Djinn

There is always this presence inside me,that takes on a form nearly of spirit quality. There has never been a moment in any of my recollection that this discomfort was not present.

As a small child I would lay myself on my mothers’ lap and demand she rub my belly.

It was as if there were Djinn resident within me, I was their precious vessel. I was the identified servant, merely a vehicle , a reluctant home.

As a child, growing up, and to this day whenever I was upset or sensed danger or felt any kind of negative emotion, the spirits inside my belly would swell and demand their freedom.

 They were angry spirits, defiant and garrulous spirits. The spirits would take form as a wave

of nausea , a rising up of  bile and enzyme , now awakened,  rebellious and determined to rouse me from  my complacency, my lazy inner voice, my inertia.

They are unforgiving and show no compassion or sensitivity for timing, place and situation. They might arrive as I ride an elevator in a museum, they may arrive as I am waiting in line at Macy’s to pay for my new underwear. They may arrive as I sleep, committed to a dream and no longer in this body. They seek to bring me back to this body to serve and acknowledge them. They care nothing for convenience or decorum or invitation.

The spirits love ginger in any form.  The tender little chews from Asia, or a a tisane, fresh shaved ginger root, infused in boiling water. They love Canada Dry Ginger Ale, served in a tall glass filled with crushed ice, as it was first served to them by Sister Maria Stella, from the Convent of The Little Flower of Jesus.

It was the eve of my First Communion.  At 6 years old,  I too young to be in a convent and too young to be receiving this First communion, not fully understanding the symbols of partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, and I woke the morning of the ceremony, ravished by the Spirits as they pounded and protested , devoured my calmness in the uprising of Bile which turned my skin a terrifying shade of green.

I lay on the cool floor of the bathroom in the dormitory where we all lived, feverish and vomiting and Sister Maria Stella, came in with a tall glass of Canada Dry Ginger Ale, filled with crushed ice, and a straw and as I drank this miraculous tonic, The spirits were pleased and smiling and smug. They went outside, and relaxed on the lush green lawn outside the dormitory building, they were happy and celebratory, resplendent and sated.

I was given a bath and dressed in a crisp white Communion dress my mother bought at Saks Fifth Avenue, a confection of organza and ruffle punctuated by seed pearls.

I was made sacred with new white socks trimmed in lace and perfectly new white patent leather mary jane shoes with a tiny pearl button clasp.

The Spirits looked over at me from their lounge outside and nodded in approval at my outfit, as I sipped the ginger ale from a straw as Sister Maria Stella brushed my hair and wiped the sleep from my eyes.

We were never given sodas at the Convent, nor were we ever given crushed ice in anything.

It was momentous and remarkable that we were given such an offering. I suppose if was from that point on, that the Spirits knew I was at their beckoning, their dutiful servant.

The procurer of Ginger and Ice.

purgatory

My desk sits in front of a very large window that faces west. It is on the second story of my home and if one were to look down, one would see the ground 30 feet below it. I have spent days and days here, looking out this picture window watching barges head up the northern current to Alaska.  From this perch I have watched the color of the sea shift from pink in the morning to steebluegrey at late in the day. I have seen the calm sea of morning change to a whirlpool of white caps and sea swell by early afternoon.

I will often sit at this desk until late at night, fighting my fatigue. I stave off sleep and the comfort of my bed, where rosie, my dog, sleeps and snores incessantly, breaking the quiet of this hill at night, shattering  the tenderness of the owls singing .

 I have rubbed myself raw with oils of neroli and helicrysium and myrrh just in order to sleep.  I do anything I can to find sleep and the safety it brings although often times sleep does not comfort or soothe me at all … it propels my psyche into past lives that I never loved and I often kiss men I have never met and both my ex-husbands meld into one person. I often dream of my family, all now passed on, all but me, and they arrive as if they were real life. They are potent apparitions, unrepentant and

urgent.

This astonishes me, awakens me, and frightens me even though I do often wish I had my mother around, you know, just to make everything feel all right. For solace and haven. I often wish to be held or consoled but I am neither.  So, I look for answers, consolation and balm in rose bushes or under the artichoke plants, behind the pump shed, under the Burmese honeysuckle, amid the tangle of fragrant sweet peas, the rich humid earth, the cool marsh by the creek.  I look under the wings of Ravens, beneath the newly budded tiny peach blossom, beneath the young fruit, the tiny new pears, beneath the bronze stalk of the pomegranate tree.

