A Grain

"I want to talk to you again for a little while, dear Mr. Kappus, although there is almost nothing I can say that will help you, and I can hardly find one useful word. You have had many sadnesses, large ones, which passed. And you say that even this passing was difficult and upsetting for you. But please, ask yourself whether these large sadnesses haven't rather gone right though you. Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad. The only sadnesses that are dangerous" are the ones that clothe your heart in many layers of grief's dark silk. The dark silk mummifying your heart and guarding it from exposure to the elements. Withholding it from the magic that makes our grain of sadness into the wisdom of a pearl. There in that silky womb, your heart only feels sadness Mr. Kappus. The heart's lively pulse only a rhythm of grief echoing thouroughly through your entire body and seeping into your spirit.
I ask you dear sir, please hold that grain of sand, for it is only a grain, hold it in the center of your heart. Feel it there with every sensing cell of your body so that it does not get lost.
Be attentive now, for the dark silk of your ego in it's own attempts of rescue, will try and keep it there, still in your heart.
Here now, in this very moment, let the magic of your heart smooth that grain of sand into a pearl. Let the fiery alchemy of your body melt it's wisdom into pearly streams coursing through your entire being. May it pass through you as does your breath from moment to moment.
Trust the nature of your inner workings Mr. Kappus and bring the minds awareness only to celebrate such magical happenings.

Quote from ''Letters to a Young Poet" R. Rilke

A bead of Indian Monsoon

**From creative writing exercise at the Word Party**
And so I squatted there with my pants down uncertain of which hole to poo in. A bead of Indian monsoon sweating down my face onto that very floor between those two very conflicted holes. My host mother told me not to do it in the squat toilet, but do what exactly? Between the awkwardness of the topic and a translation lost in her thick Indian accent, I had no idea which hole I should go poo in.
I should really ask for clarifications on such critical subjects. But there I was somewhere between two holes, one of which held a whole lot of unconfused shit and the other that I would soon clog. Not only would I clog my family's hole, but the entire neighborhoods septic system would go down if I made such a mistake.
I had a belly full of spicy curry that went into my mouth already half digested and was now ready to burst out the other end.
At 5 am with the prayer call hailing out into the stoned mountain streets, I quickly pulled up my pants and clenched my butt cheeks to the house where my friend was staying . I was familiar with her system but I wasn't so sure the tikka masala would hold. I ran as fast as the butt clenching would allow. The street dogs didn't help, sniffing at me as I glided by.
My ass now the sliding glass doors of Walmart on Black Friday. I really did not think I was going to make it. I could get one crazy shopper to break through and tear it all down for the entire mass of digested tikka masala behind him.
There it is! It's perfect. Please don't be up, please don't be awake, please let me just slide past into your outdoor: hole in the ground toilet. A hole that accepted all sorts of excrement's. Rotten bananas, pee, lost prayer beads, all sorts of crap.
Shit, are they Muslim. They are. I guess prayer call means wake up and pray not wake up, go to the toilet and discover some God hatting foreigner crouched on your toilet.
I hoped not because before I could even complete that thought, I had already made it to the toilet with half the masala already stacked upon whatever went in the hole before it.

The Chorus of an Old House

"After his wife left with all her clothes and the children's clothes and toys, Morgan continued to go to work and come home, though the house was empty and he had no one to talk to. In the evenings, he stood at his windows with binoculars and watched the passage of his neighbors through their rooms."
At twilight he stared out from his daughters rocking chair. The creaks of the floorboards filling the house of its only sound. His eyes wandered longingly beyond the chorus of his old house and dusty, spotted window.
His gaze followed the autumn leaves as they spilled from his gutter to the pavement below where they carried on in the passing wind. His eyes sought beyond the scattering leaves onto a lady brushing her hair in her pale light of the window. He saw her eyes fall deeply into the mirror and that mirror reflecting even deeper back into her form.
Morgan's eyes searched even further to the distant city scape that seemed to be draining the glow of twilight into squared windows like his own.
The creaks of the house a quiet hum now as Morgan's eyes rested upon the horizon of his place.
His place of a setting sun and the gentle birth of a thousand more.