I saw coming towards us a Ghost who carried something on his shoulder. Like all the Ghosts, he was insubstantial, but they differed from one another as smokes differ. Some had been whitish; this one was dark and oily. What sat on his shoulder was a little red lizard, and it was twitching its tail like a whip and whispering things in his ear. As we caught sight of him he turned his head to the reptile with a snarl of impatience. "Shut up, I tell you!" he said. It wagged its tail and continued to whisper to him. He ceased snarling, and presently began to smile. Then he turned and started to limp westward, away from the mountains.
"Off so soon?" said a voice.
The speaker was more or less human in shape but larger than a man, and so bright that I could hardly look at him. His presence smote on my eyes and on my body too (for there was heat coming from him as well as light) like the morning sun at the beginning of a tyrannous summer day.
"Yes, I'm off," said the Ghost. "Thanks for all your hospitality. But it's no good, you see. I told this little chap," (here he indicated the lizard), "that he'd have to be quiet if he came--which he insisted on doing. Of course his stuff won't do here; I realize that. But he won't stop. I shall just have to go home."
"Would you like me to make him quiet?" said the flaming Spirit--an angel, as I now understood.
"Of course I would," said the Ghost.
"Then I will kill him," said the Angel, taking a step forward.
"Oh--ah--look out! You're burning me. Keep away," said the Ghost, retreating.
"Don't you want him killed?"
"You didn't say anything about killing him at first. I hardly meant to bother you with anything as drastic as that."
"It's the only way," said the Angel, whose burning hands were now very close to the lizard. "Shall I kill it?"
"Well, that's a further question. I'm quite open to consider it, but it's a new point, isn't it? I mean, for the moment I was only thinking about silencing it because up here--well, it's so damned embarrassing."
"May I kill it?"
"Well, there's time to discuss that later."
"There is no time. May I kill it?"
"Please, I never meant to be such a nuisance. Please--really--don't bother. Look! It's gone to sleep of its own accord. I'm sure it'll be all right now. Thanks ever so much."
"May I kill it?"...
--C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Now to the playing of the game itself.
In its original incarnation, someone would shout "Girls chase boys!" and all the girls would stampede after the boys. Then someone (the same someone? A referee? One of the players? I don't remember) would shout "Boys chase girls!" and the tide would be reversed.
Nothing but that frantic yelled command has stayed in my memory about the original game--nothing about whether the object was to tag or capture, nothing about how the timing of the call to switch from hunting to hunted was determined. It could well have been, essentially, a game without rules. Maybe I don't remember tags or captures because if any girl came close to tagging a boy, his friend would shout "boys chase girls!" and the rush would become retreat. Maybe it was set up in such a way that nothing would ever be accomplished.
Games without rules can end up having the most complicated rules of all. Bill Waterson, who drew the fabled comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes," demostrated this principle with "Calvinball," a game played by the strip's 6-year-old protagonist and his stuffed tiger. Each of the players was continually proclaiming new rules whose object was to give the rulemaker an advantage. "Girls Chase Boys," an anarchic game at the start, evolved by a similar process to mind-boggling complexity.
There were team captains--I was head of the girls' team, Scott P. head of the boys' team. There was a second in command on each side--Tim H., Angie S. There was a base or headquarters for each team--that space between the doors leading out of each playground. If we dragged a boy within the girls' HQ, he became a "girl." That, then, became the object of the game--to capture and evade capture. Immediately the complications spun forth. There was a slab of white pavement just within the "cave." The boys we captured insisted they didn't achieve girl status unless we brought their feet down on the red brick beyond this white space. One time we achieved this (too easily, I realize now) with Scott P., who read rather a lot of Ian Fleming. He quickly became a plotting member of the girls' team, assisting with all our plans of attack--until we learned it was all a setup. He was feeding our information back to the boys' team as a double agent. Oh, that was a misunderstanding, he told us when we confronted him. He wanted the boys' team to think this way to gain their trust and get more information out of them. He wasn't a double agent but a triple agent. We were only too happy to have him recaptured by the boys' team. (The only other time we almost captured Scott we did so with brute force. On a Class Mass day, at least four girls had him lifted off the ground, two for each arm and two for each leg, trying to carry him to the base. But he wriggled and wriggled and wriggled some more, managing to drop from our clutches just as the bell rang.)
There were other intrigues--like a time when Girls Chase Boys plotting spilled into the school day (not an isolated occurence, I'm sure) and I let a gullible boy intercept a fake battle plan. There were quiet, non-Class Mass days when Scott and I were the only two at school before church. There'd be no point in the elaborate game if we had no players, and we'd lost interest in the simpler game, so we'd just hang out and talk--guardedly of course, careful not to give away any secrets to the enemy. Still, I came to think of him with the grudging respect I imagined some high-ranking CIA agent held for a KGB mastermind. I called him "comrade." It was the 80s; we couldn't help but play Cold War.
The duty to write about Girls Chase Boys appears to have fallen on me. There are only a limited number of people in this worldóthirty at mostówho ever knew the slightest thing concerning it, and most have surely forgotten. None of the ones who do remember have written anything down. So I must.
To begin, Girls Chase Boys was a simple game. It has been my custom to credit its invention to Jennifer P., in kindergarten, which was (sigh) 22 years ago. I donít know why Iíve always given her this credit. I think she denied her involvement if I ever mentioned my theory to her. However, since I am writing the definitive work on Girls Chase Boys, I can set this fact down and even if it is wrong it will be wrong definitively. So: Jennifer P. invented the simple version of the game, in kindergarten, 22 years ago.
This was at St. Thomas of Aquin Grade School. A few words are necessary now about the physical layout and the rules and regulations at this school. It was an imposing tan brick building with three doorsóa massive one in front and two just slightly less impressive ones on either side. (Itís still a mighty presence, and it still has three doors, though it is no longer St. Thomas of Aquin Grade School. That entity ceased its existence the year my class graduated eighth grade, something all of us still count among our accomplishments.) Each entrance had a double set of doors, and the area in between the doors was like a sheltered porchóuseful on rainy days. The outer doors were never closed; the inner doors didnít open until school started. So the cool and dark space in between, about five feet deep and six feet wide, was more a cave mouth than a tunnel.
The side doors were the ways into school from the two playgrounds. As you faced the front of the building, the girlsí playground would be on your right and the boysí on the left. The playgrounds were for lunchtime recess for grades first through fourth; the kindergarteners had their own playground and the upper grades played in the park. At lunchtime recess the genders did not mingle. Before school we could roam about as we pleased.
