THE GEESE

I stay in the Eastern Shore because the geese migrate here.

 

Year after year, their flying shadows settle my doubts of earlier
wet days of spring, the heat of summer.

As I approach and suffer the assault of high frequency screeches,

my tolerance nearly quits on me.

Excited and riled up by my presence,
they are like potent neon lights focused on my hearing.
Their incessant talk remind me of village markets in foreign places,
constant din of conversations, calling out for goods,
haggling for better prices.

They dance toward each other, retreat, advance

"Hello, how are you, I lost track of you up in Maine. Glad to see you.
There is a PREDATOR there. WATCH OUT!"

My arrival at the shore with the dogs creates

an immediate flurry of movement.
A large v-shape of water in front of us clears. 
Noisily explaining our presence,
they split into formal dance troupes.

Ripples shimmer the surface

as I stand there quietly,

the dogs enthralled, and a bit afraid. 

The geese begin to regain their distance

and soon, in synchrony,
the gap is bridged.  

For hours, we watch their dance,

these armies dressed in brown
and white and black.

Not war like, not at all. 

More like assembly lines inside textile factories. 
The acrid odor of sizing sprayed on to every bolt
straight on to my teary eyes. 

Assembly lines of look alike,

brown and white and black
yarn floating back and forth, in motion on to belts.

Assembled colors in the weaving of the looms,

unending touch of texture in textiles.

Why humans cannot like their steady beauty?

Like deer, geese are a metaphor, a figure of speech
I do not particularly care to be accurate about,
or bother check in the dictionaries and annals of figures of speech. 

It is simply that geese, migratory or not,

just like deer,
remind me seriously that we are not getting it together
as maybe we should. 

As it stands, we are screwing up this place all to hell.

The geese talk, they exchange views.

All they are doing is meet again. 
Get back in touch after a journey four times more difficult,
than any journey either you or I have ever taken,
in a year. 

Longer than you and I imagine to travel,

this dimension of life. 

The geese have traveled.

They have stories to tell. 
They include us in their conversations,
as you and I come near.
They talk to us. 

You and I are passerbys,

the accidental tourists. 

They, the geese

are the people.

SLIVERS

"It is foolish to approach the infinite as if it is a product of the finite world. The infinite is primary. It is an inevitability of nature. The finite world follows in its wake. The finite we experience is a secondary component. And at some level we all know this." Harris.

 

In vindication for all my religious and mystical thoughts

about everything and about nothing
I will pour my poetry on to you
like a liquid with no vessel to contain it
Wonder and invent you
almost be romantic about you

And in the end

you and I will fall flat
between slivers in a parallel universe
a mundo splashed side by side
like treasures in a chest hunt
gift for the other

we will travel,

we will imagine,
die and compost
in the same no place at all
in the beginning
of earth and of dirt.

 

Erica Weick

IMAGINARY PULSE

Imaginary Pulse

 

When the Imaginary Pulse breathes

finds Refuge in between the Lines
and shakes off Time

The Attractions whisper their names
inside the refugee Space

and turn into Voice

 

 

 

Homenagem a Senhora Dona Ana

 

CELEBRANDO O MATERNO

 

Nesse dia a minha homenagem a minha Mãe, senhora Dona Ana que escreve poesia, mora no Brasil, lê as noticias do mundo, uma carta minha de tres anos atras e me aconselha na sua bela caligrafia que

 

“O Tempo relaciona em grãos diferentes os mesmos pareceres

 e tudo vem e vai no Tempo Certo.”

 

A minha querida mãe poeta aos noventa e quatro e a todas as mães, homens e mulheres, crianças brincando com bonecas e com servir o chá de mentirinha pra aprender no fazer, para os pais no acordar da madrugada, no buscar da escola, os costureiros, cozinheiros, plantas lançando semente, musgos na chuva da rocha, lobas na colheita, coelhos e macaquinhos, nós todos que cuidamos pro ser dos seres com carinho de especie e cuidado de mãe sem sempre saber porque. Mas sabendo sempre o que fazer.

Na minha vida de licença poetica e no privilegio de conhecer minha Mãe agora,  de poder traduzir sua poesia, literal e na ancestria faze-la minha e virtual!

Do poeta Rumi:

“Viaja...”

Todas as trilhas desaparecem; você diz “Viaja...”,

Volto pra te implorar que fiques; você já não está.

As brisas ao meu redor tem sua fragrancia

Florzinhas desabrocham, palavras suas.

- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi

 ( tradução livre minha)

 

CELEBRATING THE MATERNAL

Today I honor my Mother, Dona Ana, the one who writes poetry and lives in Brasil, reads the news of the world, a letter I wrote three years ago and tells me in counseling, in her most precise and beautiful calligraphy that

“In different grains

time sprouts the same sayings and semblances

all comes and goes

in their times of certainty…”

To my dear poet mother at ninety four and to all mothers, men and women, children playing with dolls and serving tea of make-believe in practice, to fathers awake at dawn, fetching kids from school, to the seamstresses, the cooks, to plants shooting seeds, moss in the rain of rock, wolverines in harvest, rabbits and monkeys, all of us who care for being, with tenderness of species and maternal care, not always knowing why.  But always knowing how.

In my life of poetic license and in the privilege of knowing my Mother now, so that I can translate her poetry, literally, and in ancestry make it my own and virtual! 

 

Travel On

 All tracks vanished; you said 'Travel on'

 I turned to beg you stay; you had gone.

 Winds pressed round me that smelled of you

 Small flowers blossomed, words from your mouth.

 - Jalal-ud-Din Rumi

 (Translated by Andrew Harvey from A Year of Rumi)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tales

The leopard and the antelope



“There was, buried deep inside the stories of old,
an old tale revisited that told
of the leopard and of the antelope.

The people of this place said dream was a ride
inside their journey they would gaze
eyes closed wide fluid liquid open blind
stare of the storm
so blue it would gobble you down whole,
in gesture
digest you in jest
bit by bit in bite.


In exchange of tickets and fates
allow you to ride
if you wished
and the time was ripe
yellow light spots of luna
prowl mounted
moonlit on the leopard
black night


That is how the tale of the leopard
and of the antelope goes.


And then of course
there is the rest
the pace of verse the impression
slight imprint spur of antelope like bird
on a prowl of her own
in a quest of flight in different nature
akin to air in travel bird
chameleon, dandelion, a fighter,


this creature leaps at chance
for invitation to the ride

landscapes in journey they traveled
galloped territories across rivers dirt roads
trans-versed named forests un-named brooks,
inside the clearances inside the woods.
Flooded roads surrounding ascending waters from the rains. Bare passages.
Bridges built across dams near overflowing - memories of other spaces, territories revisited from above. Red dirt and water.
Daylight filtered in a sparing moment or light not at all.
A moonlit space.

In spiral dance down swirls
escape and joy
they rode across the traveling fields
to dream like life.


They traveled,
this leopard and this antelope.


What the readers nor the riders know
was that a leopard of another spotted color would attack and jump.
An antelope of another feathered kind would leap in flight.
But so the story goes that this leopard and this antelope were old
made out of air and dirt and fire,
old stuff, old soul,
fused elemental tales of necessary childhoods in both,
fused tales of some future,
elemental synthesis.


Except in dream or for a fault of mine in fate or in time,
these two, these people said, will never meet,
this leopard and this antelope
except in dream, they said, where they love each other,
as fiercely as they can,
given their leopard and antelope within and without
their natural and not so natural skins.


Take a ticket to ride, a destination,
take a ticket, they said, these people
and just go,
just ride the dream.


better still know,
the dream is you,
you are the ride.”


August 4, 1999 – 2006 - 2010

Rituals

Rituals

“Fortified by its knowledge of the Book of the Dead, then, the Wake here answers the haunting eschatological question of how the decaying corpse, buried in loamy inertia and scattering throughout the material universe, initiates the process by which it resurrects itself bodily into life: it opens its mouth in the hour when the sun moves through the gates of dawn, and it lets language, consciousness, and sunlight flood back in to replace darkness.”

Quotes from “Joyce’s book of the dark: Finnegan’s wake”, by John Bishop

Forever do we try to gather then at dawn
force open the lid to the loamy inertia
so as to return to scattered play primordial dance
no mating in view, lusco fusco twilight chiaro scuro
sunlight so bright
the words of language curse our morning breath so foul


Unable to retreat the light a beacon we flock to Sunday Sermon
we build inside these walls we dress
we mate the tonic of our loss
we lose our visions we chat in language forget the magic
unable to sustain in holding hands we marry
the rituals of these words.


Bookkeeping

"Presuming to speak directly from the point of view of the corpse, the Book of the Dead may be one of the few books on earth ideally written for an audience consisting entirely of the dead.”

