susan smith nash
Brick
by brick, strip by strip of filigreed tin,
we
built the house we would substitute for Self --
5
miles from the border between existence & infinite void.
It
is where trees scrape the sky
like
the edge of a medieval map of a Flat Earth, and we see
ships
sailing into the vast & unknowable place some call Imagination
but
I call Love,
as
I reach for you, searching for you
in
my dark and painful fevered night.
We
are no longer the subject of our own dreams;
you
were in a ship that fell off the edge of the earth.
I
was anchored on Terra Firma,
learning
the language of deracination
like
a child sent to a convent after surviving plague --
christened
into a new family of "sisters" and "mothers,"
ordered
to forget the void where I once possessed a name.
We
planted a garden next to our little home --
cucumbers,
tomatoes, lemon trees and tea.
We
pickled pears and apples
in
the shade overlooking the sea.
From
a distance, our window panes were calligraphy
spelling
the universal presence of God.
In
the mornings, you would hand me a glass of juice
pressed
by your own dear sweet hands,
and
I would drink, as though my entrance to the Infinite
could
be represented through the act of swallowing.
I
wanted to sail with you into the map itself.
Terra
Incognita could mean Unknown Earth,
or
it could mean the places my mind travels at night
searching
for you when my fever spikes high
and
the demons you kept at bay
crawl
into my joints and tear the fibers from my heart.
I'm
direct, and some say this cannot be poetry.
But
time is short, we must engineer our categories.
If
a text is multiple, it is either philosophy or poetry;
if
the image connects the concept to the heart,
it
is poetry and simply that.
But
when the poem makes me aware we must be together or die,
when
it breathes and becomes my reason to fight,
then
"fight" means "dream with sadness"
and
the "You" becomes my concept of Universal Love.
Unity
is more than an integrated psyche.
It
is the comfort, the mental structure we require to endure our lives.
I must
be direct. Tomorrow we may die.
We
built our little house with bricks and filigreed tin,
knowing
our actions foreshadowed loss;
our
windows overlooked our lush little garden
next
to the ocean bordering the edge of the earth.
The
ship took you away from me
the
moment I spoke the other's language;
the
map that had once squared us in the center
now
slips us to oblivion.
But
when I open that window we placed in its case together,
I
breathe lemon trees and roses.
I
remember you
yesterday,
handing me a glass of juice
the
color of life, the work of your hands
still
present in every drop I drank,
sweet
but thick with the dense salt brine of tears
foreshadowing
the moment
I
would cry your name beyond our gentle sleep
and
into my dark and fevered night.
We cannot live if half our
body is void.
(4
march 2000)