This being a Catholic school, we were encouraged to attend daily Mass at the church (St. Thomas of Aquin, natch) down the block. Once a weekóWednesdayówas a ìClass Mass,î and attendance was compulsory for this.
So, in short, here was the environment that gave birth to Girls Chase Boys: every day, a few students would be loitering around the school before 8 am Mass. On Wednesdays, a great many students would be loitering around the school. No restrictions were placed on them that early in the morning to segregate by gender, but the idea was stamped in their head that one side of the building was girl territory and the other side boy.
Next time: the actual game.
(Years and years and years ago when I first discovered the Internet, I wrote an article for Project Galactic Guide, a takeoff of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I'm copying it below but the article can also be found here.)
Hitchhikers may discover that many cultures have stories concerning a curious one-horned beast. This beast, called unicorn, monoceros, ki-rin, ki-lin, karkadann, etc., was often pictured with a dualistic nature -- the horn gave it great strength and yet the beast was gentle; it was very beautiful but impossible to tame.
For European society on Earth, starting with the Age of Enlightment, the existence of unicorns was doubted. Before that, unicorns were an accepted fact based on their mention (later discovered to be a mistranslation) in the religious text known as the Bible. However, actual unicorn sightings were rare.
There are several theories why unicorns are not seen. One is that they never actually existed as the fantastic creatures griffins, sphinxes, and phoenixes. Another theory is that the unicorns were never more than essences without corporeal presences.
It is altogether possible, even probable, that unicorns can exist only in a non-rational environment. In which case, they can only exist where their existence is not appreciated. This means, if you want to see a unicorn, you can't want to.
(If you're lost, refer back to entries for August 13, 12, and 9. Start with 9.)
Eshtine was a woman back then. She was a woman sometimes, when she had to be. She could be a woman or a snake as well as a tigress, as her cousin Neekohl could be a tiger or a man; she had heard recently that he had also learned to be a dolphin, but didnít know if this was true.
She was a woman this time so she could wander through a human village. Her queen had sent her to the Wandererís Fair in the hopes they would be selling bahrahns. They needed more for their treasury; her queen had the bad habit of giving the blood-red gems away to potential allies. ìItís diplomacy,î Veedah had scolded when Eshtine questioned the wisdom of the practice. ìYou might want to learn it.î
ìCareful, ye who walks on legs like sticks,î Eshtine had scolded the deer in return. ìI am more diplomatic than you think. If I werenít, what would keep me from you?î
Eshtine paused at one booth, then another, annoyed by the crowdómostly humans, some animals, some both or neither, hard to tell. The smells and heat of all those bodies made her gasp for breath. She ran her hand appreciatively down some exotic cloth and was accosted by the old woman inside the tent. ìNot for touching! For buying!î she rasped, whapping her hand with a cane. Eshtine glared but caught herself; better to walk away. So she did. If she had had a tail at the time it would have skipped jerkily side to side.
ìA world that wonít remember the horns of unicorns!î she heard a voice like a trumpet sing out. A man was standing on a half-rotted tree stump, leaning on a walking stick. Eshtine noticed people moved more quickly as they passed him, keeping their heads turned away. The man muttered some phrases and shouted others, shaking the stick for emphasis. Curious, Eshtine edged closer until she was the manís only audience. As soon as she was in front of him he swiveled to face her. His eyes were lightless, which made him more of a marvel to Eshtine; she had never seen a blind man before.
ìYou approach so quiet, thinking I canít hear you,î he muttered. ìWill the one with the silent feet listen to my story when no one else will?î He had no trace of his earlier crazed tone now that he was speaking just to her. Eshtine blinked; the change had been so sudden. He did not wait for her to answer, and now he spoke with practiced cadence. ìListen. You know the beginning but I know the end. You talk of how the rock fell, how the water fell, and everything was set in motion. Animals talk of a place of light and how all schemed to remain there longer than any. Let others tell you of the beginningóI tell you of our end.
ìI heard it as a child. I told a younger child to wreck his innocence. An older child had done the same to me.
ìThe ending has already begun. It began before my birth. I know many say that; they mean the end starts at the beginning, perhaps even predates it. I mean to say one thing set the end in motion as sure as that first falling rock set the beginning in motion.
ìThe dragons and the unicorns had a war. Some wonít even believe they are realóî
At this Eshtine laughedóa sharp sound, almost a yelp. Could it be true? The average villager wouldnít have much chance of seeing one, but to use that to disbelieve in unicornsí existence entirelyÖ? She could not wrap her mind around disbelief. The Queen Unicorn, far from being unreal, was perhaps more real than anything she knew. Yes, she was pure annoyance to the tigress, yes, Eshtine felt herself to be in near-total opposition to everything the unicorn stood for, but that was a far cry from nonexistence. On reflection, Eshtine realized the path of her life would have been smoother if the queen hadnít been in it. Perhaps these villagers were lucky.
The man went on as though heíd heard no interruption. ìWhat are we giving our children but a world that wonít remember the horns of unicorns! You think they or dragons could not impact our lives, but I know. I know they are more than hoof and horn, more than teeth and scales. We rely on them in complete ignorance of doing so. If they war, our lives are catastrophe. And they fought a war.
ìThe war was interminable, the opponents too evenly matched to decide any victories incontestably. Each battle brought as high a cost to the victor as to the defeated. Who knows how long such a struggle might have gone on. The Fairy Queen stepped in at last. Oh, you believe in her, all right! You cry when she spins fortuneís wheel against you. Every time you wish someone good luck you are wishing her smile on your neighbor.
The Fairy Queen stepped into the fight at last. Pure, righteous fury she was, brandishing her scepter like a sword. When she appeared between the lines the combatants crushed their own in their rush to fall back. In all of Krohn, no one held as much authority as she; not our king the lion, not any unicorn, not any dragon. It was then as it is now. She halted the war with a word. She pounded the sandy ground with her scepter. The force of the blow fused the sand beneath into glass, cobalt glass stamped with the scepterís design. She lifted the glass high. ëLet this seal your peace,í she said.
ìAs long as this amulet remains in the possession of the one to whom it was given, our freedom from further war like this is assured. But if it is ever lost the dragons and unicorns will surely call her wrath again. That will be the end. One war she allowed themóëbut come to battle again,í she told them that day, ëAnd I will take all magic from you and this land. The unicorns will be but birds of the air, dragons but fish of the sea. With fins and tails one will seek escape, with wings and talons the other will hunt food.í
ìThat will not be their end alone. I know it as few of my kind do. Their magic is our redemption, challenge, protection and test. Their end is the end of all, animal and human alike. Yet I think the Fairy Queen could swing whole worlds around, if she chose, alter moons and stars. She could break the land to pieces floating separate on the sea, elect one of us creatures to be dominant over the others, to rule in the stead of those then goneóbut without their subtle grace, I fear.
