The Sidhe Have Visited My Room Again

I was inspired by watching a documentary about the poet Gary Snyder at tonight's San Francisco Film Festival to return to my poetic roots and post a poem instead of prose.





(Originally published as "The Visit" in So To Speak, George Mason University, Winter/Spring, 2002)



The Sidhe have visited

my room again, moved the pieces

of furniture, left footprints

all along my floor and walls.

Petals from a strange and sudden

flower still float on the water

in my sink of dirty dishes.

It is morning and I

press my face against the air

trying to see in. The room is quiet.







My great-grandmother was small

and dark, and nobody knows

where she came from. Learn

from me, she says in her night voice

the web of moon cast

upon the earth. Feel it

trembling in your fingers

like a fisherwoman's net, and pull

the silver fish upon the shore.

They are heavy,but they are all

yours, every one of them speaking

an undiscovered language.



There is singing, the Sidhe said

brushing their lips against my ears.

It is all

Around There is a symphony

of wild sound beneath the surface.

Unmeasured and chaotic, the river

is always longer and wider than

you thought, and the bridge is never

where you expect it to be.



The Sidhe have come and gone.

They have rearranged the night

taken off my skin

and folded the difference

into my bones.







My great-grandmother lays the fish upon the sand

the ones with torn bellies and gaping mouths

the ones with knowing eyes

the ones already turning into flowers

She moves her tongue behind her teeth

and names them, one by one.





It is morning, and I am full

of forgetting. I drain the water

from the sink and begin to wash

the dishes. A single petal clings

to white porcelain. I leave it.

The rushing water sings. And I

in my waking slumber hum

the dim memory of an aching

distant music.



The ocean breaks.

My great-grandmother with her muscled arms

pulls, and hauls the net upon the shore.

Silver scales still luminous in dark waters.

Learn to cast the web of moon upon the sea.

And bring the fishes home, she says.

They are all yours.



---Lisa Gale Garrigues





Image: "Sidhe Queen" by Angie Bowen.

Maybe

Horses in the Andes 1
Originally uploaded by ojodorado

Maybe. A Chinese story about a philosophic farmer.

(This story courtesy Garsett Larosse)

One day, the farmer's horse ran away, and all the neighbors gathered in the evening and exclaimed ‘that’s a shame!’
He said ‘maybe.’
Next day, the horse came back and brought with it seven wild horses.
‘Wow!’ they said, ‘Aren’t you lucky!’
He said ‘maybe.’
The next day, his son grappled with one of these wild horses and tried to break it in, and he got thrown and broke his leg. And all the neighbors said ‘oh, that’s too bad that your son broke his leg.’
He said, ‘maybe.’
The next day, the conscription officers came around, gathering young men for the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. And the visitors all came around and said ‘Isn’t that great! Your son got out.’
He said, ‘maybe.’

Baby Come Back

Baby Come Back
Originally uploaded by ojodorado

Baby Come Back

Vuelvete, Amor.

She's been on a one-way rush to acquire more and more things in order to try and cover her nudity. But, as you can see, she's a statue, stuck in mid-leap for many years. Now, as the stores she's been rushing to shop in are all closing, and her money to spend has disappeared, he calls her back. Come back, my love, he says. We have nothing now. Only ourselves, our nakedness, and our love for each other.

This is a fairy tale, of course. But, like all fairy tales, it is a parallel universe that breathes beside us all the time, almost close enough to touch.

Ella ha pasado muchos anos corriendo y corriendo para adquerir cada vez mas cosas para ocultar su desnudez. Pero, como ya ves, ahora es una estatua, atrapada en el salto imposible desde hace muchos anos. Ahora, las tiendas donde ella suele hacer su shopping se van cada una cerrandose, y el dinero para comprar cosas se desaparce. Entonces el le llama a ella: Ven mi amor, dice, vuelvete. Ahora no tenemos nada. Solo tenemos a nosotros mismos, a nuestra desnudez, a nuestro amor.

Esta historia, por supuesto, es un cuento de hadas, Pero como todas los cuentos de hadas, toma lugar en un universo paralelo que suspira a nuestro lado todo el tiempo, casi tan cerca como para tocarlo.


(photo: Detail, sculpture, Nashville, Tennessee.)

Hat Story

It's the low season now in Cusco, very quiet, very few tourists, days of rain and tranquility.
My favorite time to be here, though the locals hate it because their income takes a steep dive.

A few months back, during the high season, I made a face and mentioned to a street vendor friend in San Blas that there were far too many tourists in Cusco. Of course, I want to be the only one.

My friend, a Q'ero who sells chunllos, or Andean woven caps, shook his head sadly at my ignorance. He took one of his woven caps and pointed out its elaborate multi-colored texture. "See this hat," he said. "This hat needs all of its colors to be what it is, and all of the colors need each other. "

Well, shut my mouth, I thought.

Besides, without the entire hat, full of its colors and complexity, your head would get pretty damned cold.