I call out.

I call  out to ancestor, Arab, Grandmother, Inuit, Whale Goddess, I call to Spirit in the form of predator bird and omen, I call to omen in the form of a piece of paper lying on the street, just near the old Laundromat, I look for clues on this old crumbled artifact for wisdom, for a way forward, for an explanation, a map, a treasure. I look into the eyes of the old Miwok men who come every Wednesday to the post office, where they pick up their government checks, their eyes are clouded with yellow milk and swirled brown earth and they tell me nothing, I know they see everything, but they say nothing of my darkness, my longing, my fate. They tell me plenty about their darkness and their place in the 15^th bardo, the bottom of the rung bardo that fills one’s liver and spleen with sorrow and despair. The meat hook, the fiery pit. They are No Longer Willing to evoke, conjure, or speculate.

They do not give me the answer because I am filled with Light. I

 know this, even  as I bellow and wail and force my will upon the course of my private river, I will always fill myself with light every time I see the moon.

They know this. The Miwok men can see the moon in my soul. They know I have sold the moon my dreams.

 The moon does not elevate me nor will she answer my questions about my future. The Greybluesilver Sea and the barges speak nothing to me of their journeys, nor of mine, or of the Miwok men at the post office. The moon will not reveal my destiny, illuminate my darkness or speak to me about my transience.

  I have been holding myself in this suspended place for so long that I fear if I were to be released from it, my feet would touch the earth and crumble into dried ambergris. I would be devoured by the Spirit of Whale and Fox, I might be left out to dry on a driftwood rack, as if I were a Fileted Cod , Salted and Curing.

Here now, at this big window, looking west, over this tree canopy, over the nesting ravens,

This moon just simply fills me with light. Unobstructed light. Unfiltered, irreverent, elliptical, proficient light. I may someday find my passage here, under this Moon that remains silent, says nothing, is no fortuneteller, is no gossip, this Moon that refuses to be an oracle.

creative man seeks.......

There began the usual flurry of beguiling emails. The digital pictures that described this particular man, handsome, confident, witty. The pictures included a beautiful daughter he courageously raised alone. The pictures revealed interesting paintings and sculptures he created in his live /work loft in urban Berkeley.

I say to myself.

O this one will be perfect. This will be the one who will help me exorcise Stefan from my soul. Heal my broken heart, replace the bleak monologue of despair, with promise. Spring was imminent.

There were possibilities here. Yes, possibilities. I would prove wrong the psychic from Arizona who told me that I would have no more romances. That Stefan and I would reunite in the fall, marry and live happily ever after.

 We arranged to meet Friday night

at a tiny Japanese restaurant in San Anselmo. As he walked through the door, I thought, well, he looks pretty good, taller than I thought. We greeted one another with a tentative hug. He smelled like cigarettes. We sat down at the table and instantly he became insulting , demanding and belligerent to the waiter who came to get our drink order and tell us the specials.

He tried to smell my neck nearly ten minutes after we introduced ourselves but I had not invited him to do so.

We settled into the evening and ordered a Saki flight, and I could see his face flushing, and I felt the color in mine return as well.

He confessed was 54. though his posting said he was 50. when I asked him about that he replied” ah well what’s a few years here or there, age doesn’t mean anything”.

He asked me if I had written to Stefan , telling him I had met someone, fallen in love and had finally moved on. I said I had not. That it never occurred to me to do that.

He then told me about the women in his life. The woman he really loved and the woman he longed for. When he spoke of the woman he longed for, he painted a  dark portrait of a disturbed woman, who he lovingly described as looking much like a dwarf. He said her head was elongated and she has small rat like eyes. He said they had a violent relationship and now she refused to see him because she felt him to be an abusive alcoholic. He then began to cry . Big discolored tears  fell down his cheeks. He wiped his nose on his jacket sleeve.

He grabbed a chocolate chip cookie from a little bundle of cookies I made earlier that day, and had brought to the date as an offering… he grabbed the cookie, as he was still sitting in front of a plate of albacore belly.