ìAnd then I think all of this has already come to pass, that this is why I see it clearly. There must be a multitude of worlds, sibling-lands where sibling-creatures live across from our lives. They and we may be similar in all things but thisósome reach their end sooner than others.î
(Since I have articles scattered all over the place on the web, I'm going to make it one of the functions of this weblog to provide links. Here is an excerpt of an article I just did for atu2.com. The full article can be found here.)
U2 are many things, but I don't believe they have ever claimed to be makers of Great Video Art. That's perfectly all right; videos are just commercials for songs and were not seen as an integral part of a rock band's job before the advent of MTV. Why should anyone who works in such an auditory form as rock'n'roll be assumed to have any skill with visual presentations?
My main criteria for judging the quality of videos is whether or not I can envision a better one to go with the song. Thus, though "Where the Streets Have No Name" is interesting and fun, there is so much potential to do something more with the song than just film straight performance (even in an unusual location) that this one didn't make the cut.
I tend to believe U2 makes their best videos with directors whom they have known for a long time and who understand them well. As a result you may notice that although this list contains 10 videos, only four directors are represented.
Was listening to "American Pie" the other day. Now, some folks have spent a goodly portion of their lives interpreting what this song means (see The Annotated American Pie). It is generally assumed (Don McLean never really having gone on record about it) that it's a history of rock and roll after February 3, 1959. The problem is that there's been a lot more history to rock and roll after 1970, which seems to be the latest date for anything referenced in the song. Your challenge is to write more to "American Pie" to take us past 1970, using as obscure language as you like--remember, it's got to fit the rest of the song, where Bob Dylan (if the common interpretation is correct) is "The Jester" and Mick Jagger is "Jack Flash," so the more symbolic, the better. There's plenty to write about. You can take a decade--the 70s, 80s, 90s--you can take events--the rise of punk rock, Elvis' death, Live Aid--whatever you like. Just make it coded and just make it follow Don McLean's rhyme scheme. Here's a sample verse in case you're not too familiar with the song:
Did you write the book of love
And do you have faith in God above,
If the bible tells you so?
And do you believe in rock 'n' roll?
Can music save your mortal soul?
And can you teach me how to dance real slow?
Well I know that you're in love with him
Cuz I saw you dancin' in the gym.
You both kicked off your shoes
And I dig those rhythm and blues.
I was a lonely teenage bronkin' buck
With a pink carnation and a pick up truck
But I knew I was out of luck,
The day, the music, died.
Note to John--turning this into a Star Wars parody doesn't count.
My personal expectation: Lucilla and Anca and Jane will be particularly good at this. I'm especially intrigued with the idea of an international slant on things.
(This book was in our bookshelves when I was a kid. I remember it had a huge influence on me as far back as second grade, because that's when I got into a big argument with a boy in my class about whether the name of the sea god was Poseidon or Neptune.)
King Zeus had an enormous throne of polished black Egyptian marble, decorated in gold. Seven steps led up to it, each of them enamelled with one of the seven colours of the rainbow. A bright blue covering above showed that the whole sky belonged to Zeus alone; and on the right arm of his throne perched a ruby-eyed golden eagle clutching jagged strips of pure tin, which meant that Zeus could kill whatever enemies he pleased by throwing a thunderbolt of forked lightning at them. A purple ram's fleece covered the cold seat. Zeus used it for magical rainmaking in times of drought. He was a strong, brave, stupid, noisy, violent, conceited god, and always on the watch lest his family should try to get rid of him; having once himself got rid of his wicked, idle, cannibalistic father Cronus, King of the Titans and Titanesses. The Olympians could not die, but Zeus, with the help of his two elder brothers, Hades and Poseidon, had banished Cronus to a distant island in the Atlantic--perhaps the Azores, perhaps Torrey Island, off the coast of Ireland. Zeus, Hades and Poseidon then drew lots for the three parts of Cronus's kingdom. Zeus won the sky; Poseidon, the sea; Hades, the Underworld; they shared the earth between them. One of Zeus's emblems was the eagle, another was the woodpecker.
Cronus managed at last to escape from the island in a small boat and, changing his name to Saturn, settled quietly among the Italians, and behaved very well. In fact, until Zeus discovered his escape and banished him again, Saturn's reign was known as the Golden Age. Mortals in Italy lived without work or trouble, eating only acorns, wild fruit, honey, and pig-nuts, and drinking only milk or water. They never fought wars, and spent their days dancing and singing.
--Robert Graves, Greek Gods and Heroes
I am supposed to clean the basement today.
Actually, I was supposed to be cleaning the basement several weeks running, but this is the first week I've actually gone down here and sat with the express purpose of perhaps getting around to thinking about throwing some stuff away.
Mind you, I haven't spent much time sitting. I got down the stairs, sat in the chair, and remembered I had to call my nephew and invite him to the Science Center tomorrow. "Aunt Jelle?" (I have all my nieces and nephews call me that. Sticking "Aunt" in front of my real name sounds too antagonistic.) "Did you know I'm a first grader now?"
"Oh, has school started?"
"No. But I'm not in kindergarten anymore."
"So when does school start?"
"Monday. Well, I gotta write my name on school supplies and stuff. Bye."
I mope with Mom a bit about how old I'm getting. Then I'm out of excuses. Back in the basement I go.
The chaos of it is impressive, I think. I'm proud of how strange a world I have down here. Various nieces, nephews and unrelated small ones have played down here with the Mardi Gras beads, the six foot tall cardboard lion, etc. Some of the play has been unsupervised, though, which means little bits of my childhood detritus have been flung about in ever-increasing randomness.
Which leads me to my theory about basement entropy. Once something (say, a piece of paper) ends up in the basement, inevitably it will find its way to the basement floor. From there it will get stepped on, shoved aside, drenched in one flood or another, or buried under a cardboard box. Eventually it will end up as a gray clump of inert matter. Everything that gets in the basement inevitably becomes a gray inert material clump.
It is my job today to rescue what I value from the chaotic state. I must see what, if anything, can be salvaged, and if order may be imposed (to say "restored" implies order once was).
