[I just read this poem and was astonished. Linda gave me permission to share it out as one of my Notes. The images are visceral and leaped off the page for me. The understated sentiment is the more powerful because it is subtle. Enjoy...or if "enjoy" is the wrong word...experience.]
Untitled
Pain is essentially peculiar
enough of it and you start to think
well, here’s reality
the rest is a dream
it bellows from the crib
but by the time you’re a kid
and skinned your knee
anesthesia is air.
Frail bald kids know
the devil sends morphine
to keep our veil of tears unseen,
and our ancestors
who hadn’t time or Novocain
still could have, if they’d wanted
bent spoons with their brains.
Back then the status quo
as consumptive breath explains
was dubious comfort
and truthful woe,
so when loved ones
especially children died
their hair was kept and swirled
into pressed glass charms
to pin on blouse and shawl
as paint to brush
tendrils drew a mournful scrawl--
portraits, landscapes
twisted braid broaches
necklace weaves of beads and tresses
not homage to pain
more, portable gain.
Souls must be stomped into flesh
for the right fit
bar-belled in with weights of
intractable air
pressed down like leaded glass
on locks
of a departed child’s silken hair.
Copyright 2010, Linda Moody Chromick
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Sunday, June 27, 2010
framing
I thought of how it might work...
CUT! Get rid of 'I thought.' Sublimate it, man. Go deeper. Create.
It would take a round table of marble
to hold in the coolness that we'd require,
and a leafy arbor latticed high above us
to screen compulsions from moonbeams.
CUT! That's better but not good enough. Keep the damn moon out of this. Again!
In the fractal groove between dark spheres,
those curving shapes that could not touch...
Yes! Now you're on to something. It's got geometry. Take it to a Cubist vibe. Keep going...
In the fractal groove between dark spheres,
those curving shapes that could not touch,
where the tension builds to arc shy volts
like Hermes sparking message trails...
in that quiet, oblique angle where spirits
might speak in signs of gestured knowing...
we will murder time and pillage space,
and laugh at gods who trouble dreams...
we'll linger on that canvas texture,
linger between lines like music,
as colors ring their drunken bells
or drip like sullen Spanish vistas
turning into cubes of structure.
It's not surreal or too abstract,
it's only what two artists paint,
in tandem even without seeing,
almost brushing into night.
Proportion is compelled to be,
balance sets the stars in place.
If we should never as two spheres
almost touch, the world would fail.
That'll work.
CUT! Get rid of 'I thought.' Sublimate it, man. Go deeper. Create.
It would take a round table of marble
to hold in the coolness that we'd require,
and a leafy arbor latticed high above us
to screen compulsions from moonbeams.
CUT! That's better but not good enough. Keep the damn moon out of this. Again!
In the fractal groove between dark spheres,
those curving shapes that could not touch...
Yes! Now you're on to something. It's got geometry. Take it to a Cubist vibe. Keep going...
In the fractal groove between dark spheres,
those curving shapes that could not touch,
where the tension builds to arc shy volts
like Hermes sparking message trails...
in that quiet, oblique angle where spirits
might speak in signs of gestured knowing...
we will murder time and pillage space,
and laugh at gods who trouble dreams...
we'll linger on that canvas texture,
linger between lines like music,
as colors ring their drunken bells
or drip like sullen Spanish vistas
turning into cubes of structure.
It's not surreal or too abstract,
it's only what two artists paint,
in tandem even without seeing,
almost brushing into night.
Proportion is compelled to be,
balance sets the stars in place.
If we should never as two spheres
almost touch, the world would fail.
That'll work.
I won't name this person...
...because I'm afraid it might embarrass her.
When I get a thought-emotion bouncing in my head, I can't make it behave until I write it down. So I'm writing it down now.
My friend is related to a friend who is related to me via the zodiac. It's like fate formed a maze of leaves, with this unnamed person staring at me quixotically from behind that screen. I had no idea what I was in for: friendship with someone deep like Schopenhauer, subtle as the Moon floating in purple night, generous as the wounded heart of Empathy.
