You love to write, and I love to read. So I have compiled a collection of excerpts for your clues:
+
Your hope for a good secret Santa is a thing with feathers
That perches on the soul
And sings the tune without words
And never stops – at all –
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald)
Brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet – and here’s no great matter;
In truth it is life that gives unto life – while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.
And you receivers – and you are all receivers – assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.
Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;
For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the
neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping
at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies
in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing
down by the watermelons?
And I’d been through it all too many times;
I was tired of telling stories.
So I gave you the pencil and paper.
I gave you pens made of reeds
I had gathered myself, afternoons in the dense meadows.
I told you, write your own story.
for Joy
is what I wanted to write.
There was such a song!
A song for your kneebones,
A song for your ribs,
Those delicate trees that bury your heart;
A song for your bookshelf
Where twenty hand-blown ducks sit in a Venetian row;
A song for your dress-up high heels,
Your fire-red skate board,
Your twenty grubby fingers,
The pink knitting that you start
And never quite finish;
Your poster-paint pictures,
All angels making a face,
A song for your laughter
That keeps wiggling a spoon in my sleep.
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
+
Your hope for a good secret Santa is a thing with feathers
That perches on the soul
And sings the tune without words
And never stops – at all –
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald)
Brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet – and here’s no great matter;
In truth it is life that gives unto life – while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.
And you receivers – and you are all receivers – assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.
Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;
For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the
neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping
at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies
in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing
down by the watermelons?
And I’d been through it all too many times;
I was tired of telling stories.
So I gave you the pencil and paper.
I gave you pens made of reeds
I had gathered myself, afternoons in the dense meadows.
I told you, write your own story.
for Joy
is what I wanted to write.
There was such a song!
A song for your kneebones,
A song for your ribs,
Those delicate trees that bury your heart;
A song for your bookshelf
Where twenty hand-blown ducks sit in a Venetian row;
A song for your dress-up high heels,
Your fire-red skate board,
Your twenty grubby fingers,
The pink knitting that you start
And never quite finish;
Your poster-paint pictures,
All angels making a face,
A song for your laughter
That keeps wiggling a spoon in my sleep.
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
Comment