First to go is a mound of tinsel in the middle of the room. Once it was fringe at a party celebrating the new millenium. It's been a metallic pile on my basement floor ever since.
There's fabric in the corner. Dealing with this is outside the scope of my expertise. I go upstairs, where the expert is sewing a pillow. "Mom. Say I happen to find some fabric on the floor. It's wadded up and it got soaked when we had that water running off the air conditioner. Do I save it?"
"Throw it away."
So that's next to go.
Sadly, the castle (three cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other and lined with aluminum foil) goes too. I manage to sweet-talk the salvation of the giant cardboard lion and the four foot tall blue unicorn sculpture made of recycled materials. Their day will come, though. It has to, if they're in the basement.
(I dreamt this image and also dreamt I wrote a poem about it and posted it on the internet. So here we are.)
The front of the house had concrete steps.
The philodendron crept up them,
One leaf after another--
A waterrise, not a waterfall--
Row after row twined together, a carpet of green stems
And heartshaped leaves streaked yellow.
It turned the corner and overflowed the porch.
It spilled down the other set of steps.
It became a young road, the jungle on its own mission.
All thick and powerful cords flexing their muscles,
The road crawled the sidewalk past dusty grey lawns,
Past weed-grass tall as wheat,
Past clumps of rotting evergreen.
It poured itself into dream-country,
As Jack's beanstalk had once upon a time,
And no longer felt any pressure to be real.
Here the philodendron met a trestled bridge.
Its lanes were like vines sprouting together.
Men and women were rolling apples down the lanes.
Each apple was a soul.
They were soul-races; which soul would be the fastest
To get to the other side?
Rufus Wainwright, Rufus Wainwright
This is the legacy of Randall Roberts, a dj at a little radio station I've mentioned before, KDHX. He played cuts from this album as I was driving to the station to take my shift. I would sit in my car in baffled wonderment. How could any modern song be so exceptionally crafted?
The whole album sounds like how I imagine today's albums might sound if the polish of pop music hadn't been abandoned in the anarchy of rock and roll. In rock, emotion trumps skill; if you play it loud enough, it doesn't matter that you're playing it badly. On the "pure pop" end of things, the situation isn't much better. The hooks may be finely crafted, but the content of the songs is generally so shallow as to be nonexistent. Real songwriting, which requires depth of expression as well as the ability to write a hummable tune, seems a dying art.
That is why this album is such an anomaly. The creation of these melodies in today's world doesn't make much sense; they should have been written in the heyday of the Brill Building. The voice, though, is post-Dylan. Wainright is very nasal and his enunciation casts no light on the lyrics. Speaking of the lyrics (although they don't generally make much literal sense), there's no mistaking their modernity, either. So much of them are a young and overly romantic gay man learning sad lessons about love. The one that caught my ear first never mentions its major theme by name--a death-specter that looms over sex whether or not young gay men today choose to think much about it. The song is "Barcelona," and the most Wainright will say directly to the bull he might one day have to fight is "Fuggi, regal fantasima." It is what Verdi has his "Macbetto" say to the ghost of his father: "Leave, royal ghost."
That's another thing you don't hear much of from today's rock stars or pop stars: opera allusions.
Sinead O'Connor, Faith and Courage
Sinead O'Connor is a pure soul. She is like whatever the ideal material is for conducting electricity--it seems that whatever current goes in comes out just as strong. If she is angry, she is publicly, violently angry. If she is in love, she expresses it with rich, all-consuming tenderness. A lot of artists are like this--they let themselves be conduits of emotion. It's just that most learn to turn it off when they leave the stage, and (though she's matured over the years) Sinead mostly...doesn't. This is what gets her in trouble. Accept whatever she says as a product of the prevalent emotion of the moment, subject to change in a matter of seconds, and she's not too upsetting.
The first track of this album should have been "The Lamb's Book of Life," a vision for the future and a mea culpa for the past. "I know that I've done many things/To give you reason not to listen to me," she sings. "I just hope that you can show compassion/And love me enough to just please listen."
Go ahead. Listen. In this song you'll hear what should have never worked--Jamaican rhythms and Irish melodies, neither of which is watered down into cultureless "world music" but instead pinned together in all their vivid difference. The last track on the album is a similar hybrid--an old, old setting of the "Kyrie Eleison" from the Mass (I'd call it the Latin Mass but this number's in Greek) swept along with Rastafarian background chatter, pipes and whistles, and a skipping drum heartbeat. It is so life-affirming I'm tempted to start my own church just to play it as the Gospel book is danced up the aisle.
The mood swings in every direction on this album but all the songs are open throated--singing along is like washing pain away or soaking up the joy. The theology can sound strange at times--she seems equal parts Catholic, pagan, and Rastafarian--but if her religion is this good, I'll let her write a gospel.
It's a pity Sinead's record company didn't have as much faith and courage as she does. Atlantic dropped her after this album.
(Recently Rolling Stone magazine put out a call for people to submit what they consider the top ten best albums ever recorded. I decided that I would list only the ones that I consider the best, which inevitably means the ones that have part of my personal history wrapped in them, not the albums that everone says are classic. So I'm posting bits of my list, in no particular order.)
Over the Rhine, Good Dog Bad Dog
There are a lot of CDs being released these days. There are millions of singers, legions of bands. And most of them are not very good.
Itís hard to appreciate this unless youíre on the front lines, as I was, briefly, when I was a DJ at a community radio station. Hundreds of promotional CDs from bands came to the station every week. The music director, who was either demonstrating how much he liked me or how much he hated me, put many of these in my mailbox at the station. I tried at first to actually listen to what Iíd been given, and to be kind to these poor souls looking for their big break by playing tracks on my show. But after a while I gave up. There was no quality control filter at work on these CDs before they reached me. People have recording studios at home now, CD manufacturing is downright cheap. Anyone, talented or no, can get their work to a radio stationóparticularly to a community radio station. Yay for power to the people. So sorry, those of you who actually have talent. Your CD looks just like the new one put out by that garage band down the block, Embryonic Afghan.
Then a CD appeared in my mailbox on a night when I had planned to play some apocalyptic songs. (Having no set format for my show, Iíd often get it into my head to attempt a theme even when I had no idea how to pull it off.) I looked at the track listing and saw the first song was called ìLatter Days.î Yes, that would do. I may have previewed it briefly, I may have just stuck it on the air. I preferred kamikaze programming.
What can you say about an album whose opening words are ìWhat a beautiful piece of heartache this has all turned out to beî? What if these words apply to the music itself, all stately piano chords and a voice that almost catches in the throat?
