A boy answered the angels with a tragic will.
He still wears blood from open wounds,
a fright for some,
yet he beholds in the mirror a personal beauty.
A portrait writ in pain and love
with Raphael’s crimson.
In his pain he finds majesty,
in his torture he finds peace.
Soaked in red he feels the pulse of his life,
A man among statues,
the moving masterpiece of a sad museum.
Every thing he touches bears a mark from his heart.
“We’re like the sand and the sea,” he says, reaching for his beer as an afterthought, looking off reflectively as his hand gently scans the air at his side for the bottle’s neck.
“Which is which?” she asks.
He pauses. “I’m not sure. It’s more about the relationship between the two of them that matters.” Then more slowly, “They’re always connected, always touching, but there’s this dynamic set of influences between them that moves them this way and that. And they can’t necessarily control it, y’know. It’s like the forces of nature, tides and wind and storms … rocks and all of that. These things affect them and change them and how they touch each other, but they’re always connected.”
“That’s nice,” she says, nestling closer. “Although the storms don’t sound so great.”
“It’s all related though,” he explains. “It’s all part of some beautiful system that we’ll never understand. You can’t take out any one element or the system loses it’s … completeness.”
They sit silently with their thoughts until she says, “I think we’re like a bird and its nest.”
“Explain that one,” he counters.
“Well… think of a bird and the care she puts into her nest. I saw one once in some seaside cliffs when I was young and I can picture it perfectly in my head. I climbed right up beside it and looked in. It was so … precise, and lovely. It was just perfectly arranged, by this bird with a brain the size of pea. How do they have that skill in there? And it had these shiny bits of gum wrapper wound in there, and feathers and sticks all arranged in this wonderful symmetry. It just had a magic all its own. I thought of that bird looking all around for the things that she knew she needed, and working at it until it felt … complete. And I remember thinking what an act of love that was, that bird building that nest.”
“That’s every woman’s dream, no?” he asks, with a hint of playful mockery. “Build the perfect man from scratch? The perfect provider and a gentleman too.”
“The nest isn’t the man, silly, it’s the relationship,” she explains.
“So where’s the man?”
“He’s in the air somehow, all around.”
“I think I like that,” he answers.
“I bet you do.”
Not many people would have required stitches after washing the dishes, but then again I’ve always thought of myself as special. Who else has scaled a coconut tree bare-footed, amid the amusement of the Fijian groundskeepers and one laughing lady lounging at the poolside, scraping my feet so raw that walking would be sheer pain for days? Who else, with laughing encouragement from said woman, went astride the mechanical bull in a Texan bar to partake in the worst spine-wracking activity a torturer could imagine? Love makes us do such stupid things.
This episode was not guided by bravado. It was an argument, the kind where each side digs the deepest trench, uses every faculty and every perception of the other’s weakness to deliver verbal wounds. As the table was cleared the skirmish moved from the dining room to the kitchen, verbal assaults careening through doorways until we met face to face in a no-man’s-land of tiled counters, appliances and cookware.
Her skill with words and ability to understand people drew me to her, but in this conflict those charms can kill. And as she laces into me with barbs that cut my self-esteem to shreds, I answer with simple violence, bringing a fist down to emphasize an exclamation of anger, frustration, and betrayal.
There is no symmetry to the placement of our things. A plate is nestled against a bowl, propped up by a cutting board that lies unlevel from the spoon underneath. In a flurry of kinetic energy each finds some leverage in the other, a rippling shockwave that sends a plate tipping off the counter, keeling downward toward the floor in a destructive arc.
My instinct to save falling items has always been to put a foot out; I’ve saved many fragile objects from ruin by breaking their fall this way. But this plate has met its day of reckoning, bouncing off my foot, crashing on the floor, and embedding porcelain shrapnel on the bridge of my foot.
It’s her china, one of the things she values most. As my gaze moves from my throbbing foot, to the mess on the floor, and up her soft-skinned figure to her eyes, it’s clear there will be no tears for valuables lost in today’s artillery fire. We’ve shed those tears already, soul-fed lakes of sorrow, beautiful pools of haunting human nature too painful to revisit.
Her gaze, laden with anger and disdain, tells me that the battle is done. She looks blankly at the blood trickling from my foot and leaves the room. I use a tea-towel to wrap the foot and collect my wits.
Why should I care of damaged dinnerware? So much is broken already. No one can reclaim these flooded plains. This anger and hurt, and the desolate silence that will follow, will create a rift too daunting for either wounded heart to deliver the courage to cross. And the sharp rap of her footsteps on the flooring, finding the farthest distance from me, is a bitter reminder that I’m alone again in this world.