She writes poems, and those poems move with a profound richness. Language befriends certain souls. It knows it will be well-treated in certain hands. The depth of her writing clues me into something else: the infinity of her mind. Yeah...that sounds way over the top.
What I'm trying to say is that she is a reservoir without seeming end from which the parched might drink. She's the kind of person I could talk to for a long time. She would not only track my eccentric musings but would leaven them with a kinship of impressions and perspectives.
I haven't talked to her. But some things one can be confident about. And maybe it's better this way. That infinite reservoir shimmers as a daydream. And daydreams allow one to expand into. To keep the magic teeming in this world of alarm and sadness.
When I get a thought-emotion bouncing in my head, I can't make it behave until I write it down. So I'm writing it down now.
My friend is related to a friend who is related to me via the zodiac. It's like fate formed a maze of leaves, with this unnamed person staring at me quixotically from behind that screen. I had no idea what I was in for: friendship with someone deep like Schopenhauer, subtle as the Moon floating in purple night, generous as the wounded heart of Empathy.
She writes poems, and those poems move with a profound richness. Language befriends certain souls. It knows it will be well-treated in certain hands. The depth of her writing clues me into something else: the infinity of her mind. Yeah...that sounds way over the top.
What I'm trying to say is that she is a reservoir without seeming end from which the parched might drink. She's the kind of person I could talk to for a long time. She would not only track my eccentric musings but would leaven them with a kinship of impressions and perspectives.
I haven't talked to her. But some things one can be confident about. And maybe it's better this way. That infinite reservoir shimmers as a daydream. And daydreams allow one to expand into. To keep the magic teeming in this world of alarm and sadness.
Kris Saknussemm's prose: “IT'S ALIVE!”
I was thinking about something this morning. Not sure if it's worth a paragraph or a few. When I ramble, you never can tell what it'll stack up to for anyone else.
One can read many swell writers on various topics. Their writing is clear, and it communicates. Whatever argument, opinion, or impression they wish to convey, the reader's time is not wasted nor his mind injured. But...even such writers, during their opening sentences, make the reader take a deep breath. It's like, “This could be interesting, so I'll trudge ahead through this clear, poised, informative prose." Maybe after a paragraph or so, you'll forget that the writing is on life-support – the topic itself has taken precedence over its exposition. But...*yawn*.
Then there is Kris Saknussemm. With the first sentence, you experience the rich air of life underneath the words, making them buoyant. Normality gets a cold splash in the face. There will be prose.
How come? Maybe it's owing to his rich personal experience. But I don't think that necessarily animates a writers output. I think it rather has to do with being fully awake. Being awake means always looking over your shoulder at your own self. It's about operating from a perspective of hyper-irony. You know you're partly nuts, so you recognize the implicit nuttiness of the whole world. You draw life from that bizarre bazaar.
Kris writes sentences that won't sit behaved on the page. They spiral up into reading eyeballs and get sucked into hippocampuses. The reader's brain gets soul-whacked, and it's like having one's spiritual adrenaline activated. This is writing that brims over with life. Concepts don't unfold. They sit up amazed like Frankenstein's creature after a lightning bath. People described aren't content to be formally clothed in self-conscious words. They want to be dressed in feathers and flourescent robes. They want to stand out and breathe on the page. So they love it when Kris wraps them in visceral words. They nod approvingly when they find themselves in sentences wrought from empathy, sympathy, and perpetual amaze.
If Kris decided to write an essay on the relationship of Heidegger to the accumulation of library dust, you would never look at philosophers or drifting motes in the same way again.