I think I may have shrieked! “ what are you doing?”.

I think I did that. I did shriek. I apologized, I said,” O I am sorry, you do what ever you want. They are your cookies.

When I asked him what happened with the woman he loved, a woman he was with for nearly 10 years, on and off….

 He then explained  me the woman he loved would no longer sleep with him because, “ I would not go down on her”.

I sat in the corner looking at the hand blown glass soy sauce dish. It was  luminous turquoise and reminded me of the 80’s rage inCraft glass blowing. I thought about my first marriage, and the dress I wore at my wedding was sort of this color. Shot silk it was made of. I remember going to the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles and looking at hand blown glass then, to register for the wedding… something arty and different. The soy sauce dish was something I would have registered for.

He said, “ Oh, you know, it’s not that I don’t like doing that kind of thing, I do but…..”

I looked  down at the cobalt blue water glass and thought of the Welsh spring water I once served at my restaurant.

He looked at me and I think he may have sensed my discomfort.  “Where exactly is Lebanon” he asked.

Ty Nant… that was the name. I chose it because my father was Welsh. I had Welsh water and Lebanese wine, for my Lebanese mother… this liquid ode to my parents. They are dead and have been for a long time now.

It seems that my description of the global location of Lebanon, satisfied him and he then continued to explain his predicament to me

“ I did not like the way she tasted” and I put the piece of perfect Spanish mackerel down for a moment.

They had albacore belly that night as well, it was 

Really Very Good. He ordered the Fish Miso Soup, which I knew was just something to do with the fish that wasn’t fresh enough to cut, I believed it held the bones of a big sea bass.

It was cloudy and unrefined. Fishy tasting.

He told me “ I did not like the way she smelled” and I looked for the waiter to make eye contact, but you know, at this point in the evening, he hated our table. He hated the guy. He may have hated me. Every so often I got a whiff of stale cigarette. There was a damp spot on his sleeve where he wiped his nose when he was crying about the other woman.

I used to smoke. I remember when I quit. I remember how hard that was. How I struck deals for garnering strength with deities and the ghost of my father who died of lung cancer.

He had the pallor of a smoker and the urgency of someone who wanted so desperately to light up but could not, not for the date, not for the impression he was trying to make on me, knowing the the hip Marin restaurant would be intolerant.

 People who smoke can’t smell or taste very well… you know. The waiter looked at me with a sort of peculiar empathy.

At one point I realized that I was sitting there with my arms crossed over my chest. Hands on opposite shoulders cowered in the corner of the pretty little booth . I was trapped. I fixed my attention on the interesting glassware, on the bus boy’s perfect white uniform, on the bus boy’s waxen black hair. on the sushi chef who wore a handwoven dark charcoal grey scarf on his head that was longish in the back and elegant.

The room was ambient with crazy chaotic fusion jazz… there were these tense moments of musical hysteria and there were moments where my hysteria was reduced to a fixated obsession with the swirls of green wasabi in the soy sauce dish.

 He said the sushi chef was a control freak.

The bus boy, who looked Mayan, hovered around our table. Swooping up empty dishes as fast as we could empty them.

We split the tab, he offered to pay, but wanted no part of that, I wanted to leave it clean, without feeling obliged, knowing that if he paid for dinner,he might expect a kiss or possibly more.

We both admitted with certainty and relief we had no chemistry. That we would stay in touch, you know. But we won’t. We didn’t.

As we walked out into the night, back to our cars, he said,  “ Well, I wish you luck in finding someone, you know, you’re probably menopausal and that means that pretty soon you won’t even care about sex anymore”.

