I could feel you, your sniffing along corners, behind chairs, coming alone this time. I lay flat in a closet, dark-hidden, waiting, ears wide and mouth shut. Just rafters and floorboards between us- the simple structure of a stick-frame house. I held, biting my fingers.
Then came your stairway ascent, the smell of Marlboro and Channel, the sound of your pause. Just a moment, your stalking, followed by your exit - an exit announced in your ripped-throat exhale, the percussive thud of your each step landing, stopping, resuming, diminishing. I opened my door to yellow dimness- the press of silence poured in.
What had you touched? What had you taken? Would you be back? Were you close by now? The house shook in its emptiness, chilled in its quietness. I calculated. Reckoning with your nighttime returns, my remnants shrank to half. Withstood your taking of whatever you wanted as I had since first you started your night hunts. This night confirmed my smallness. I knew I was not ready to face your gray skin and sour breath- or the orange glow of your half-burned cigarette.
May 13, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Past the Clearing
We walked up on a ring of redwoods-surprised the trees and surmised a wordless interaction had passed in this clearing just an instant before.
You tugged me on a few steps to the ring's edge where the hillside dropped away. I felt our intrusion and joined the towering company in quiet presence. Silence invited sight, sound, and smell to increase.
Warm gusts moved rich and sweet perfumes up the slope - nudging, suggesting, penetrating. Then a chill, calm but definite, passed through me, through you- bringing a slight tremble and shifting shadows to the grass below us. I watched you lean forward like a pointer to hear more.
How could we know for sure that a presence entered us there, worked like faith in our bones, brought a oneness to your body and mine. Our sideways glances confirmed a shared sensation, for me the dissolution of distinction, and through this brief possession, a deeper drop into the gaping, mist-filled mouth at the center of the ring.
Wind gave voice to the trees that reached out above us. I heard the word 'grace' though I could not name the source of the voice that spoke this word. Then sky deepened in purples and smoke-blacks, and the ring of trees closed tighter.
Was this witnessing? What wonder, this concourse with an expanse of what existed before. That would reconvene in our departure!
April 17, 2010
You tugged me on a few steps to the ring's edge where the hillside dropped away. I felt our intrusion and joined the towering company in quiet presence. Silence invited sight, sound, and smell to increase.
Warm gusts moved rich and sweet perfumes up the slope - nudging, suggesting, penetrating. Then a chill, calm but definite, passed through me, through you- bringing a slight tremble and shifting shadows to the grass below us. I watched you lean forward like a pointer to hear more.
How could we know for sure that a presence entered us there, worked like faith in our bones, brought a oneness to your body and mine. Our sideways glances confirmed a shared sensation, for me the dissolution of distinction, and through this brief possession, a deeper drop into the gaping, mist-filled mouth at the center of the ring.
Wind gave voice to the trees that reached out above us. I heard the word 'grace' though I could not name the source of the voice that spoke this word. Then sky deepened in purples and smoke-blacks, and the ring of trees closed tighter.
Was this witnessing? What wonder, this concourse with an expanse of what existed before. That would reconvene in our departure!
April 17, 2010
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