I cannot express the wonder and joy of listening to all of Over the Rhineís Good Dog Bad Dog and discovering every song was perfect, just what it needed to be. It is simple, by todayís over-produced standards; the recording credits mention a third story bedroom and a kitchen and final mixes done at the neighborís house. It proves how a pure melody makes a song, not fancy digital trickery. These songs would still be pretty dressed up, but oh how lovely they are just as themselves.
This was the first and only time a CD that randomly appeared in my radio station mailbox was listenable all the way through.
Our local alternapaper The Riverfront Times does an annual poll called "The Best of St. Louis." I wanted to solicit some opinions on the best things around where you live. It doesn't have to be about your city; it could be about your country, your neighborhood, or your house. I, for example, would nominate the 6-foot-tall, folk art icon tabernacle in my front room as the best thing about my apartment. So--what's best? In what category?
The True Thing
I don't know anyone who knows what became of the true thing.
If poets think they sing, it is a parody they sing.
In the beginning men of common sense
Knew that for the damned dream to grow
Wholesale massacre of innocence
Was necessary, prophets' blood must flow,
Thieves of little apples be crucified, rebels be put down,
Conspiracies of messianic troglodytes be strangled
And saviours be given the bum's rush out of every pub in town.
Out of the smashed cities
Works of art adorn the Vatican walls
A comfortable living is right for the Archbishop and his wife
Lads and lassies study till their eyeballs burn and their souls know
One must never heed the bitter cries, forsaken calls
Of the man in the beginning burning fear
Like old papers, kissing his death, having given his life.
Yes, and we have double-glazed hearts and committees and promotions and pensions
And time off to enjoy and bless
The kids shining out to discoes and parties
In the holy light of progress.
And we have learning, we could put Hell in a couplet, Eden in an epigram,
Dish out slices of epics like gifts of land in the Golden Vale
And sweat blood or what feels like blood
To get the right rhythm and thereby hangs a tale
Of an abortive experiment in love
That began in bestial company and ended in public shame
And started all over again in a sad parody
Of what cannot be understood
Only followed as a blind man follows his expensive dog
Through visionary streets of fluent slavish traffic
Calmly-crazily living the rhythms of my mechanical blood
Yearning occasionally, nevertheless, for dialogue with God.
I would ask, to begin with, what became of the true thing
And after that, well, anything might happen.
I can even imagine a poet starting to sing
In a way I haven't heard for a long time.
If the song comes right, the true thing may find a name
Singing to me of who, and why, I am.
--Brendan Kennelly, The Book of Judas
(this one has a weird history. There's a song I like called "Abre" from an album, also called Abre, by an Argentinian singer named Fito Paez. It's all in Spanish. I don't know any Spanish. I guessed "abre" might mean "after"--it doesn't, it means "open"--and wrote my own lyrics based on what I imagined the lyrics might be.)
After the world but before the task
After all questions crying to be asked
After fake redemption, after vanity
After gilding masked as profundity
After walking the garden with you my lover
After posing dilemmas to you my brother
After the fire, after this song
After all this, who knows what moves on
After the roses, declarations of love
Then the next step is entirely yours
After the sorrow, not nearly enough
Itís still yours, all yours, may it always be yours
After the moon, yes, after the sun
After the criminal stars come undone
After a verse of reality
After a guitarís wave of insanity
After the rites of faith carrying cost
After the soul of reason is lost
Thatís when one fell, eyes on his loss
Thatís when a puzzled man picked up a cross
After the drugs, after love like honey
After alcohol, fame, after money
After living above and life in the cellar
After the deluge, ask when you should tell her
After glimpsing a hint of the monsterís worst lair
After the bluest skies filled you with terror
Yes, after the world, before your task
And all the questions best left unasked
Afterómay we find end of vanity
Afterómay we find hints of profundity
I survey my vast corndog empire. The Dad's Cookies jars are full to the brim; I have six kinds of bubblegum cigars to sell--Wild Tiger, El Bronco, Mad Bull, Gold Dragon, El Bubble and Pink Owl; the new state quarters work in the baseball machine. "One Amazing Night: A Tribute to Burt Bacharach" is in the CD player. St. Michael the Archangel's candle is out of wax. I just lit the Chango Macho ("The Spirit of Good Luck") votive to replace it. I sit under my Shrine of Shameless Hucksterism sign and think shameless thoughts.
Last night I dreamed Jesus was giving a concert in my backyard. He sang a version of the Beatitudes:
"If you drink no wine--it's all right.
If you smoke no pipe--it's all right."
There's a little boy playing Beethoven's 9th on the piano in the fake coffeehouse. The piano was locked for months, and now that it is available for use, see what happens.
I went recently to Ireland. Before I left I had a conversation with the train conductor, who is pagan, about Croagh Patrick. This is the place known as "St. Patrick's holy mountain," but he said originally it was a place of worship for the god Lugh (as in Lughnasa). So now when he walks in I tell him I said prayers for everyone on Croagh Patrick--but I addressed my prayer for him and his wife to Lugh. He seems pleased by this.
There is an auxiliary beatnik now, Beatnik R-, with white-blond hair and black dresses. I give her some rules about beatnikhood. It comes up because I advise her against letting the BlowPop and Tootsie Roll Pop containers go even the slightest bit empty. "Never create the illusion of scarcity," I say. "That's beatnik rule #11."
"What are rules 1-10?" she asks.
"When the student is ready, the lesson will appear," I reply.
"What number is 'Be cool'?"
"Oh, that's number one."
Later I see her toss the empty candy boxes into the trash without breaking them down. So I call her over and ask what is wrong with the picture. She figures it out quickly. "Beatniks should be environmentally conscious," I say.
"Should I throw these in the trash can outside--does that get emptied faster?"
I shake my head. "They're supposed to empty this one as regularly. If they don't, that's their problem. Beatniks never go beyond the call of duty--that's rule #5."
At this point Rita wants to start writing these down, so she gets out her notebook. "What are these, what should I call them--'Rules for Beatnik Life'?"
"Naw, man," Beatnik S-, the resident caricature artist, interjects. "Rules just put limitations on yer inborn creativity."
"Call it 'untitled' for now," I suggest. So R- writes on the top of her notebook page "Untitled...For Now." Then as I remind her what rules we have so far, S- keeps challenging them on various semantic grounds.
"I like semantics," he says when I complain. One of his challenges is "Don't all rules carry their own contradictions?"
"You're good at this," I say. "That's rule number 7."
