Dear Writer,

I am cautious in my salutation. For as of late (and as you rightly point out) you have not given much time to me through the art of writing.

This is not to say that you have given up on me–on words per se; I do hear you in the sweet breath of the spoken word. And I do find you in the symbols, the pasted ideas, some thought of by you, some thought of by others, all strung together in non-linear formation, appearing in everything that you do.

But no, I cannot touch you this way.  I am not able to look back into your eyes and challenge you to reconstruct, refine, and unravel together more mature forms of utterance. I am prepared to re-engage with you but only if you are truly serious about committing to me and this articulation of us. Black on white in any font.

Just for a time consider that to write, you must return to your cave, create some privacy for us to articulate freely and authentically. I do not fault you for almost giving up on us; I too find it stifling when there is a fly-on-the-wall looking over what we (do or do not) produce together; the relentless buzzing of judgement is enough to drive anyone mad.

Let us find a place together where we no longer hear any buzzing. Tell no one where we are going and I will find you in that place. I will find you on the road home.

Until then and forever your,

Words

P.S. If you begin to lose your way, let Wallace Stevens’s words help point you back in our direction.

On the Road Home

It was when I said,
“There is no such thing as the truth,”
That the grapes seemed fatter.
The fox ran out of his hole.

You . . . You said
“There are many truths,
But they are not parts of a truth.”
Then the tree, at night, began to change,

Smoking through green and smoking blue.
We were two figures in a wood.
We said we stood alone.

It was when I said,
“Words are not forms of a single word.
In the sum of the parts, there are only the parts.
The world must be measured by eye”;

It was when you said,
“The idols have seen lots of poverty,
Snakes and gold and lice,
But not the truth”;

It was at that time, that the silence was largest
And longest, the night was roundest,
The fragrance of the autumn warmest,
Closest and strongest.

Once upon a time, we were a team. You, constantly pushing me with all your clarity, and boldness and honesty. You did cause me pain, a lot and often. But you made me grin mischievously, when I re-read you – even laugh out loud at times. Oh, beloved words, the profundity of what we shared together, in any format, in any font.

I suppose I lost my confidence the moment I lost my authenticity. It was all downhill from there and now I am shy around you. I feel I’ve let you down.

Perhaps you are also afraid of me. Afraid of what might emerge from the page. I know you want to maintain your integrity and I want this for you too. I want to be us again, to rebuild trust between us.

How I long for you to wake me in the middle of the night the way you used to. How easy it was then, when you ravaged me out of my slumber in the middle of the night. The love we would make, drenched in ink, paper spread like a warm quilt all over my desk.  My desk. Our sacred space; how we found ourselves locked in a gaze of pure love, no matter how brief our encounter.

But that was then. Please, I need to see you again. I need to read you over and over. I need to quench my thirst with metaphor. For us to tease each other in rhyme. I feel ravenous. Come back to me.  Articulate me. Let’s start again.

Love, Niki

Sculpture by Georgiana Anstruther

i am no longer afraid
not of beasts
nor the wild.
somewhere between Earth and
Heaven, i unfurled
my armour of feathered wings
to stand naked,
upright.
i will now inhale
the wind
and the winter.

nor the woodland nor the trust

the wild dance among the oak

a force of light with sweet kinfolk

oh how we spun

dizzy in the sun

forward and back

bodies slightly out of whack

pleading with the bramble

in new acquaintance and great counsel

i surrendered upon a bed of ferns

and now my heart forever yearns

to weave inside a dragons nest

and honour heavens in my quest

with knobbly knees and twisted limbs

embedded in some ancient hymns

i am the wood, i am the oak

i am at one with new kinfolk

bring back the rains

let Kaveri flow

i first read the poem at the age of 13 and it broke my heart to imagine all the people–the anonymous, nameless, “Anyones”–who make up our community but live their lives unnoticed. i was uncomfortable with the suggestion that seasons change but our consciousness stays much the same. the possibility that children (once wise) grow up none the wiser. and that the cycle repeats over and over. i didn’t want to live in a banal world filled with carless Someones and Everyones.

but there is more to this poem. while certainly a reflection of much our daily ongoings, it’s beauty lies in the stanzas that follow, in the individual love that No-one has for Any-one; when Anyone dies one day, it is Noone who stoops to kiss his face.

despite the disregard of the town (larger society, the state, the government) Anyone managed to thrive in life through the individual love and compassion shown by another nameless, anonymous member of society, her name: Noone.

days before the Glenfell Fire, Philomena came to me with her eyes filled with tears and said, “I don’t understand why everything is normal again, why life goes on as normal, how people die but after a short while, we aren’t meant to be sad about it anymore… the terrorist-thing that happened in Manchester well it’s as if it didn’t happen since we watched the Manchester LOVE concert. and then Borough Market happened and that now seems to be over too. but in reality it isn’t over, i’m not over it, any of it.”

in the days after the Glenfell Fire, however, Philomena said to me, “at least this isn’t like the terrorism thing or when someone gets cancer, when you can’t help death from happening. at least we can prevent a fire like this from ever happening again.”

let’s hope we can. and in the meantime, i send my blessings out to all the Noones who have opened their hearts and reached out their hands to comfort the Anyones–all those who are striving to make this place a pretty LOVED town.  

in memory of those who have lost their homes:

Based on his best selling book ’The Master and his Emissary’ this is the question that leading neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist explores in a challenging and controversial new FILM.

In the Quechua belief, the Andean Bear is a mediator between the upper world (the gods) and the inferior world (human); it provides a sense of direction, a passage from one era to the another, it maintains order when chaos emerges.

-Cormac McCarthy 

https://m.nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/the-kekul-problem