I See That I Must Give What

When My Parents Were Liberated, Four Years Before I Was Born, They Found That The Ordinary World Outside The Camp Had Been Eradicated. There Was No More Simple Meal, No Thing Was Less Than Extraordinary: A Fork, A Mattress, A Clean Shirt, A Book. Not To Mention Such Things That Can Make One Weep: An Orange, Meat And Vegetables, Hot Water. There Was No Ordinariness To Return To, No Refuge From The Blinding Potency Of Things, An Apple Screaming Its Sweet Juice.

Trees For Example, Carry The Memory Of Rainfal. In Their Rings We Read Ancient Weather - Storms, Sunlight And Temperatures, The Growing Seasons Of Centuries. A Forest Shares A History Which Each Tree Remembers Even After It Has Been Felled.

The Best Teacher Lodges An Intent Not In The Mind But In The Heart.

The Shadow-past Is Shaped By Everything That Never Happened. Invisible, It Melts The Present Like Rain Through Karst. A Biography Of Longing. It Steers Us Like Magnetism, A Spirit Torque. This Is How One Becomes Undone By A Smell, A Word, A Place, The Photo Of A Mountain Of Shoes. By Love That Closes Its Mouth Before Calling A Name.

Once I Was Lost In A Forest. I Was So Afraid. My Blood Pounded In My Chest And I Knew My Heart's Strength Would Soon Be Exhausted. I Saved Myself Without Thinking. I Grasped The Two Syllables Closest To Me, And Replaced My Heartbeat With Your Name.