HIGH MAINTENANCE

 

 

  

 

High Maintenance for the New Year

Ah, but all is not well with me.  The tall corn is now fallen and yellow. The grasses have lost their copper sheen.

In spite of my desire to ignore the brisk unforgiving coolness of the breezes, hibiscus have gone dormant.  Shameless pitiful sticks, my eyes retain mere glimpses of their former daily glory.  Showy flowers that bloom and fade so soon, not at all suited for lasting arrangements, and so, perfect reminders of something ephemeral,

something I seek.

Still around the marigolds.  From the distance they splash low sunlight on to the light greens of winter lettuce, the darker shades of perpetual spinaches. Tall sunlight still filters through the yellow blooms, the artichokes from Jerusalem. This year for sure, I will eat them. When all else is dead outside, when the compost piles no longer smoke,

when all is quiet and snowy and gray,

I will dig those long brown gnarly roots. I will cook them with garlic and onions. I will eat them, the artichokes, this year.

But all is not well.

As I wonder if the mulch cover will protect the hopes for the perennials in the garden.  The strawberries, did I choke them on purpose?

Did I do enough for them, did I weed enough, did I nurture them enough? 
The pear trees, did the deer kill them?
The green caterpillars, will I kill them?

No, not all is that well. 

As winter, one more time, takes away my light, my lifeline and I must understand the stillness of the underground.

A memory stretches and sends probing tendrils to find a resonance in the cold, the dark.

Finds nothing.
There is no lesson there, not yet.
My trade is still with the business of life.
I have not learned of death.

A partial vision of a revelation bounces against the walls inside my heart.  Ripples under my skin, where rivers flow in vein currents and countercurrents. A possible meaning forms:

"Maintenance!"

If only I could give up maintenance. If only I could adopt the most precious tenet of mainstream culture.

"Abandon maintenance and embrace obsolescence."

Maybe then, I can understand and integrate my descent into the depths of monochromatic coldness. 

Maybe then I can envision a garden of deserted cars,

yellow stained broken sinks, glass less windows, boats,
refrigerators with no doors,
old fashioned brass hospital beds, green with moss,
rusted iron, stoves abandoned, smothered by weeds,
exposed to the wind and the furies.

Fallen oaks, empty bottles, tin cans. 

Dead carcasses of birds, putrefied, their feathers flown,
eyes sunken inward for lack of juice.
Pokeweed structures, fractal and dangerous in their winter decay.
Enzymatic buried seeds.

Abandon maintenance.

Give up perpetuity in her entirety, the cultivation of plants, attempts to prolong, to protect and to nurture.  

Allow weeds to invade and choose their place. 
Allow lettuces, tomatoes, poison ivy to invade and choose their place. 
Allow all seeds to germinate or not to germinate.

Give up matter, and all the implications of matter,

material, motherly. 

Give up the control that stems from Matter. 

Embrace rust, rot and decay. 

Go down inside the tunnels.

Give a thought to the underground, to the underworld.
Not a kind nurturing thought.
Just a clear, precise, cold, crisp as winter thought
to the circular porosity of volcanic rock,
the diamond cubic density of sand,
steady decay of seed,
deep reddish brown powder of rust and of rot

of all materials.

Celebrate then, in quiet ritual, this inferno.

 

Erica Marianna Weick

October 14, 2000/December 31, 2013

 

IMPULSO DO IMAGINARIO/ IMAGINARY PULSE

Quando o impulso do Imaginário

toma fôlego

dentre as linhas se refugia
e sacode o tempo

as Atrações sussuram seus nomes
no carinho do espaço refugiado

e viram Voz

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…

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