 
If you write of things from the night
of the dark perspectives,
yet continue to expect living creatures
to give you understanding…

Well then apply the great concept,
call yourself the reluctant writer from the depths,
start to keep two sets of books,
two sets of diaries, two sets of memories,
two sets of loves:
one for the accounting of the living
one for the accounting of the dead.

Erica Weick
At the turn of the millennium…

Inhabit the body

“In-habit the body”:

when I grow old

i will enter my body

crawl the corridors

inside my skin

frolic in vein

loom in textiles

review the prices, the fairness,

invest in coins

invent

the market place

in simmer the harvest

sample the meat

conquer the yeast

inhabit my indonesia

brocade, velvet burgundy

sacred cows

golden buffaloes

lantejouled Indian theatre

untamed tree of life

hometown of my dreams

in ferris wheel giggle

the pleasure of the ride.

September 30, 2010
Erica Weick in a dream

Hide and seek

or(The painted stick on Thanksgiving)

Abandoned to this territorial beige,
in the geographies of my phases:

Indian Ocean treasures, Meaipe mica and the Chesapeake
Bay of Israel, pebbles of Saint Lucia and sand.
Thyme and maritime roses, lambs of diamonds,
little tiny seeds,
those of pine for us, those for the prairies
those late in season for the birds.


Great hide and seek positionings
green buffer zones inside my heart.

Constant search for mythological blues, ephemeral ponds
where the bull frog does not chant,
where the salamander is savvy.


The painted stick and I shiver and shake,
awake like dogs in the trail under the willow oak;
Chameleons in gold, silver bronze of fancy dress
of change and of chance,
(Glitter and gliss of family dinner thanksgiving forgotten)


We remain,
and we travel first class
and a capella.

Captions to Cartoon

or
The Story of the Arrogant Sensual Poet and the Shy Romantic
Cartesian Woman
or
Triangles, Quadrangles, Kaleidoscopes and Cornucopias

(excerpted from the Book of Revelations)


He leaned forward, and in a fluid motion slipped on his reading glasses, slid his hand slowly across the cold marble table, middle finger touch in the center of her open palm, lightly.

"Your relationship to me is not part of a triangular construct, not at all. Imagine it instead as motion. You see, I have given this subject some serious thought."

He tossed his head back, light catching gray trapped between dark brown.

Not daring to move, she opened her eyes wide and listened. Heat cold tingle, the perfect shiver spread upwards from palm, the point of touch to heart. Like a bivalve organism, she breathed in tandem hope for quietly in and out. A slow down a wish, a certainty she would bring him to tell her something of significance - he would tell her he was in love with her - nothing else mattered - he would write a poem for her, right there and then. He would touch her once more.

He continued on about lines and triangles, connotations and words - she almost understood exactly what he was saying - not quite, though, not yet. If only she could try harder - finish reading the poems he gave her.

His well-modulated voice lullabied her. Some said hoarse from too much smoking and drinking - she preferred to think deep voice from his training in theatre.

"The linear views place you on the outside. Linearity is a simple phenomenon. It sees only itself, its own progression and evolution. A line connected to another line to another line. You add the three lines and zoom into the flat triangle viewed from above. It is like a child's drawing on a white piece of paper, no perspective at all, except for your zooming view!"

He explained his vision with fervor, gray blue eyes focused on a spot slightly to the right of her left ear, she was not quite sure. Maybe he was looking at her. Four months of dating, it seemed to her he might be myopic. At least he may have some problems with his vision. Timid, she tried to interrupt, but he kept on talking.

"The view from the inside, or if you wish to call this, the non-linear view - think about this! This view brings you to shapes that have borders, roughly circumscribed by these imaginary lines. Not bound by the lines, they are only circumscribed. You have added precious additional dimensions to your perception. Do you know what I mean?"

Not waiting for an answer, he gestured, widely encompassing the whole room.

"It might be easier if you think of cells dividing - or even before the division of cells - as Liz suggests, consciousness comes from that first single burst of cell division."

She looked across the room. Naked cells were dividing right before her eyes. Relentless, his lovely voice brought her back to the hot simplicity, but he went on.

"Then, there is of course another view, and that is the feel of cornucopia and kaleidoscopes. The lines dissolve entirely and all shapes change. Harvest in triangles, quadrangles move in space, these deep liquid forms acquire meaning. Not just random meanings, rotating in a badly educated child's view of computer geometry. No, depth of connotations, random depth of perception! This is serious. You see, there is a definite flaw in your view of triangles."