Kris's Facebook
Kris's Facebook Author Page
Kris's MySpace
Kris's PRIVATE MIDNIGHT novel page
One can read many swell writers on various topics. Their writing is clear, and it communicates. Whatever argument, opinion, or impression they wish to convey, the reader's time is not wasted nor his mind injured. But...even such writers, during their opening sentences, make the reader take a deep breath. It's like, “This could be interesting, so I'll trudge ahead through this clear, poised, informative prose." Maybe after a paragraph or so, you'll forget that the writing is on life-support – the topic itself has taken precedence over its exposition. But...*yawn*.
Then there is Kris Saknussemm. With the first sentence, you experience the rich air of life underneath the words, making them buoyant. Normality gets a cold splash in the face. There will be prose.
How come? Maybe it's owing to his rich personal experience. But I don't think that necessarily animates a writers output. I think it rather has to do with being fully awake. Being awake means always looking over your shoulder at your own self. It's about operating from a perspective of hyper-irony. You know you're partly nuts, so you recognize the implicit nuttiness of the whole world. You draw life from that bizarre bazaar.
Kris writes sentences that won't sit behaved on the page. They spiral up into reading eyeballs and get sucked into hippocampuses. The reader's brain gets soul-whacked, and it's like having one's spiritual adrenaline activated. This is writing that brims over with life. Concepts don't unfold. They sit up amazed like Frankenstein's creature after a lightning bath. People described aren't content to be formally clothed in self-conscious words. They want to be dressed in feathers and flourescent robes. They want to stand out and breathe on the page. So they love it when Kris wraps them in visceral words. They nod approvingly when they find themselves in sentences wrought from empathy, sympathy, and perpetual amaze.
If Kris decided to write an essay on the relationship of Heidegger to the accumulation of library dust, you would never look at philosophers or drifting motes in the same way again.
Kris's Facebook
Kris's Facebook Author Page
Kris's MySpace
Kris's PRIVATE MIDNIGHT novel page
a bluebird once
I saw that little creature...once,
a drop of mystic blue. My eyes
held it in that wordless distance,
stretching out from bird to me
and telescoping wonder thrall.
It seemed to be a blue tear hung
in volumed space, in rusted time.
Until that feathered, godly riddle
flew from summer's meadow box
and disappeared without a trace.
I saw a bluebird once, then gone.
I quiver still in colored hope.
Monday, June 21, 2010
that night I got lost
1972. Houston. Something happened.
I worked for ITT Grinnell, in the rough part of east Houston. I lived 25 miles away, in Clear Lake, to the south. I worked in the warehouse, pulling pipe fitting orders that would be shipped to area refineries and other industries. The work was not easy, but I sort of enjoyed it. Especially when the butane fork lifts got replaced with zippy electric models – forklift races were fun while the boss was on break.
I got paid shit-for-beans. When talk among the serfs turned to forming a union, I told my good friend Danny Martinez that I wasn't sure (I was young and very ignorant about everything...still am...ignorant, not young). Danny threatened to non-metaphorically stab me in the back with his switchblade if I didn't join in. He was very serious, that Danny.
One late afternoon in late summer, I clocked out and then got in my '70 Impala. To head home down the interstate. You had to drive a couple miles through murder neighborhoods to reach the on-ramp. I think I got on the freeway. But I must have been weary, because I made some kind of wrong turn at some point. I can't remember the particulars of that wrong turn, but somehow I ended up bearing east-southeast on a different arm of the interstate. Maybe it was one of those things where you have to be paying attention to your lane, and I got Y-ed off toward shock, weirdness, and near-panic.
It took a while for me to even realize I was on the wrong path. When I did, I felt a psychological unhinging. Instant hopelessness. Because in this part of Houston, you get lost, you rarely ever come out again. At least that was my instant evaluation. After miles of hoping for a sign that would indicate an arm toward the true interstate, I finally took an off-ramp. To find a spot to stop. Collect my thoughts. Figure out a plan. There were no cell phones in those days, so I was left to my own resources.
