Bypass Waters.

You know those moments of otherworldly awareness, when you realize you have hands and feet and you’re not really a person but an inexplicable phenomenon happening and happening and happening as we speak?

And all life is improvisation, and you can’t understand how your heart has not skipped one beat in all these years, and you’re momentarily afraid that, now that you’re pointing it out, it might suddenly stop, and you’re not yet ready for that… (Never.)

So I woke up with hands and feet today and rescued some old poetry, made scrambled avocados on toast, made coffee, made oxygen, and as I got ready for the rest of my day (or days or years), I tried to hold on to this moment.

But the minute I even attempt to encapsulate awareness, the bitch leaves again,  just as unexpectedly as she’d come. And before she does, she manages to lock me up in the Mind’s prison, where I shall remain — like any “stable” person for the rest of my 24 hours.

(Though I’m secretly working on a pair of wings.)

So here’s some heart surgery in verse, to maybe, I don’t know, start feeling our hands & feet again.

Bypass Waters. 

 

Be still, be still,
So I may enter in a breath,
your throat, so I can dig my way 
through veins,
to that deluded heart
of yours, this way
a piece or two might be
extracted, spared,
the blood unblocked,
aortas’ bail.

 

And all the while, hush,
be still,
the hungry hour be fed,
the stone-bread near;
the sightless ear be opened,
a drop of sound into
a deaf eye, those three words
I don’t love, a substitute
of lips, the skin
no longer mute,
the beast still unconcealed.

 

Be still, and know man only lives
but twice, once for his
poisoned heart, and yet 
another
just to hear his name,
on someone else’s lips. 
Whose do you whisper
as you fall asleep?

 

And yet, be still, I say
quiet your hands, 
courage is just a fine
string, not a rope.
I’m almost through, be still,
but are you sure
you want the pounding,
dear? My fatal song will do,
be still… Though you should
know: the added life
comes with a plus
of fear. 

(2008)

***

And if you’re somewhat of a hopeless or hopeful romantic, with a side of sadness and a taste for classical music and a secret love for soundtracks and a weakness for pianos and a nostalgic rear-view mirror, then you might love this soundtrack almost as much as I do.

Being in love with Yann Tiersen (the same composer who scored the soundtrack for Amélie) might help. 

The film to which it belongs–Goodbye Lenin!–is equally magnifique.

And this whole life affair reminds me of something Thoreau (one of my favorite wisdom fathers) said to me once about the Highest of Arts:

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” 

And I believed him.

{Heartology.}