Poetic Interlude

The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart

I do not mean the symbol
of love, a candy shape
to decorate cakes with,
the heart that is supposed
to belong or break;

I mean this lump of muscle
that contracts like a flayed biceps,
purple-blue, with its skin of suet,
its skin of gristle, this isolate,
this caved hermit, unshelled
turtle, this one lungful of blood,
no happy plateful.

All hearts float in their own
deep oceans of no light,
wetblack and glimmering,
their four months gulping like fish.
Hearts are said to pound:
this is to be expected, the heart's
regular struggle against being drowned.

But most hearts say, I want, I want,
I want, I want. My heart
is more duplicitous,
though to twin as I once thought.
It says, I want, I don't want, I
want, and then a pause.
It forces me to listen,

and at night it is the infra-red
third eye that remains open
while the other two are sleeping
but refuses to say what it has seen.

It is a constant pestering
in my ears, a caught moth, limping drum,
a child's fist beating
itself against the bedsprings:
I want, I don't want.
How can one live with such a heart?

Long ago I gave up singing
to it, it will never be satisfied or lulled.
One night I will say to it:
Heart, be still,
and it will.

-Margaret Atwood

Five Minutes

Here's a touch of writing before I crash for a nap and then go on to a bit more work, just so y'all remember that I'm alive.

Life is pretty intense at the moment, because although the overall amount of stuff in it has decreased a bit, I'm settling into a more mellow state very quickly. I'm beginning to do things like going more-or-less home every night to be sure I get enough sleep-- this is something I haven't done for awhile.

Shambhala was a little disappointing dance-wise-- it was full of bleach-blonde people from Alberta who were enthralled by my breasts. I'm reminded that I live in a bubble of people who are exceptional in many ways. Next trip will be up to Kelowna to visit the boys at the vinyard, and will not involve random people I don't know, at least not 8000 of them. The camping was really nice, the company at our campsite was lovely, and so I'm not really regretful.

My ratties are all alive and happy, though Helen is a little sneezy and it worries me. I'm glad they're here. I missed them quite a bit.

My brother's moved out on his own for the first time, he's the first of them to do so. I'm proud of him. Need to make time to help him clean his new place.

I'm working a lot for the next two weeks, but that doesn't really bother me. Given that I'm trying to keep my extracurricular activities low, it feels much less overwhelming than a heavy workload did, say, before Shambhala or the folk fest.

I keep getting dehydration headaches today, or maybe I'm just tired. Either way, I need to go nap.

I do seem to have vanished into the woodwork, I know. I'll be back out when things settle, perhaps, but I think there'll be less of me around than there was for awhile there.

Be well.

Wik?

Couldja email me your current phone #? dryadess yadda yadda gmail. For some reason I feel like I should have it.