I decided against turning around and heading back the way I had come. Something told me that would end up in catastrophe. I don't think there were any gas stations in sight where I had left the freeway, nor other stores from which to ask directions. It was a strange half-residential, half-parallel universe. I sat there thinking......not really thinking...more like being a zombie behind the wheel. My brain was not working at all.
I decided to go take a right and head south on the highway. I curved this way and that, so eventually I didn't know whether I was still bearing south or if I was going east into unimaginable chaos. The road went up over another highway. For some reason, that moment is still vivid. That moment was when the shock turned into an almost delightful weirdness. Or maybe an existential resignation: “OK...if I'm to be lost forever, well...it is what it is.”
And the night seemed heavy with a wonderful brooding menace. But soon, as I plunged farther into the dark cloud of unknowing, a feeling of near-panic kicked in. I envisioned myself eventually running out of gas and then on foot. And then in the morgue.
Serendipitously, the path I was on led to an intersection, with a sign indicating the way to San Jacinto. Deliverance! I took the turn and was on the highway that paralleled the true interstate, all the way to Clear Lake. I survived.
I bring up this misadventure because it became fuel for night dreams years later. For the past 10 years, I've had dreams at least once a week about driving around lost in a quasi-Little Rock. And 20 years ago, I had three dreams about being lost in a Houston cloverleaf. The sense of necessary transcendence in those three dreams was utter and palpable. The city around that vast, tangled interstate swelled to De Quincey-esque proportions. The sense of dread was horrible, terrifying, and so damn wonderful!
Looking back into dream memory, I see that nothing about those three dreams was lucid. I had zero control of the circumstances. I had no resource but fate. There is no way to describe the way things looked or the deep nature of how things felt. The only phrase I can employ is “awful sublimity”. Surely that night in 1972 was the generator of those three almost-nightmares and of those later lost-in-Little Rock dreams. I am so grateful that I got soul-shattered by having taken that wrong turn.
I'm pretty sure my inspiration for writing this thing today is the film WAKING LIFE. I watched the DVD of it last night, for about the fifth or sixth time. I love this movie. The look of it, the feel of it, the sense of it. The “plot” isn't really about being physically lost; rather, it's about being spiritually misplaced. But it captures quite well that feel of confusion I felt so many years ago.
I worked for ITT Grinnell, in the rough part of east Houston. I lived 25 miles away, in Clear Lake, to the south. I worked in the warehouse, pulling pipe fitting orders that would be shipped to area refineries and other industries. The work was not easy, but I sort of enjoyed it. Especially when the butane fork lifts got replaced with zippy electric models – forklift races were fun while the boss was on break.
I got paid shit-for-beans. When talk among the serfs turned to forming a union, I told my good friend Danny Martinez that I wasn't sure (I was young and very ignorant about everything...still am...ignorant, not young). Danny threatened to non-metaphorically stab me in the back with his switchblade if I didn't join in. He was very serious, that Danny.
One late afternoon in late summer, I clocked out and then got in my '70 Impala. To head home down the interstate. You had to drive a couple miles through murder neighborhoods to reach the on-ramp. I think I got on the freeway. But I must have been weary, because I made some kind of wrong turn at some point. I can't remember the particulars of that wrong turn, but somehow I ended up bearing east-southeast on a different arm of the interstate. Maybe it was one of those things where you have to be paying attention to your lane, and I got Y-ed off toward shock, weirdness, and near-panic.
It took a while for me to even realize I was on the wrong path. When I did, I felt a psychological unhinging. Instant hopelessness. Because in this part of Houston, you get lost, you rarely ever come out again. At least that was my instant evaluation. After miles of hoping for a sign that would indicate an arm toward the true interstate, I finally took an off-ramp. To find a spot to stop. Collect my thoughts. Figure out a plan. There were no cell phones in those days, so I was left to my own resources.
I decided against turning around and heading back the way I had come. Something told me that would end up in catastrophe. I don't think there were any gas stations in sight where I had left the freeway, nor other stores from which to ask directions. It was a strange half-residential, half-parallel universe. I sat there thinking......not really thinking...more like being a zombie behind the wheel. My brain was not working at all.