 

Datura Stamens and Virgin Mary Water

there are two medicines . two sufi women coming into my kitchen one evening holding a little cobalt blue glass bottle. they said "hold out your hands, we have a gift for you"

and they placed in my hands a little cobalt blue glass bottle,  that they said contained the essence of the divine love of the blessed virgin mary. they said it would help heal my heart.

one of the beautiful sufi women took the bottle from me and asked me to place my left hand on her heart as she placed her left hand on my heart and then she dropped a few drops of the blessed virgin mary water into my mouth. 

today,

felicity said to take thirteen stamen from white datura flowers. there were three blossoms on my datura plant, this is unusual, as they never bloom this time of year. there were 19 stamen all in all but i took only thirteen. felicity said that if i take the thirteen stamen and wrap them in silk and sleep with them under my pillow from this full moon to the next full moon then i will no longer be tied to  the karmic cord between stefan and I. i will no longer be trapped in the desire for him and my dream of us.

this i did today.

i asked the flowers for their permission to take their stamen. and wrapped them in a piece of worn dupioni silk, the color of a faded red rose.

tied them with white silk ribbon .  placed the bundle under my pillow , now. 

today is Aimee's birthday.i took LSD the day you were born and came to the hospital with my friend Lani and were were so high and your were so incredibly amazing, and i bet you still are.

thirty one one

another year passes and the new one arrives... flying home from Boonville on bittersweet wings of an angel's weary feathers.

i drive mountain view road home this morning with a cup of hot coffee in an old worn out mason jar listening to Gillian Welch singing  April the 14th part one, and her plaintive voice is my anthem this morning for the nostalgia of my life as i drive the winding road marveling at the misty canyons and the filtered golden light.

i cried for nearly 5 miles as the images of my mother's passing 28 years ago , to this very day,

suddenly appeared as if a phantom had taken hold of the road and projected the images of that day like a scritchy old newsreel.

i was not crying in grief but in astonishment at all the loss i have had in my life, the intricate

lace of life and change and of all the things we dream of and the people that are taken from us, or leave us, or simply we find our paths taking different turns. like a sad honkey tonk song like the cliche country lament like an old blues tune the metronome tic toc.the quiet pause after a crescendo.

i cried in astonishment at my ability to survive all this.

Love.

My heart played it like the strings of a banjo, how sweet and melancholy the notes sound,

the sad wisdom of the chord changes and the whimsy of the refrain.

Leaves blowing across the road the next turn brings me to the mountain pass and the view to the sea   Dan's vineyard , now bare.

How well i know this road, the road to boonville from the coast... this road where mark and i saw a huge golden eagle eating roadkill at a turnout as we drove to Ukiah for our wedding license, the road had froze sometime eariler and the slick spots were coated in dark red rust salt, we married january first, in the meadow above Schooner Gulch, with only a few folks to see it, Raven, married us, and Louie stood up for Mark and Lucinda stood up for me, and the dogs, Dozer and Animal, both now gone,  stood on rose petals under an arbor, Mark and Louie made from alder and willow, cut that morning from the banks of the Garcia River. Raven passed  away soon after.

   This is  the road where years later, Stefan and i fell in love listening to love song #3.. how we met in the hills for trysts on hot summer days.

the road brought butterflies and a hopefulness i had not had for many  years. and now the road brings tears and revelation.

a new wisdom arrives to my belly and i can barely stomach it though i know it is good for me.

the sages say it is good for the blood to eat bitter greens in winter.

I raise my cup to

this night sky filled with twilight

i will drink the cerulean blue

i will douse my fires with stars

kneel down to the Blessed Irony &

declare my Devotion to Benevolent

Heart of the Unknown.

january first 2009

  

beaver moon syrah

yesterday we went down to The Land ... Louie and Mark & Bill bottling the syrah. The wood oven blazing. The smell of wet bay trees and burning oak  the dark red stain of the wine on hands and faces  red teeth  river teeth . Lots of local folks helping , all the Land families visiting for Christmas , stopping by, lending a hand, wine poured into Sponge Bob Dixie cups, the little ones, the ones you give to small children, the assembly line of friends pitching in to fill bottles cork the bottles wipe off the bottles pack the bottles onto the palette they go... beautiful clean white boxes filled with red nectar the first syrah at the winery another new name again.

The river is swollen from these recent storms it's color of a cloudy emerald the willows and alders still in their autumn foliage golden leaves bright yellow leaves shimmy on the near barren trees off to the orchard nick's apple trees bare though even now after christmas a few apples rotting on the ground below. the scent of wet meadow grasses and wild mushrooms and wet wood in Louies shop.