Later Bill the beatnik boss comes in, setting his wet soda can on my picture of Bob Cassilly (the big boss at City Museum). Young Max Cassilly, who is sitting next to me, says "Hey! Don't do that to a picture of my dad!"
"A healthy disrespect is a sign of respect," Bill says, and I know we have rule number two.
Okay. I won't make any more excuses for continuing to write this instead of other projects. Let's just see how far we go.
I intended, *actually*, not to post any more of this story up here because I wanted to have something different to excerpt. Seeing as how I seem to have spent my entire evening watching "Labyrinth" for the 27 millionth time (David Bowie: "Just fear me, love me--" Me: "Okay!"), I guess I have little choice...
---
[we left off at: ìHealing doesnít leave marks, tigress Eshtine,î the queen said gently. ìIt takes them away.î]
The way she said this brought to Eshtineís mind anotherís words, a similar comment in a different tone of voice. ìWhy shouldnít we try to heal the old division? Why shouldnít we reconcile?î
Veedah the doe had said this. The tigress and she were picking their way over a rocky patch. The stones were worn, the remains of an old streambed. Sometimes they were cracked and Veedahís slim hoof would catch, sliding into the mud of a crevice. Once she was so thoroughly stuck Eshtine had to help push the foot in a complete revolution before they could slip it out.
Veedah had kept to her theme as they clambered over the rocks. ìI donít know why we never got along. Unicorns and deer, I mean. I know why your kind and mine never did.î
ìDeer were jealous, I suspect,î Eshtine had answered. ìThe deer is common and the unicorn rare. You are so alike but all praise the unicorn as much more beautiful, closest to perfection.î
ìThey are what they are, we are what we are,î Veedah had said, her mouth set in a tight line. She had stopped, turned to face the tigress, challenged her with her eyes. ìThe queen doesnít believe in keeping up enmity for the sake of tradition, and neither do I. Someoneís got to heal things sometime.î
ìMedicines, then,î the Queen Unicorn said, snapping Eshtine back to the present. She whistled through the twin spirals of her horn.
In a moment a sleepy bear stumbled into the clearing, followed by a squirrel and a wood pigeon. ìYou called for messengers, your Majesty?î the squirrel asked.
ìYes, and you came,î she said warmly. ìI have errands for all of you. Our guardian tigress has a terribly swollen foot. Kentek, will you find bitterbark for me? We will need enough for Eshtine to chew for three days or soóI expect thatís how long her pain will last.î The squirrel bowed and scampered into the underbrush. ìHoolohs, if you will please gather the seeds and grains for a poultice.î
ìBegging your pardon, your Majesty, but do we have cloth to wrap the seeds in and fire to warm it by?î
ìThe mice will have cloth and a bowl to heat the water and the mash; I will have our bear fetch us fire. Thank you for thinking of it.î The pigeon bowed and flew away. ìNow, bear Grahnah, your task is more complex. Will you go to the human village and ask for the healer? She should have a quantity of dried Ravenay-flower. You may pay her with coins from the treasury or with spice-nuts, whatever she will take. And also please ask for a torch.î
The bear stood, bowed awkwardly, and lumbered off.
Once again the unicorn and the tigress were alone in the clearing. Waves of nausea were beginning to hit Eshtine, and the queen could feel the heat of her fever even from a distance. But the tigress wasnít thinking about that. She was thinking about how she had gone on a journey with the queenís best friend and only one of them had returned.
ìYou know she is dead, donít you?î
The unicorn nodded. The word escaped her in a sigh. ìYes.î
ìYou saw it in your Archives?î
She nodded again.
ìDid you go to check up on us while we were gone?î Eshtine accused. Just as she said this, another, crueler possibility occurred to her. ìOr did you know before we even left?î
The unicorn looked at her. The tigress had wondered sometimes about the emotions that moved like shadows across her queenís face. She had almost never been able to read them. She had decided maybe unicornsí emotional senses were sharper than hers, as cats could smell and hear things others could not, as hawks could see farther than anyone else. So while the queen seemed always aware of her moods, she rarely knew the queenís. Only this timeÖthis time, the unicornís eyes were an easy read.
ìEshtine,î she called, but the tigress was not about to turn back.
Thanks to John for the link to the poetry forms site.
Write a poem where every word in the poem contains a particular letter. It doesn't matter where the letter occurs in the word; it could be the beginning, middle or end. But don't pick the same letter someone else chooses.
Examples of letter poems:
http://www.spinelessbooks.com/table/contents/poetryreading.html
16. Be clear.
Clarity is not the prize in writing, nor is it always the principal mark of a good style. There are occasions when obscurity serves a literary yearning, if not a literary purpose, and there are writers whose mien is more overcast than clear. But since writing is communication, clarity can only be a virtue. And although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one. Even to a writer who is being intentionally obscure or wild of tongue we can say, "Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand!" Even to writers of market letters, telling us (but not telling us) which securities are promising, we can say, "Be cagey plainly! Be elliptical in a straightforward fashion!"
Clarity, clarity, clarity. When you become hopelessly mired in a sentence, it is best to start fresh; do not try to fight your way through against the terrible odds of syntax. Usually what is wrong is that the construction has become too involved at some point; the sentence needs to be broken apart and replaced by two or more shorter sentences.
Muddiness is not merely a disturber of prose, it is also a destroyer of life, of hope: death on the highway caused by a badly worded road sign, heartbreak among lovers caused by a misplaced phrase in a well-intentioned letter, anguish of a traveler expecting to be met at a railroad station and not being met because of a slipshod telegram. Usually we think only of the ludicrous aspect of ambiguity; we enjoy it when the Times tells us that Nelson Rockefeller is "chairman of the Museum of Modern Art, which he entered in a fireman's raincoat during a recent fire, and founded the Museum of Primitive Art." This we all love. But think of the tragedies that are rooted in ambiguity; think of that side, and be clear! When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.
--E. B White, from Strunk and White's The Elements of Style
Here's more of the Eshtine story I excerpted before, Jane.
By the time the tigress Eshtine made it back to her home kingdom, her fur was bedraggled, but she had no energy for washing. She was also limping because of a gash torn in her left foot.
The wound went straight through. It was not the mark of a thorn digging into her skin. It was more like she had been impaled.
The moons shone in the clearing and on Throne Rock. The moons shone brightly on the Queen Unicorn and rendered her white as an apparition. Eshtine waited for a question from her queen but the question never came. ìMy queen knows,î she thought, and her skin crawled. Maybe it was just a tremor from the infection in her foot.