He stopped, blue gaze unfocused –

"I'm thirsty; these people here seem so inadequate! Can we go somewhere else, and get something to drink?"


Erica Weick,
revisited in 2013

Ana and the marketplace

In between, all this time, there was the city of Mbale.

And the market place.

The marketplace where Ana searched and found the best Calvin Klein shirts on earth for twenty cents. The best Liz Claiborne, best name this side of the valley. The best dried fish wholesale, best groundnut paste and sesame, best cloth. Dainty white hands touched the greenish silver of antelope home-made from Zambia, a tingling sensation, smooth fingers lingering over merikkani cloth of Zanzibar, maybe the yellow lions of Kenya touched on a coffee cup. Blue eyes delighted in the raised texture of gold trim surrounding cloth of indigo. Protection cloth, she was told, for the young girls who did not know "what to do with themselves". She was told, the best plastic colanders ever made from China. Sculptured airplanes out of tin, oil can into airplane lamp, the best she had seen engineered and thought out so far. Exquisite sense of gadgetry, the tiny, the large, wear ever forever in there for the flow of their lives.

Ritual dos beijinhos

Beijos de papel


As borboletas, aos jardins, aos amigos, aos gatos, aos cachorros, aos passarinhos,
e aos rituais dos beijinhos.

Um beijo, então
Beijinho
Grande, apertado abraço
Beijo beijão por hora
Um super beijo
Um enorme beijo
Beijaço


Beijo com cheiro de saudade
Abraços e mais abraços
Beijos, beijos
Te envio beijos
Saudosos 
Carinhosos
Beijin


C’est ça ma petite, baisers
Bons sonhos mon cher
Saudadinha
Três beijos alternados
Kisses na correria
Bracitos
Pitani bwino


Um beijo divertido pras borboletas
outro pro Rio de Janeiro,
Saudades coloridas
Gracias por tudo
No amor de mais uma lua cheia


Beijocas pra ti


Bacci baccini.



Um poeminha desenhado inteiramente
dos beijos virtuais
de cinco anos
de correios eletrônicos

Dreams

Grandes sonhos pontuam meus pensamentos

no fazer dormir
a inocência
do meu querer.

Fantasmagoric dreams place periods
onto my thoughts
lullabye to sleep
the innocence
of my wants.

Árvores tombadas


Tramas, enrêdos, cenas, capítulos
protagonistas, heróis, vilãos e piratas
podem habitar o espaço branco da página
das árvores tombadas.

Mas não o poema.

O poema precisa pousar breve
respirar leve a sombra delas
pedir perdão pelo pedaço nosso
que arrancou da floresta


se enterrar
no esquecimento do castelo,
na selva da memória.

Fallen trees


Plot, characters, scenes, chapters,
protagonists, heroes, villains and pirates,
can populate the blank page
of dead trees.


But not the poem.


The poem must rest briefly
in their shade
take a breath,
ask forgiveness for the chunk it takes away
from us and from the forest


disappear inside,
the composting jungle of memory.

 
Original & translation by Erica Weick

Amazing Grace

In the forget

life is here

composted
compounded confused
geometric tantric fields of sky
landscape dream cloud
in elephant shape

sliding away (as clouds tend to)
from three generations
of women and many of their men
waltzing to Cohen
and to Lorca


amazing grace light green of spring
swell of pregnant poppies
tight solar plexus
creeping happily
in the forget


dance of summer

here
is wonder in waiting
willing wish


life wanting to stay.


May 2010
Erica Weick as the scribe

Nossa Senhora das Graças
dos esquecimentos
da vida aqui

compostada
complicada confusa
em planos geométricos
tântricos das paisagens do céu
em nuvens de elefantes

deslizando (como só as nuvens sabem)
por três gerações de mulheres
e muitos de seus homens
valsando ao som de Lorca
e de Cohen

Nossa Senhora das Graças
luz clara verde de primavera
das papoulas grávidas
do apêrto na boca do coração

se insinuando
nessa felicidade do esquecer
da dança do verão

aqui
na surprêsa do esperar
do querer saber

da vida querendo ficar

Tradução da autora

Travels through the frontiers

She Meets the Bag Lady
(sans frontieres par excellence)
The bag lady again, inhabitant of no city, dweller of dream

The one dressed in the best of wool,
the shiniest of thrifty shop of Gucci shoes,
you could not tell but for a slight frayed edge,
moth bitten hole this side of sleeve,
in her thrilling dazzling mocca green castor scarf and skirt,
between you and I and her and Liz,

she the best in dress,
albeit the shine of shoe be made of spit,
this lady of color and of coordination,
with many wrinkles to her smile and to her face,
many wrinkles to her thighs and to her belly,
this hallucinatory woman of many wrinkles

sets her mind to go to Paris,
sets her will to go on and find Alice,
that same Alice,
who with much malice interfered in her love,
way back way when.

