Month: February 2013

“I hear the horses of desire
go right to the surgeon….” ~ D. Bonta

If you want to buy a mat from the women weavers of the native Higaonon tribe, this is what you need to know: they don’t do PayPal, e-Bay, Craig’s List; they don’t do debit or credit cards. It may take two to three months to receive your order, depending on a number of factors, including whether or not there have been hurricanes or floods— which may have affected the availability of buri, pandan, tikog, or seagrass fronds. The leaves need to be gathered, cleaned, bundled; and in some cases stripped of thorns. Then they are sun-dried or air dried, made pliable with rhythmic beating, rolled then shredded into widths for weaving. Each weaver will sit on her haunches many hours in the sun, in the shade, in her house, adding the colors of the rooster’s feathers or an embroidered skirt, the salt-and-toffee smells of well-aged leaves. Her mother taught her this, or her grandmother, and the great-grandmother before that. There is no book of patterns, only the ripple of water, of wind, of rough scythes cutting through sparse grain. You will need to find a trusted courier to bring you the finished mat, and bring them the cash you will pay. You will not find this at Ikea or Exotic Home. Each piece is heirloom quality, each pattern never to be repeated. Which reminds me of how, the other night at dinner, I listened to our host’s friend tell the story of how at forty, she did not own a piece of silver or crystal, unlike other wives whose mothers handed down their prized sets; but in ten years, she had bought close to seven hundred pieces in all, some from Scotland, for a ridiculous amount of money: two or three patterns, flutes, water glasses, wine glasses, sherry glasses… And do you know, she said, waving her teaspoon in the air, that if you resold one of these today, it would fetch you only three dollars? She shook her head: It isn’t the same world anymore.

In response to Via Negativa: Self-medication.

Half of each of you makes two. Makes one
of each. Makes two of you and two of me,
at least. Is that not true? And good?
Is more the greater part of less?
And what of less when less is portioned
to only one of two? Who thrives,
who lives, who toils in shadow? Who
lifts her hem? Who pulls the breast
out of its pouch? Whose ear
receives the furtive breath?
Whose hand in moonlight pulls
toward the silver of the bark?
Only one. Or both. Of you.

“…I played a while on my lute
and could not kill anything.” ~ D. Bonta

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also, reads the passage engraved upon a pillar in the Church of the Holy Cross.

*

Long past midnight, the phone rings and I hear it as if from far away; but think it must be a dream so I don’t get up to answer. Sometime at midday, I remember to look at the list of missed calls. There is a voice mail message from my mother, but when I play it all I can hear are strange voices that sound like they’re coming from a noontime TV variety show called Eat Bulaga. A woman has just won the prize in a raffle; there’s thunderous clapping, the unctuous voice of the TV host saying how happy he is at this good fortune. My mother says she says she didn’t call, though she’d been thinking of me, missing me and her granddaughters; there is a two- or three- second delay, then she’s crying from the pain of having to live all alone at her age.

*

It’s said that even as a baby, Chopin was moved to tears by his mother’s singing.

His sister Ludwika cried after crossing the border back into Poland, when the woman who had helped to smuggle her brother’s heart back into the country of his birth, handed it to her in a glass jar tied up in a cloth bag and hidden under layers of her petticoats.

*

Recently I read a story about a woman who held her old heart in her hands after a successful surgical transplant: the photo showed her cradling what looked like papier mache, like folds of stiff, marble-colored parchment; or like a large shell washed up on the beach. Its curves reminded me of the outer lobes of the ear, which must have some bearing on why we still refer to phone handsets as receivers, even though most of the new technology has done away with all those curves.

In response to Via Negativa: Hanging jack.

Like them I follow the current, arch
into the white curve of questions; regard
my unsleeved arms, trying to remember
what it is that feels like it is missing,
what’s necessary. And in the evenings,
as lights go on in houses by the river,
their bent heads outlined in sudden flame
are beacons on dark-blue water—
So go the myths of all great faithfulness.
But isn’t it true the rule exists where instinct
curbs most keenly toward what it fears?
Isn’t it true that the clasp of the metal ring
and the twitch of the bridle mean the heart
is fickle, that the animal could one day drift
off into the wood to die or disappear?

In response to Via Negativa: Nursery rhyme.