I decided to go take a right and head south on the highway. I curved this way and that, so eventually I didn't know whether I was still bearing south or if I was going east into unimaginable chaos. The road went up over another highway. For some reason, that moment is still vivid. That moment was when the shock turned into an almost delightful weirdness. Or maybe an existential resignation: “OK...if I'm to be lost forever, well...it is what it is.”
And the night seemed heavy with a wonderful brooding menace. But soon, as I plunged farther into the dark cloud of unknowing, a feeling of near-panic kicked in. I envisioned myself eventually running out of gas and then on foot. And then in the morgue.
Serendipitously, the path I was on led to an intersection, with a sign indicating the way to San Jacinto. Deliverance! I took the turn and was on the highway that paralleled the true interstate, all the way to Clear Lake. I survived.
I bring up this misadventure because it became fuel for night dreams years later. For the past 10 years, I've had dreams at least once a week about driving around lost in a quasi-Little Rock. And 20 years ago, I had three dreams about being lost in a Houston cloverleaf. The sense of necessary transcendence in those three dreams was utter and palpable. The city around that vast, tangled interstate swelled to De Quincey-esque proportions. The sense of dread was horrible, terrifying, and so damn wonderful!
Looking back into dream memory, I see that nothing about those three dreams was lucid. I had zero control of the circumstances. I had no resource but fate. There is no way to describe the way things looked or the deep nature of how things felt. The only phrase I can employ is “awful sublimity”. Surely that night in 1972 was the generator of those three almost-nightmares and of those later lost-in-Little Rock dreams. I am so grateful that I got soul-shattered by having taken that wrong turn.
I'm pretty sure my inspiration for writing this thing today is the film WAKING LIFE. I watched the DVD of it last night, for about the fifth or sixth time. I love this movie. The look of it, the feel of it, the sense of it. The “plot” isn't really about being physically lost; rather, it's about being spiritually misplaced. But it captures quite well that feel of confusion I felt so many years ago.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Tale of Two Kitties (for Yael, who loves cats)
Chapter 1
One day in Old Hungary, a Roman centurion was walking alone in the forest. He had strayed from his camp, to idly stroll beneath the large strange trees. He liked the coolness of it under these boughs, and the flecks of light dappling the shadowed ground pleased him very much.
Soon, he saw a cat sitting upright in the rough path before him. Its fur was coral-colored, and its eyes were like gray diamonds. The cat said, “These woods are haunted. Perhaps you should turn back, centurion.”
The soldier was surprised but quickly recovered and replied, “No cat tells me what to do.”
The cat said, “Just as you please.”
The centurion, with pieces of brass light flashing on his breastplate and with his hand on the hilt of a scabbarded sword, walked past the cat. And the cat kept staring straight ahead, unperturbed.
The confident warrior marched on and on through the darkening woods. To his left, he saw a white butterfly the size of a heathen shield float through the trees. Larger than any butterfly should ever be, it had three glowing emerald spots on each wing. The soldier drifted off the worn, vague trail and followed the odd creature as it glided slowly and drunkenly ahead.
Eventually, the butterfly disappeared into the mist that had sprung up in gradual, amorphous stages. The centurion stopped and looked around. He was lost. The mist was now becoming a fog, and from far within it, he heard the moans of unknown things.
He decided to trust in his gods and the remembered counsel of old women who gathered by the Mediterranean in his childhood: close your eyes and turn around three times, then walk with no fear. So he did. And walked ever deeper into the fog that was blending into the emergence of night.
Chapter 2
After an hour, he was wrapped in darkness. The forest had grown denser, and small vines swept across his face. The vines also began growing thicker around him. He became entangled and could not move. So he drew his sword and began slashing his way blindly through the tightening vegetation. Finally, he stumbled into a clearing. Or what seemed to be such. It was too dark to tell if it was really a clearing or how large it might be. No moon and no stars sent any light down to the centurion.
