Postcard 157

Pictured opposite: A form suspended, diamond shape, carbon black, before -- what are those, cliffs? -- before green cliffs under a night sky. It is the desert, we infer, and the single blue star -- she is Venus. Beneath the floating form: six wealthy men, their faces obscured by blank speech. About them are ornate jugs full of rare fluid. The man in purple fancies himself a leader, a man of action and here is his chance. The man over his shoulder believes the real chance will be his. Neither care for what. The man in stripes has dropped to his knees to worship the shape, hoping it is the right shape to fill him. Don't these three make a familiar trio? The next three are another known trio. One sees an opportunity to slip away with a pot. He will likely succeed. The other two think him small minded. They compete in avarice. One is trying to roll up all the pots in the purple rug. But look, with the opposite corner of the rug, that man has forgotten all about the pots. He hopes to capture the form. They will surely upset each others plans. Six fools deluded by power and fortune, where is only their same-stuffs, carbon and water. Venus looks on

Postcard 156

Heathen hordes are swarming at the gate! Bar it, buttress the wall. Good faith is through for the huddled sick and poor. See what happens when you leave open your front door!

Ok, I will. I will leave the door unlocked to my home. Its old, it barely closes anyway, cockeyed with warm smudged paint and leaning old wood bones. We have no foyer, no wide and empty halls. Just a busy kitchen, little living room, three fogged glass bedrooms and some pictures on the walls. We have very little here to steal, and what we have we freely give: books and food and whiskey, conviviality, and snuggles from us our cat our dogs our kids. Of things that warm a cold and weary soul and body, we have a bounty. Take them please, they are free.

But there are wicked people in the world. with strong hands for violence, tongues and eyes bred for treachery and lies

Perhaps, but still, I will leave my front door open. See, my house is filled with life: warm bodies living, wayfaring most days and nights. A wealth that's value defends itself, that cannot be idle in safe in bag on shelf. And finally, around us is a neighborhood sharing more than gated threat. It is a known community. Our street flows with good will and looking out.

Yes I will leave my front door open and see what will happen. Though I know already -- we will be safe as life and take its risks as given

Postcard 155

And what will I feel?

You will feel that sharp dropping longing replaced by empty anxiety

Like a man with his last match, you will feel the wet fear of cold

and then the easy warmth of immersion

You will feel the firmament slip away like parents of a sleeping child

move down to sipping whiskey and warm rooms -- the resting of a smaller world

You will feel your own moments gently stripped away like scales

and you will see them dance irridescent as wind shaped rain across the face of big waters

You will feel thirstily drunk from by every single thing

and you will feel your shores recede

You will feel in the fingers that you call your own

the fine thread pull-through of pain unstitched from pleasure

You will feel the friction heat of steady spindled spool
-- smooth wood on spinning wood -- gathering and binding wool
each bunch of fibers a certain sheep's own dirt and oily lanolin
The thread a flock distilled

You will feel fear. You will feel fear
and you will feel the centrifuge about which it spins
you will feel the hole which pulls you through

Postcard 154

What will you see?

 You will see a woman and a child walking across the grass under haze-filtered sun.

She holds a bag. They hold hands and cause eddies in a muddy river of pain.

You will seen hosts of common birds swirling and diving about them

Their paths are, each, marks of your own desires.

You will see the horizon spread at your outstretched hands

You will look on mountains with pride

You will grip clay and shatter obsidian

Shale will slide under your calm feet

You will see sand ground and moved and feel grateful relief

You will touch the slight lines of your own face

You will see your loved ones weather with age and fill with a comfortable despair

Time slides around unseen and leaves like crisp air

You will watch dispassionate, pain and pleasure flow unceasing

batter your body like a wave beaten pier

You will see the world you made, the self you made become unsustained

Conflagrate as an offering to a fire

You will feel the weight of praise and swell with righteous pride

You will see a march of ants in your sink, caught by spiders, hefting dead flies

and seasons blinking by will wash your eyes

You see yourself their progeny

You will finally feel humble and free

Your familiar cat will mount your chest and purr

You will realize and forget, forget and realize

You will realize and forget