terms of love

nibble gentle
relentless
in the hidden places
swiftly building
ribbons round within
like a gift wrapping
in reverse
in negatives
before you know
you'll be my present.

i'll core a zone
around your heart
(i save the best for last)
and find the far corners
of you instead
the unfelt places
and fill you with me
tunnels for me alone
coated with mud and spit.

and when at last,
you've nothing left to offer
when it's far too late to stop
(would that you could)
well, dear, i'll move on.

but not before i
eat your cardboard heart.

before the garden
before the snow
before what happens
before you know

i dreamt i was with my brother. there was a beach head divided in two by a looming sand colored cliff. to the right was the "safer" beach, which was strongly recommended because the waters were shallow. to the left was a more dangerous beach (although i can't recall why it was so). i decided to swim to the safer beach.

there was a line going up (i believe) to the top of the cliff. it tunneled through the ground in a weaving ant-like passage. i was following a woman carrying her child. every so often, the claustrophobia-inducing tunnel involved a literal crawlspace that i barely was able to negotiate. at one point, i recall feeling a mild panic after i had crawled through a narrow hole to my waist and discovered no way to go through the rest of the way...

i once knew the edge of the garden, before the snows came and hid it away. it was composed of a trim shin-high bamboo fence, tied together smartly by wrapped twine at the joints. on the first day that i arrived at the temple, a piece of my naked mind drank in the fine detail of that fence, but only a piece. there were too many new things to admire about the place, too many hopes and fears and promises suspended in the shimmering air...

***

late into the winter, on yet another day of snow, i was told to shovel away the parking lot, or at least claim a piece of it from the thick and smothering mantle of white. and it was during my somewhat callous and uncaring hacks with the snow shovel that i struck something solid, what felt like a thin fibula-like bone in the ice. i was tired, and a job needed to be done, so i struck at it again and again, longing to feel the blank and endless whiteness to yield to me, that i might form a shortcut to completion, and then to a respite from the job at hand. it was only after about the tenth hack that i paused, my breath coming in smoky gasps, and glanced at what i had sought to break.

it was the little bamboo fence.

my shovel had succeeeded in undoing the twine at the joint, and splintered the bamboo beneath besides.
to
***

i reflected on this, with regards to the naked truth of our past experiences, the smothering influence of time, and our inadvertent and damaging "reinterpretations" in our attempts to reclaim those past experiences...

there is always a (fictitious) time in the past when we experience things anew, usually full of fear and trepidation, but also with the wonder and hope of unknown and unknowable things. usually, we seek to bury that uncertain time via repetition, experience, aggressive actions, whatever. and as days pass, we succeed; the new becomes old hat, we trace patterns and pull routines out of the wavering air. and then, as the season begins to freeze to the stillness of monotonous color and deathly cold, we begin to long again for that uncertain time that we covered over in our haste for mastery. if we are (archaeologically) careful, sometimes we may unearth a faint whisper or whiff of that past through our efforts. but more often than not, we are far too clumsy, and in our attempts to get a hold of that naive "once upon a time," we destroy it.

and then, we are left alone and isolated from who we once were.

the fence that once existed at the edge of our garden is now broken...

venus shut your fly trap
your slickened leaves have teeth
to clamp the exoskeletons
and suck the life from them

i know better than to trust
you and your offered self
standing pure and nude
on tongue of pearly
vomiting clam

i will away

some edge
on some world
i will find
will find me
frozen in dark shade
of silver caveless cliff
to know who i am
wholly
apart

the job of a parent is to love, unconditionally love.

there are always two voices a parent hears, sometimes one more than the other. one voice always appreciates what a wonder it is that a child is exactly as he or she is. the other is the voice that desires (rightly or not) that a child were "better."

here is the paradox: you need to hear both voices, simultaneously. BUT you almost always have to choose to act on the "harder" one in any given situation. that seems to be the path to greatest growth, anyway (for the parent or the child, i'm not so sure).

for example, when it is obvious to everyone (including the child) that there is a problem of some sort, and the temptation is to come down with condemnation, and say things like, "why can't you be more like this?" or "why can't you be normal?" well, i want to be the parent who acknowledges errors of behavior or whatever in his heart (this is the "obvious" truth, anyway), but who still looks beyond this to appreciate and love the child unconditionally. this has to be done FIRST, before any constructive action can be taken to "correct" any errors. i feel this is true. if you operate out of the "worldly voice" that only sees the faults in a child (i call this the "what will the other parents think?" voice), then you will be, for the child, just another part of the world that looks down upon and judges the child. but if you make clear that, despite errors of behavior or whatever, you love the child NO MATTER WHAT, then you will be the child's advocate, and, together, hand in hand, you can conquer the world.

i think of the final scenes of "little miss sunshine." i didn't see the whole movie (not yet), even though i claim to love it, but what i appreciated at the end was how a whole family of misfits pulled together to make the dream of a little girl (objectively impossible, ridiculous even) come true, NO MATTER WHAT. i want to be the advocate for my child, yes, when they are "good" and behave, but also when they challenge me, when they pursue dreams that i (and the rest of the world) don't understand or appreciate. i hope i am the kind of parent that my children KNEW in their bones loved them no matter what.

because i do.

***

i am in a tight spot right now. it seems as though simple problems are always like "improvised explosive devices" waiting to blow up in my face. i am facing a few such "simple problems" at the moment, all the while knowing that other, so-called larger things are waiting for me in the near future... there have been many long hours of tortuous panic, some outbursts of frustration and outright despair (i get like this sometimes, enough that i've come to appreciate, on some level, on some very abstracted level, the humor of it all). i can't sleep or concentrate until these "simple problems" are addressed (even if it may kill me).

my family and friends are wonderful at such times. they give me space when i need it, and they offer a lot of support. thank you to all of you.

***

i did a few treatments and ran clinic today (yesterday), and one thing i reflected upon was the importance of giving all that you can, putting your heart into everything, no matter what you do. i reflected upon the "art" of what i do. sometimes people look at the word "art" and they think of "artifice" or even "artificial." but "art" for me has always been the path that bridges the unbridgeable gap between myself and my secret burdens, and the world out there that is "unshaped," or in suffering, or otherwise could benefit from my intervention. if i embody my "art," whatever it may be, then perhaps i can touch the world in a way that, i don't know, approaches truth, or something or other. i don't know. it FEELS right, anyway.

part of embodying "art," as i see it, is an acknowledgment of and full acceptance of your limits. a person can't know everything, can't be this fictitious hegelian absolute subject. but that doesn't mean a person can't do something helpful. there are several things with regards to my patients that i don't fully understand, or can't account for. but that doesn't mean i can't understand them in some sense, and treat them. "art" doesn't seek to answer all questions, but it does seek to "touch" the contradictions of reality and address them intelligently...

well, it's getting late. i hope everyone has what i have, family and friends (and god) that supports me like the glove of sleep, ready to catch me and allow me to rest from all of my troubles... i wish everyone this, in the least...

asynchronous

the end of the world was announced
but by the time word reached the fourth corner
the news was already two days old,
and those who heard it
deemed it false,
or at least highly suspect,
all evidence withstanding.
they ignored it,
and went about their daily routines.