So this my lady of fifty, of sixty, of seventy,

lined incised
slight trembling fingers
sets a light to this one last rag,
soaked in virgin olive, pure will not do,
sets a light in the tin garbage can
on fire and warms her hands.

this bag lady of eighty,

and on she goes to catch a bus,
on her way to find a way to go to Paris,
to see the tower, to sip the wine, to touch the statue,
to fall in love and to find the malice.

Last I saw her, the bag lady,
she was singing songs inside a barge,
inside a bus,
impeccable as always,

this bag lady

that likes to be fed on grapes.

________________________
beneath the lines
written here in Belo Horizonte, during a visit, a few years ago.  The bag lady was an elderly American woman, a creature of dream, travelling the world with a smile and a bunch of sturdy shopping bags. I met her at the bus station and we chatted briefly.
My poem appears in Dead Sleeping Shamans, by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli, May 2010.

Dialogues seem tired

There is very little dialogue left in the world. Dialogues seem tired.
So I return to my monologues, in my search for this house in the interior.

Beyond Ganga Devi, Indian folk artist of the Mithila tradition and her incredible story (I am still searching for pictures of her latest work, when she abandons the formalities of the tantric geometric traditions of godly symbolisms and paints stark scenes in the hospital where she dies in 1991, of cancer, at 63.)

Beyond Ganga Devi, I cannot stop reading this guy’s blog, Will, he says, is thirty two, a Gemini and he knows books. He quotes with a firm hand and if one reads it carefully, one begins to imagine we all live in the world of fantasy.

Today in his blog I found mention to a children’s book co-authored by Brecht – “Die drei soldatten”, published in 1931.
Provoking children to ask questions: Why me and who ate the rainbows?

See the end of this post to get to the rainbow bit.

In a mixture of quotes from various sources and original text, he tells us about Brecht’s poem “Die Drei Soldatten” – Hunger, Mishap, and Consumption. Very much worth a visit because it reminds me of today, in our world.

In the end of the poem, 
"With the death of God, the invisible becomes visible again. The class war is revealed.”

Back to dialogue I say, if you decide to go to Will’s site, do scroll down to the end of that post to find out about Who Ate the Rainbow? in yet nother book:

"When Uh-oh the rainbow is cut in half by a kite string, it is eaten by a big fish, which is in turn eaten by a duck, which lays a rainbow egg. The snake eats the egg and acquires rainbow colors. When it touches a withered tree, the tree is immediately restored to life and even bears rainbow fruit.


Uh-oh...”

PLAYING WITH THE BUTTERFLIES OF PASSARADA

The Myth

From Collages

The Papago, native North Americans tell us in a legend that once upon a time, the Creator felt sorry for the children, when he realized that their destiny was to grow old, fat, blind and to die. So he collected the fountains for the most beautiful colors of the universe, the flowers, the leaves, the sun, the skies and mixed and bundled them up in a package as a gift for the children. When they opened up the bundle, the butterflies, colorful and enchanting flew out in song, much to the delight of the children. And fright by the song birds, who jealous, protested and petionned the Creator.

And there we have it, we got what we got.

http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/HowTheButterfliesCameToBe-Papago.html

The Naming Game

Butterflies are classified as insects in the order of the Lepidopters –from the Latin lepidor - scales and ptera – wings. Fossil finds, although rare, suggest they emerged in tandem with the flowers (Angiosperms), during the Cretacious period, about 135 million years ago… million years ago.

Taxonomy, or the naming game can be fun, if you take it with a grain of salt.  Edward Abbey comes to mind in Desert Solitaire when he cries:

” why name them? Vanity, vanity, nothing but vanity: the itch for naming things is almost as bad as the itch for possessing things.”

http://ag.arizona.edu/OALS/ALN/aln35/Abbey.html

But what a joy when, only yesterday, I found out that my two sided fruit eater was named Hamadryas amphinome or Red crack (estaladeira vermelha) and that she belonged to a family.
Here is a list of all named butterflies seen during my stay at the Passarada farm. In order, common names, scientific name, taxonomic family and notes.

The nameless ones will follow soon.