A unicornís horn is healing. The one on the throne would only have to lower her horn to the tigressí skin and the fire inside the wound would cool. The unicorn moved slightly forward. Eshtine stepped back. ìNo.î
ìI cannot heal you without touching you.î
ìI canít let you. I donít want you claiming me.î
ìHow was your foot pierced?î
Eshtine hesitated. She did not often hesitate, so the unicorn took in her silence with surprise. ìThe black crow tore my foot with her beak,î she said finally.
The queen did not ask which black crow. ìYou fought her?î
Another hesitation. A quiet answer. ìI let her.î
ìYou let her touch you.î The unicornís voice was sad. ìDoes she now have more claim on you than I?î
Eshtine did not know whether the black crow had any claim on her. She only knew that cats must never let a unicorn touch them, or they would cease to be themselves. ìShe tricked me into it. She compelled me.î
The queen pushed herself all the way back onto Throne Rock, a complicated task as her back legs were lame and useless. As she did this she spoke without looking at her audience. ìI have never compelled you and never will.î
ìMaybe you should,î Eshtine said with bitterness. ìTrickery seems to be far more effective with me than sincerity.î
The unicorn didnít answer.
The tigress raised her swollen foot. The moonlight glinted in her eyes, making them glow like swamp fire. ìCan youócan you just get her poison out without leaving your mark on me?î
ìHealing doesnít leave marks, tigress Eshtine,î the queen said gently. ìIt takes them away.î
For the third time it happened.
He was a beautiful man,
And I, the fate-cursed female,
I was falling to pieces for him,
A gentleman, so loving, so kind.
My past history I had in mind,
Keeping watch for any signal,
But none came, or love was blind,
As it had been. Twice before.
Then one night at Uncle Bill's,
He said, "I have to tell you something."
I could read the future then
Like his words were Tarot cards.
I was the Hanged Man once again--
For the third time. In a row.
All my friends found the fault in me
But praised his qualities which their men lacked.
Then it came to me that I must be
A gay man trapped in a woman's body
If he was the sort I'd always attract.
I searched for solace in bodiless space,
Sought comfort in an Internet chatroom.
There I could be anything, anyone.
My thought was that in such a place
It would not matter what sex I was,
Since no one could see me anyway.
But I misjudged the human passions.
Ever came the question, "m/f?"
Finally, I took the name
"Sebastian Falconer," and thus guarded
My fearful secret of femininity.
Still it proved no help,
And when a woman hit on me
I retreated into another channel.
Here, as often happens in my life,
I found gay men gathered together,
But here, as never happened in my life,
I was accepted as one of their own.
Here I could learn to be content,
Not feminine, but effeminate.
In this guise I reemerged
Into the larger world of chat
And found a channel set aside
For gay men and lesbians both--
The perfect world of conversation.
Here I could pretend my manhood
Without the silly complication
Of women seeking my love.
Here I could gain a bond
With the men I'd always loved.
Here I conversed with Marjorie,
A lesbian with a most quick wit
And the butchest babe I knew.
She and I found each other
When the other boys and girls
Were all engaged in play
And we hung out on the sidelines.
Our conversation was a game,
Especially to me, as only I
Knew the truth about my presence there.
It added spice to how I talked,
Sometimes playing the flaming queen,
Since after all I had flawless drag.
With Marjie I was never shy,
But always coy; she took it well.
She would laugh as I would preen.
Then it was mock flirtation.
She responded. Had she guessed?
Did she see through my pretense?
And what was this I felt for her?
A feeling Biblical in metaphor:
As David had for Jonathan
A love exceeding love for women.
Soon what I for her was such
That I regretted this grand lie.
I said "I have to tell you something."
She said "And so do I."
"It's an awfully big secret,"
I hastened to say.
She only added, "So is mine."
I said, "Don't hate me for this."
She in return said, "Don't hate me."
I told her my secret, she told me hers.
We are to be wed in June--
But he'll be the bride and I'll be the groom.
I am at the age now when a lot of rock stars have died, and when other rock stars have created their masterpiece. I wish this year to create something I'll be proud of the rest of my life.
This day six years ago I ate foul-tasting "roast turkey and stuffing"-flavored crisps at a pub in a town south of London and drank my first Guinness (a half-pint, still my limit). I got taken out to dinner and ate lemon syllabub for dessert. I only ordered lemon syllabub because I once read a poem about frogs and snakes, their football teams, and hearing their cheerleaders in a dream:
"'Sisyphus, Sisyphus,' hissed the snake,
'Sibilant, syllabub, syllable-loo-ba-lay.'"
I wish to come to no harm, nor cause any harm to others, if I base my actions on poetry whims.
Back then I wasn't measuring my age against rock stars. I had, however, wanted to be a published author before my 21st birthday. I wanted a hearing for my young voice. There are things people say when they're young which they don't say when they're old. I wish to employ all of it--the language of 7, 17, 27, 37...
Growing up, I always knew. 20 years ago I knew. I knew adults forget what it was like to be a child. Back then you could laugh and cry and not be able to stop until joy or sadness--either one--became hyperventilation. You could carry on conversations with any object which had anything even vaguely resembling a face. You could see a night glow out the basement window and so vividly anticipate the monster you'd be sprinting top speed up the stairs without second thought. I wish to shut none of this away but still have room to store new memories.
While I still could taste all this, I resolved to keep myself at seven years old somehow. It seemed the ideal age, uncorrupted. The funny thing is, I think I succeeded. At least, it feels like I came of age far more slowly and reluctantly than anyone I know. I get now, at 27, the giddy joy of clearing my own path that comes to others at the end of adolescence. I wish not to hesitate to call myself an adult.
This day never existed. It was all a figment of your imagination.
(I sure as heck don't remember it...)
I storm-chased today. The first drops dotted the sidewalk as I left work but in the time it took to get to the car the rain became sharp pellets, each so sharp and heavy I yelled "Hail!" as I frantically rolled up windows. It wasn't hail. It was just body-smashing rain. I fled it down the highway and came to clear space where the only water was the spray bouncing out of the tire treads in front of me.
I had one short stop before home, and as the storm seemed to have just caught up with me when I was going back to the car (furious wind, thick searing currents of lightning), I thought perhaps I'd beat it and get to watch it wash through again from the calm zone of my front porch. But it must have veered west, not south. Thunder muttered in the distance but the rain I watched from my house drifted down lazy as snow. The wind made the maple's leaves flash white but it didn't gust and thrash the branches as I'd hoped.
