Even as a child
I knew I could possess nothing
so I renounced everything
but childhood itself.
And as a child
I knew knowledge
could not be enough,
that only a homing instinct
would be much use after all.
So abundant
are the moments of truth
diamond drops
cupped in the uncountable
small green hands of morning—
even now I do not wish
to turn back from love.
Knowing I will forget
again and again
how to laugh
and how to cry
and what you mean to me,
and knowing
that each moment of love
finally presses its body
in wet fallen fragrant petals
against the stone to dry
I must welcome strangers
and imperfections.
I have seen hope
like spring return
again and again
and the sleek and shiny
lights of rain
dancing everywhere.
Even now
it is wise to trust.
asha
Augury for the Child
After Death
As moon hidden by morning
as water enters earth
as the blossom’s beauty quivers
falling from the fruit within
as night embraces effaces erases light
and light
being diminished or absent
speaks only in dream
I went to the river saying,
River,
here are my voices.
Return them to the sea.
After death—
I entered River’s mind
and River’s song
which fills the twilight
replaced the sun.
After death—
seeing through River’s eye
knowing night by many names
I journeyed far to reach and kiss
the pulse of earth and sea.
Returning—
new mind
a spring rain
slowly descending black bark trees.
Returning—
young among the old
new moon asleep on the sea.
Returning—
I moor my ship
upon the wind’s voice.
asha
Music Theory
for John Chance
In the beginning was Theory and the Theory was made flesh
so that we could find our way home. I walk slowly
through the points of rain.
In the beginning was sound and it was everything, against all odds.
“Never was there a time you and I did not exist, Arjuna.”
I am a ball of wings rolling toward you. Theory become flesh.
The music is in the gaps.
I enter the lobby. "I've come to see my uncle," I say.
"Where will you be waiting?" says the lady in the glass cage.
"The waiting room", I reply. She will not meet my eye.
I am announced through seven miles of hallways.
He appears, hollow and weary on his cane.
It is not a walking stick to navigate the world of the living.
It is a handrail to the grave.
He is an unanswered question. We step out into the mist and stop.
I watch him openly, as one watches a child, the insane, or the dead.
“Listen to the trees,” he says, rolling his eyes up and back.
“It is good to be alive; to share a little company now and then.”
asha
Blue Period
I painted a moon to look at
and gave it a wild sky to rule
then sat down and listened
to the night blooming flowers open
rhythm upon rhythm
I painted a blackness to sleep in
and forgot myself
among the
disinterested
layers of easy paint
I painted an empty room for clouds to fly over
I painted a silence and fell to dreaming . . .
asha
Torn Page
What do I begin with this ongoing
omni-directional conversation of ours,
these fever dreams where meaning
evaporates just as everything is about
to make sense? So many doors but—
turn back and the hall becomes a maze.
Going forward solves nothing.
I begin again where I fail to be.
The fever breaks. I am in a strange room.
I am no longer afraid. The white sheet,
which is the wind, caresses me naked.
Fire cools me. Everything is in reverse
and unraveling. Finally, I can breathe.
A hummingbird flits through my rib cage,
pauses on my sternum. I have no sugar.
I know the passing hours by their colors
and sounds, and I with them—
an ancient tooth in the tide, visible—then gone.
asha
Confessional
Come my dear deformed ones
who live after the fire,
my darlings blistered and raw,
whose eyelids have burnt off,
who sleep with open eyes.
Come you jackals of pain.
But there is a screen between us,
the confessional screen.
I can barely see you in the gloom.
A spider is caught in my side, a fly in yours.
I grab the mesh with my six legs and squint in.
You are dressed in black, sweating.
I lick the wire to taste your salt.
I hand you a tiny drum, ask you to accompany me
as I confess. You weep.
I hand you a violin, ask you to play for me.
My dreams walk behind me with hollow footsteps.
There are so many echoes I cannot sleep.
You are reading a magazine.
You hand me a gun so I can shoot myself.
I watch your booth fill with water.
You are circling mindlessly in the middle of it,
awaiting my confession—but the land is miles off.
No matter how loud I shout, you can't hear me.
You press your eyes against the screen so hard
their jelly oozes in through the openings.
A thousand images hatch in the dim space,
writhing over one another. Some live. Some die.