I made pizzas ..with sausages cooked right next to the fire, in the wood oven, Denise asks " how do you know when the oven is hot enough? " and I reply, " when it burns the hair off your fingers" and I think the rainy weather made the dough come out better than ever or maybe it was the conviviality or the Beaver Moon syrah or Louie's infectious joy. I arranged the hot molten pizzas on a slab of weathered barn wood , Denise took the slab to the winery and all ate, heartily , cheese dripping on to red stained fingers.

Tea & Jesus

Tea.....today is your birthday. you&jesus tho it is said he was born in june. you who

can craft a poem of water vapor and an old tire abandoned by the side of the road,

you who understands the language that craggy mountain tops speak. you who can 

see through stones&

veils and filaments translating a squall a birdsong a sorrowful glance into this strange speak

we speak  this english. you fashion arabic script from newsprint and archaic fonts and enchanted old type.

you know things Tea that we mere mortals can only speculate wearing the hat of a poet

however you&jesus saints resident in greatness in huge compassionate heart in love

greater than man.

happy birthday my tea cup...from me & Rosie on Christmas morning

smoke water glitter

xmas eve. 

it blew a gale all day. power out. quiet mountain.

creeks enlivened by torrential waterflow

the horsetail along the bank budding

uncomfortable rhododendrons blooming out of season.

 now i offer the smoke of sweetgrass to the rain spirit

to the watershed spirit the mountain spirit i burn madrone from this land

to heat my home and i kneel in humility to the raven couple cooing and feeding 

 manzanita berries to each other as they sat on the rail in a gale

and took one berry mouth to mouth followed by a riffle of head feathers

a swoosh of wind

i gave them eggs for their christmas dinner.

i pray for peace on our beautiful earth &

i pray for my own heart to heal.

A poem for 5 dollars

at our local 4th of july school picnic , Writers Extrordinaire, Carolyn Cooke and Randall Baptkis

invited me to join their booth,  A Poem for 5 Dollars.

This hippie couple came up to me and asked me for 2 haiku about cannabis. Here they are.

Funny, I don't even smoke. But dug up the muse from days gone by.

#1

We smoked a joint together

You laughed in the most fabulous

Way.

#2

Who gave you that pot

it was so strong

we hardly

spoke

the return of the light

solstice arrives . on wings of torrential rain pounding the tree canopy. pounding out the dark

days morning arriving in the dark and evening coming too soon.

the maples still hold their blazing red foliage, as if clutching a wool coat close.

it is now winter but the garden is still speaking the language of fall.

last night i dreamt i jumped from a plane, and i fell and i fell and i kept falling, with no

bottom, no landing in sight. and at some point, i switched my identity from the falling body,

to the vigilant ground spotter, looking up from a target painted on the ground, waiting for 

the jumper to land, but no one landed and i changed persona from the jumper to the spotter, back and forth, over and over, til the pounding of the rain, and the beckoning of the Solstice, ( o and the coffee) woke me.

the huge gorgeousness of all things painful

Leaving Mill Valley

In the evening all the crows come to roost in a large eucalyptus tree across the canyon, they seem to come in from the east in big flocks in big swirls of black wings as if the dinner bell rang and they are coming home to eat.

Walking the summit road this morning meeting a woman named Nancy and her donkey Jackson who would not budge from the driveway of an old woman they used to visit, she died many years ago and he still stops there and waits to go down to her house.

A crow lands on the church steeple cross with the glow of the sunset reflecting off the stained glass windows.

Packing glasses in newspaper I brought from Point Arena, redolent with the fresh ganja leaves

that fell into my kitchen sink.

The pregnant spider hanging by a thread on the outside of the window.

The tender particles of grief.

Tonight on Throckmorton Avenue, a small boy plays a railing in front of a day spa, as if he were playing a symphony on a piano, while his father mops the sidewalk.

A strange black dog peeing on a rock at the end of Tamalpias Road, as I bore myself to the vortex, praying to be healed.

Wet fall leaves stick to the glass of my windshield.

The tiny mouse in my office who will not succumb to the trap.

Thinking of christmas lights at truckstops.

The quiet cutting.

Crazy flippy swirly cloudy things above the Bay Bridge at dawn.

My indelible soulfulness.

the refracted light