They say weather's a chaotic thing. We can predict it now with a fair amount of accuracy over the short term, but when we look past the next few days, too many variables get involved. Blink your eyes and that's a new air current triggering who knows what as it moves across miles. I'm thinking of this as I watch the trees heave and the listen to the leaves as the rain drums on them and they clap against each other. I'm thinking, too, of the near-chaos of trees--it again is relatively easy to predict how they'll grow when they're small (they'll grow up), but no one I've heard of has ever looked at a maple key and mapped out all its future branches.
I'm thinking this because I'm wondering if trees think. I'm wondering if the sounds the leaves make in the wind are language, or better still, art. The answer I was told long ago was no--the trees move how they move because the wind is hitting them in a particular way. If they were sentient, or more precisely, if they had free will, we might occasionally see them resist the wind or rock back and forth on a calm day.
But what if--what if they were partly shaped by destiny and partly shaped by their own decisions? And what if the wind, too, began in a certain direction but made tiny choices, and that was why over time it escapes our predictions?
There are things in me which I could not control--my color and shape at birth, the family I was born in--just like a maple will have gray bark with black scars and thin, sharp-fingered leaves. But is it ever told how many branches to have, where every leaf should sprout?
If it decides these things, and the wind chooses a portion of its force and direction, maybe they have helped determine how what they will create today looks and sounds. I get to watch and listen to this, both their dance and their percussive symphony.
I love dictionaries. I love how you can go flipping through them looking for the definition of one thing, only to get distracted and find yourself lost in definitions of "pedograph" and "pin boy." Some of the definitions are poetry to read. The game this week is to get the biggest dictionary you can find and educate us all on whatever obscure word or phrase you wish.
Here's one I like for the poetry:
revolute: curled or rolled backward or downward at the tips or margins, as some leaves.
(This is long but worth it. Sullivan has just finished describing a sudden sickness with recurring fever going as high as 105 degrees).
From then on, the fevers spiked at lower and lower levels, fading out into a low-level malaise, and I lay in bed for days, wondering what kind of flu this was, slowly coming back into territory my body seemed to recognize and master. And it was on one of those afternoons, as I lay in bed, watching a television movie, that I felt something change around me. I know where it was on the wall, a space that had no shape, a presence that had no form, something that I can only call an intensification of light and space. And as I lay there, I felt it intensify, and I felt it announce itself. For a moment, I thought the fever had made me hallucinate, but I felt my skin and it was cool. My eyes rested quietly in their sockets, my mouth was moist, my pulse normal. The television flickered in front of me, but my mind was dead to it. And this presence, although it had no shape and spoke no words, nevertheless commanded a tone, a tone at once admomitory and intimate, firm and solid but of a kindness I could not even allow myself to feel. It was, although soundless, a tone of voice, a tone of voice in a space of light, an insistent, minatory, so-personal voice. And although I couldn't hear it, I knew it; and it knew me.
And then it was no longer there. The space dissipated, the tone seeped away, the intensity ebbed. The wall became the wall again, the air became the air, the bed held my body with tangible familiarity...
Two weeks later, I walked into my doctor's office and my life changed for good. The news of my HIV infection was the last thing I expected, and the first thing I feared. It instantly altered my vision...
And so my friends came to help me. They gave me a bed and an ear; they even wandered into my life aimlessly and wandered out again; they lay down on the grass with me and looked vacantly at the sky; they heard me sob, and saw me physically convulse in shock. And one in particular came over one morning, someone who had once been close to me but who had drifted somewhat apart, and I told him the news. And it took a few seconds for it to sink in, but as it did, his face collapsed and he said, quite simply, and quite clearly, "Andrew, Andrew," and in the timbre of his words, and in the repetition of the name and in the mixture of concern and disappointment, shock and warmth, I recocgnized at once the voice, instantly and shockingly, and I recognized the tone. And then a few days later still, this time on the phone, another person in my life responded to the news in exactly the same way--"Andrew, Andrew"--a lament, an invitation, a sudden acknowledgement of what had until then been undetectable. And I heard it again; and I knew where it was from.
And then a few days later, when for the first time I actually sat down and prayed, I found myself with a copy of the Bible, and like some schoolboy, flipping through it for some sort of comfort, I came haphazardly upon the end of Luke's Chapter 10. And this is what I found myself reading:
"In the course of their journey he came to a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. She had a sister called Mary, who sat down at the Lord's feet and listened to him speaking. Now Martha who was distracted with all the serving said, 'Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself? Please tell her to help me.' But the Lord answered, 'Martha, Martha,' he said, 'you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part; it is not to be taken away from her.'"
"Martha, Martha." I don't think Jesus ever speaks to anyone else in the Gospels that way. "Martha, Martha." He repeats the name twice, exasperated but loving, admonitory but intimate. It's one of the many details that convince me that so much of the Gospels is true, the kind of intimate, intensely personal way of speaking, a detail that would never have been invented by someone trying to bludgeon the reader into some didactic lesson, the kind of address that a real person once used for a real person, and a real person he loved, as much as for her faults as in spite of them. "Martha, Martha." "Andrew, Andrew." It is not the tone simply of love; it is the tone of friendship, an unmistakable tone, a tone that I did not only recognize but suddenly, heartbreakingly, knew.
--Andrew Sullivan, Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex and Survival
("Allunde" is the title of a song sung by Sweet Honey in the Rock. The title means "New Day.")
Her voice is the dawn of the world
The call breeds response
Throbbing with heartbeat
Cascading with abandoned sighs
Her voice is the dawn of the world
Where exaltation
Lurks and springs
Pulling open throats torn with grief
Her voice is dawn
The world is morning sun
She stands before
We become our own shadows
She wrenches up day
While lullabyeing night
Her voice dawn voice
Spinning to here
The end of it all
Where everything, everyone breaks
But she is
Silk black ribbon song
And she can
Tribal rhythm you
Never breaking
Ululating
With the voice of the dawn of the world.
To ask how we knew which way to go only shows how far removed you are from the natural world. Animals are rarely, if ever lost, but you can spend entire lives moving in the wrong direction. It was not always so. I am surprised you never wondered at what you condescendingly call ìfairy tales,î where the hero is sent in quest for the witchís home, or for the white cat whoíll buy his freedom. He may wander many days, but doesnít he find his goal eventually? Donít you ever ask how he does this?
Some of your race still practice water-conning, so some of you still know how things can be found. But some of you think divining rods are peculiar artifacts from superstitious days. Some of you will stay lost for a long, long time.