Break the damn plates, I think, all of them – nothing can nourish here anymore. Dash against the wall these faulty cups that leave one thirsting. Grind the whole brittle mess beneath a bloody heel until the fine bone china loses all shape, ground finer than the bone flakes from whence it came, finer than dust.
There are no skilled hands to mend or replace these heirlooms. The last artisan died waiting uselessly for his apprentice to arrive. I see him in my mind, an earnest tradesman with no capacity to fathom the answer that lay written in blood-soaked gauze and discarded medical waste. We are the last generation of destruction, no more equipped to fix our wreckage than the battered steel of a wrecking ball.
But we can sweep, and as I scuttle the plate’s remains into a dustpan, to the garbage bin, and out to the sidewalk, I cast a long look down our suburban avenue. Each home displays its sad refuse like an ugly badge of plastic, splintered wood and withered branches. In these bins, one wonders, what sadness exists? All things broken: plates, promises, hearts. We are the last generation of destruction and love, well, love makes us do such stupid things.
“Don’t leave,” she says
Through a mask of tears
But you misread my thoughts dear,
When you thought I was here
I dreamed of Zion.
At night I lay beside you
Lost in a darkened room
But my heart still beats amid this tomb
Without a sound
I scream of Zion.
Endless thoughts remind me
Of peace I have not found.
And the chaos of my heat decrees that
All plots falter, all plans drown
And I dream of Zion.
And in my dreams
I behold a scene
So very far from here
With a broken sword, far from the horde,
I wind my way to Zion.
Above the clouds, my heart went out.
I carved a tender piece of soul,
And left it there waiting for you.
Another life shall find us there
To claim this sad, sweet offering with joy.
In another life we’ll love again.
We went back to earth,
Gliding through a brilliant crimson sunset.
Back to earth with less heart than before,
An expensive one-hour flight.
We turn to each other, sudden strangers.
We’ll forget this event for 1,000 years.
There’s a place where our pillows meet,
A no-man’s-land amid our sleep.
Their order isn’t well-defined
All pressed together in jagged lines.
Do they battle? Do they embrace?
What lies hidden in their shared space?
Does this cotton tell a story
Of age-old sadness or endless glory?
This fabric palm defies the seer.
Our bed knows only what we bring here:
The deepest dreams beyond our reach,
And restless thoughts that never cease.
Having enjoyed each other,
Having loved one another,
We love from afar
This space, this place
With so much in between.
I want to wrap you in my arms
And touch your lips with mine.
And feel my heart flutter once more
And my knees sag toward the floor.
What love is this, that hurts so much?
What need is this, that longs to touch?
Does each day deny what could be?
Will I wrap my seeking hands in your hair,
And, gasping, pull you to me?
When I die, will I find you there?
Far from the rocky coast, I watch her.
The wind-driven sea rings notes of finality.
Dragging home its cold pebbles and crushed coral,
with the motherly whisking sounds of the sea.
She goes, alone, to this clouded shore,
where timid molluscs cling to stone.
She sees them with empty tide-pool eyes,
As the pitiless waves blacken their shells.
She has forgotten shipwrecks and mermaids,
And that her smile could split the clouds,
And send sunbeams racing across the waves to touch welcome faces on distant shores,
Bringing hope to the eyes of children and every reaching leaf that yearns to grow.
My heart aches for this forgetful angel.
I lean from the lighthouse, calling her name.
But my voice floats far above the salty roar,
As her statue is swallowed by the rising tide.
Blind Orpheus shuffles through the underworld
Calling for Eurydice, his lost love.
The flames sear his frame, tissue dissolves.
Ashes of deceit scatter along a scorched path.
How came he here? What tragic myth fulfilled?
Why wry twist of jaded fate?
What sentence served while he slept?
And now, was he too late?
The flames burn through to harder fuel,
Pure elements shaped by knowing gods.
Orpheus, awakened, sees clearly.
He rises, still calling Eurydice.
But where the low moan of self-despair was once heard,
Now rings a note of love resounding through the world.
A faltering moment, ‘neath the towers
A city with jagged shoulders turned in
He pauses a lifelong tread,
Stops and doubts
Catches a reflection of a strange self-creature
A new view,
That carves perception into flesh.
A faltering moment to buckle great knees,
And break the back of Atlas.
Greatness and glory
In parting find an equal in despair.
The sun breaks cover, the towers repose,
The mirror speaks fairer.
His step resumes, leaving a footprint of doubt.
If follows him like a shadow,
waiting to meet in reflection.