He stood there a moment, collecting himself. But he was still not afraid. His legionnaire training had been thorough. He was afraid of nothing. Not even those distant moans that had now come much closer.
Just then, he saw two tiny coral lights glimmering about twenty paces in front of him. And he asked, “Who or what are you?”
“Oh, I'm also a cat,” came the reply.
“Well...there are a lot of cats in this forest,” said the centurion. “Why are you here?”
“No, soldier, the question is why are you here?”
“I ask the questions,” said the man, putting his hands on his hips and frowning indignantly into the dark. “Tell me how I can find my way back to my camp.”
“That is not an easy thing to answer,” said the cat. “Such things must be mulled over a long time. Directions don't mean anything in this forest. Where one is and where one should go are not really questions. Rather they are riddles. Cats know where riddles come from, but we can't speak the answers. The answers are in a magical language that only the wind and the water and the thunder can speak.”
“Nice words, cat. But I have no time for such quaintness. Stop talking like that and tell me which way to go. Now!”
“Tsk-tsk,” said the cat. “You are a nasty one, you are. Don't you know that you can't get honey-dew if you buzz too loudly?”
The centurion considered these words for several moments.
“All right, then. You will be my little captain for now. Can you see me saluting you? I am, and now I ask gently, will you tell me which way leads out of these woods?”
“Muuuch better,” replied the cat, with a grin in its voice. “Here is what you must do. Take out your sword and scratch a large circle here in this clearing. My eyes will give you the light you need.”
The man did as instructed. When the circle had been inscribed, he turned back to the cat.
“Now, get inside the circle and lie down. The circle will protect you from the moaning things that move in the night. Close your eyes. I said close your eyes!....Good. Now go to sleep. While you are asleep, I will purr the tone of the where-and-how-riddle into your dreams. This is the only way. My purring will bring the wind and the water and the thunder into your dreams. When you wake up, you will know where you are and how to return to your camp.”
Minutes went by, and the centurion grew sleepy. He nodded off.
Chapter 3
The next morning, the soldier jerked awake and sat up inside the clearing. He looked around through dim, early eyes. The fog had vanished. The very young day was sprinkled with birdsong, and a subtle breeze freshened the leaves.
He stood up and saw the cat with coral eyes sitting upright in front of him. Its fur was light gray and faintly shimmered as if made of diamond thread.
“Good morning, centurion,” said the cat.
“Yes...well...good morning to you, cat.”
“Did you dream last night?”
“Most assuredly. And just as you said, I awoke with where and how. But I feel very strange.”
“That is a good sign,” said the cat. “Tell me more.”
“I feel that my sword hilt will burn my hand if I touch it. I feel that my armor is too heavy to bear.”
“Yes...I understand. You had the right dream. The wind and the water and the thunder are still inside you now. And will be forever. Do you know what you must do?”
“Indeed,” replied the centurion in a gentle voice. He unbuckled the belt holding his sword and scabbard. His weapon fell to the ground inside the circle. Then he took off his breastplate, and let it also fall to the ground. He looked at the cat and smiled. “Thank you, cat. For your protection and for your deep wisdom.”
The man strode out of the circle and headed into the woods, leaving the gray cat with coral eyes behind him.
The cat blinked slowly, purred softly, then scratched vigorously behind its ear with a hind leg.
Chapter 4
After a pleasant journey through the oddly lustrous woods, the centurion found his way back into his camp. Other soldiers rushed out to meet him, and the Captain of the Guard inquired, “Where have you been?”
“I went for a walk in the forest and got very lost. Then I became found, and here I am.”
The Captain looked him over suspiciously, and the expression conveyed a dislike for the centurion's tone of voice.
“Where is your sword and where is your armor?” he demanded.
“I will fight no more forever.”
“Arrest this man!” shouted the Captain. “Forty lashes with the flagrum, then turn him out of the camp!”
