or a dog.”
“I am old,” she repeated to herself,
“but this last summer I climbed
the Eiffel Tower just because
I had never done so before—
And the view was superb.”
“I am old,” she said again,
“yet it was just this spring
that I walked as pilgrims might
into the quiet of Fuji’s heights.”
“I am old,” she admitted once again,
“yet new dreams come to me
with the dawn, and the moon
brings only the promise of tomorrow
not the sorrow of time passed.”
“Ah, yes,” she sighed, “I am old.”
Then she added with a knowing smile,
“But never was I so young before.”
I never knew
that pain shared
eases with the sharing.
I never knew
that joy shared
breathes Spring
into a wintered heart.
I never knew
that dreams shared
might come true.
I never knew till
taught by you,
i was not afraid
to share with you
my inmost life.
In the silence of my room
I hear
the drums begin beating
the ancient chants
rising from the earth,
the sand scribbling messages of time:
the animal sounds of the beginning,
the earth sounds of the end
Nightblind, vulnerable
I hear
distant unintelligible cries
and the terrible,
terrible sound
of the mountains dying.
Summer glows
in the produce aisle
where oranges,
ripe with sun,
pile warm days
on happy laughter
They roll,
solid and plump,
into your hands.
You breathe
in the piquancy
of memory.
Ah, summer:
Ripe, sweet
And juicy.
Tall above a dust brown earth burnt by the sun,
Shadows move against the western blaze
Each step reclaiming the land—
Panther-black against a hot blue sky that hurts the eye,
Striding onto the plain with the serene power of the leopard,
The Ibo have come home.