Your eyes have a fiendish fervor.
You hand me a clock that runs backwards.
You give me an hour.
AN HOUR!
Already the clock is disappearing in my hands,
images clogging its gears—legs, feelers, screams.
It’s a horrible sight.
You stand up.
Vanish.
Then call back,
"Sing the Alleluia Chorus three times.
Bathe in blood. Give your teeth to the poor".
asha .
New Madhuban
For Gajendra — West Virginia
this forest,
planted for a loaf of bread
and a dollar a day,
is a solemn place
the hill
it has taken possession of
drops sharply
to a holler
too steep for pasture
a place where small skeletons
slowly turn to stone
this is a good place to be alone
the sun seldom finds entry to this grove
is a stranger here
off his path
its probing beams
only deepen the darkness
and threaten to ignite the brittle trees
one may only be here . . . carefully
this forest has no need of company
birds know it
they do not nest
or sing
here
there is no undergrowth
nothing pierces the needle mat
but the pines themselves who
have shed their lower branches
becoming heartless
pitch-steeped trunks
with shattered limbs
that offer no place to rest—
who comes here must stand alone
who comes here to dream—
must dream
indifferent as the dead.
asha
Reconstruction
One word, one sentence at a time I will reconstruct the story.
I've done it before. One world, one sentence at a time I will
reconstruct the story. Forgive me. The original order has been
lost amid a countless succession of beginnings. I rely on you
to restore the details. One word, one sentence at a time I will
reconstruct the story. Forgive me. The original has been lost
but I promise to stay true to its drift. One word, one world
at a time. Forgive me. The original version of this story does
not exist. One world, one sentence per time, this is the drift.
The notes are scattered. No. Not scattered. The notes—hastily
jotted down, scribbled on scraps, scrawled in notebooks, penciled
on flaps, saved in a succession of files—are lost. They were
seldom read. They were never read at all. They cannot be collected.
The words, disjointed, were set down and abandon. No. Not abandon.
It is a story in threads and tatters—images, ideas, phrases, paragraphs,
the disembodied alphabet reverberating, returning haunted—
but I digress.
asha
Dead Reckoning
For Joe
WINTER
In the evening we
carry down our dead
they leave our hands willingly
above
Dog Star watches
cold, white
as on ancient evenings,
Dog Star—
bringer of rain.
SPRING
Listen to the grass
leaning
soft green
through the fence
singing.
Listen to the green
crawling
slowly
away from the yard
where the bones lie—
under their feet,
under the dandelion's,
the yellow dandelion's feet—
listening.
SUMMER
Sometimes we take
our measure from the dead
as from a stone that
sits unchanged
amid the changing seasons
like a departed shore
the dead mark
how far we’ve come
through mystery
and how far
we’ve yet to go.
FALL
—Solve et coagula
The small things go first
over the blue salt
edge of the world
followed by a
deconstruction
of their tracks
by the wind
that covers
and uncovers
the same finger bone
my own
where it fell
in confusion
trembling
at the slow moving
wheel
of the desert's rim.
asha
La Tormenta
Yucatán Peninsula
for Lee
for Lee
This is how the world was
lightning on the rim
and a small boat
moving away forever
lantern swinging
over a veiled sea.
We had the world to ourselves.
I was the veils,
You were the boat.
You were the lantern.
I was the swinging.
You were the lightening.
I was the waves,
You were the sea.
I was forever.
We were the horizon.
You were moving away.
We were the storm.
asha
Border Crossing
... excerpt from Obra Inconcluso — Mexico
Leaving my language behind, I enter the labyrinth. Its streets are narrow and old and crowded with small fruit-colored buildings made of mud and stone. Here dogs speak in tongues and saints make deals with passers-by. I am greeted by a cockroach who kindly explains their price, plastic flowers and bottled flame. I see within the wicker shadows of their tiny huts how each saint stands stoic and faithful before their candles and the litter of past offerings; blackened, shattered glass and dusty clods of petals and wax but, at the hour the church bells ring, they wince in their solitude. I ask the cockroach if anyone else is in the business. The dogs, she answers, adding that I best consider carefully before choosing among them. Before I can ask more she scuttles off, disappearing into the crack of a flame red wall.
asha
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