Later when the punishment had been meted out, the man – now no longer a soldier – staggered into the old forest. His back screamed with blood and silent pain. In tatters but with a wild smile on his face, he made his way back to the clearing.
As he stepped into it, the brilliant sunlight of late morning caused his vision to momentarily blur. He rubbed his eyes and opened them.
Standing in front of him were two beautiful young women in white gowns. One had coral-colored hair and eyes the color of gray diamonds. The other had diamond-gray hair and eyes the color of corals.
“Are you my cats?' asked the man innocently.
“Yes,” they replied in unison. And still in one voice, they said, “Last night, we were your cats. Today, we are your spirit sisters. Follow us now. We will lead you to a camp of Gypsies farther in the forest. You will live among them, grow old, and be happy. The Gypsies will teach you how to dance in the moonlight and how to dream other magic dreams. Your life henceforth will be a peaceful riddle that spirals into the heart of time.”
The man walked forward, and a sister took a hand on each side of him. They moved out of the clearing and disappeared into gleaming shafts of light and sighing shadows.
The End
One day in Old Hungary, a Roman centurion was walking alone in the forest. He had strayed from his camp, to idly stroll beneath the large strange trees. He liked the coolness of it under these boughs, and the flecks of light dappling the shadowed ground pleased him very much.
Soon, he saw a cat sitting upright in the rough path before him. Its fur was coral-colored, and its eyes were like gray diamonds. The cat said, “These woods are haunted. Perhaps you should turn back, centurion.”
The soldier was surprised but quickly recovered and replied, “No cat tells me what to do.”
The cat said, “Just as you please.”
The centurion, with pieces of brass light flashing on his breastplate and with his hand on the hilt of a scabbarded sword, walked past the cat. And the cat kept staring straight ahead, unperturbed.
The confident warrior marched on and on through the darkening woods. To his left, he saw a white butterfly the size of a heathen shield float through the trees. Larger than any butterfly should ever be, it had three glowing emerald spots on each wing. The soldier drifted off the worn, vague trail and followed the odd creature as it glided slowly and drunkenly ahead.
Eventually, the butterfly disappeared into the mist that had sprung up in gradual, amorphous stages. The centurion stopped and looked around. He was lost. The mist was now becoming a fog, and from far within it, he heard the moans of unknown things.
He decided to trust in his gods and the remembered counsel of old women who gathered by the Mediterranean in his childhood: close your eyes and turn around three times, then walk with no fear. So he did. And walked ever deeper into the fog that was blending into the emergence of night.
Chapter 2
After an hour, he was wrapped in darkness. The forest had grown denser, and small vines swept across his face. The vines also began growing thicker around him. He became entangled and could not move. So he drew his sword and began slashing his way blindly through the tightening vegetation. Finally, he stumbled into a clearing. Or what seemed to be such. It was too dark to tell if it was really a clearing or how large it might be. No moon and no stars sent any light down to the centurion.
He stood there a moment, collecting himself. But he was still not afraid. His legionnaire training had been thorough. He was afraid of nothing. Not even those distant moans that had now come much closer.
Just then, he saw two tiny coral lights glimmering about twenty paces in front of him. And he asked, “Who or what are you?”
“Oh, I'm also a cat,” came the reply.
“Well...there are a lot of cats in this forest,” said the centurion. “Why are you here?”
“No, soldier, the question is why are you here?”
“I ask the questions,” said the man, putting his hands on his hips and frowning indignantly into the dark. “Tell me how I can find my way back to my camp.”
“That is not an easy thing to answer,” said the cat. “Such things must be mulled over a long time. Directions don't mean anything in this forest. Where one is and where one should go are not really questions. Rather they are riddles. Cats know where riddles come from, but we can't speak the answers. The answers are in a magical language that only the wind and the water and the thunder can speak.”
“Nice words, cat. But I have no time for such quaintness. Stop talking like that and tell me which way to go. Now!”
“Tsk-tsk,” said the cat. “You are a nasty one, you are. Don't you know that you can't get honey-dew if you buzz too loudly?”
The centurion considered these words for several moments.
“All right, then. You will be my little captain for now. Can you see me saluting you? I am, and now I ask gently, will you tell me which way leads out of these woods?”
“Muuuch better,” replied the cat, with a grin in its voice. “Here is what you must do. Take out your sword and scratch a large circle here in this clearing. My eyes will give you the light you need.”
The man did as instructed. When the circle had been inscribed, he turned back to the cat.
“Now, get inside the circle and lie down. The circle will protect you from the moaning things that move in the night. Close your eyes. I said close your eyes!....Good. Now go to sleep. While you are asleep, I will purr the tone of the where-and-how-riddle into your dreams. This is the only way. My purring will bring the wind and the water and the thunder into your dreams. When you wake up, you will know where you are and how to return to your camp.”
Minutes went by, and the centurion grew sleepy. He nodded off.
Chapter 3
The next morning, the soldier jerked awake and sat up inside the clearing. He looked around through dim, early eyes. The fog had vanished. The very young day was sprinkled with birdsong, and a subtle breeze freshened the leaves.
He stood up and saw the cat with coral eyes sitting upright in front of him. Its fur was light gray and faintly shimmered as if made of diamond thread.
“Good morning, centurion,” said the cat.
“Yes...well...good morning to you, cat.”
“Did you dream last night?”
“Most assuredly. And just as you said, I awoke with where and how. But I feel very strange.”
“That is a good sign,” said the cat. “Tell me more.”
“I feel that my sword hilt will burn my hand if I touch it. I feel that my armor is too heavy to bear.”
“Yes...I understand. You had the right dream. The wind and the water and the thunder are still inside you now. And will be forever. Do you know what you must do?”
“Indeed,” replied the centurion in a gentle voice. He unbuckled the belt holding his sword and scabbard. His weapon fell to the ground inside the circle. Then he took off his breastplate, and let it also fall to the ground. He looked at the cat and smiled. “Thank you, cat. For your protection and for your deep wisdom.”
The man strode out of the circle and headed into the woods, leaving the gray cat with coral eyes behind him.
The cat blinked slowly, purred softly, then scratched vigorously behind its ear with a hind leg.
Chapter 4
After a pleasant journey through the oddly lustrous woods, the centurion found his way back into his camp. Other soldiers rushed out to meet him, and the Captain of the Guard inquired, “Where have you been?”
“I went for a walk in the forest and got very lost. Then I became found, and here I am.”
The Captain looked him over suspiciously, and the expression conveyed a dislike for the centurion's tone of voice.
“Where is your sword and where is your armor?” he demanded.
“I will fight no more forever.”
“Arrest this man!” shouted the Captain. “Forty lashes with the flagrum, then turn him out of the camp!”
Later when the punishment had been meted out, the man – now no longer a soldier – staggered into the old forest. His back screamed with blood and silent pain. In tatters but with a wild smile on his face, he made his way back to the clearing.
As he stepped into it, the brilliant sunlight of late morning caused his vision to momentarily blur. He rubbed his eyes and opened them.
Standing in front of him were two beautiful young women in white gowns. One had coral-colored hair and eyes the color of gray diamonds. The other had diamond-gray hair and eyes the color of corals.
“Are you my cats?' asked the man innocently.
“Yes,” they replied in unison. And still in one voice, they said, “Last night, we were your cats. Today, we are your spirit sisters. Follow us now. We will lead you to a camp of Gypsies farther in the forest. You will live among them, grow old, and be happy. The Gypsies will teach you how to dance in the moonlight and how to dream other magic dreams. Your life henceforth will be a peaceful riddle that spirals into the heart of time.”
The man walked forward, and a sister took a hand on each side of him. They moved out of the clearing and disappeared into gleaming shafts of light and sighing shadows.
The End
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