as I reflect

"Yuh tek drunkard 'tick fi guh lick mawga dawg,

when mawga dawg dead a weh yuh a guh do?"

(You take drunkard's stick to abuse the meagre/malnourished/ailing dog, when the dog dies, what will you do?)

 - Jamaican proverb an folk song lyrics 

This song keeps re-visiting my mind lately, and I suspect the reason needs exorcising. I see so very often people try to obfuscate truth - and truth here in its many forms. People hide the truth of their convictions, the truth of their feelings, the truth of their hopes, their goals, their abilities. for what? Why on earth do we play this game of hide the real self? and then the more baffling aspect that these lines speak to: we highlight the plight and misperceived (often deliberate) weak points and 'villainy' of others. to what end? why do we put each other down? is there some point to this? crabs in a barrel will climb over each other to escape - BUT THE BARREL IS NOT A CRAB'S NATURAL HABITAT! we are not in a barrel...in fact, often we are experiencing pressure in a unique way, and the lessening of that pressure often has very little to do with the person who we drag into our situations.

NOTE: drunkard stick... the song notes that we are not "ourselves" in this moment. we are removed from sensibility and for whatever reason we in that state of weakness - react in outward destruction.

So... when that blame causes the person, the system of support, the group - whatever - to disperse, disappear, no longer function or be a point of escaping scrutiny...What will we/you/he/she/they do? are we even thinking of that time to come?

...Weh we a guh do?

Lands at the edge of the world

The Hills flamed upward, scorning death and failure here...

streams...

Maybe I'm tired.

Maybe I really cannot deal with the madness that others stir up,
Maybe I cannot hold my tongue further for sake of cohesion
Maybe I can't stand and watch the dementia take root
Maybe I can't breathe and this is getting too much to handle

and I am not there to deal with it, process it.
I am not here to fix it when I was made to deliver it just as it began healing
but the universe never allows a vacuum
and divine action is slow but sure
and we reap what we sow
- except when we reap our brothers and sister fields  -
and we are so full of empathy
and Hollowed of our caring
so soulful
 - having lost our souls

And he looked and saw the centuries before him, millennia of strife and bloodshed in his name
wars launched by his people against his people in a name he will in time possibly resent
and still
knowing he could give up at any time
sighed, and hung there
and...
 died

We see and are seen, do and are done to...

Corrine tired of his pain. She watched him, bent over the fire pit, his tongue between teeth. Grunts of effort absently escaped his lips as he tended the flame. It hurt to watch. She couldn't stop herself.
"One day, you're going to have to explain how you made this look so easy." Her eyes bulged, hand reaching for her chest. If she still had a pulse, she suspect it would be hammering. After some seconds of silence, the hope that he had somehow been aware of her presence died. _Wasn't death supposed to be paradise?_ not for the first time, she reached for him - only just holding her anger back as her hand passes through his form, wisps that reshaped on exit. A slight pause and shiver were her reward. It was going to be a _long_ afterlife.

Haiku for you...never in vain

you know I return
to those letters that you wrote,
and have a long cry

Our memories are so long for the injustices we did not commit; our eyes sharp for the errors we did not make

John sat at on his west facing verandah, gazing out at the mottled reds and blues of a dying sun. bathed in the trills and buzzes of the evening, he contemplated his 'solitude.' a low rumble of laughter escaped him. 

"I go catch myself talking to the trees and waitin' for answer one o dese fine days." another chuckle. rising from the well worn, sturdy wooden chair, he ambled into the house, favouring his left side. In the familiarity of his bare four walled, one room hut, he went to the far left corner. Gingerly kneeling, he re-kindled his firepit. Flame stoked, he placed the kettle on for his evening tea. reaching under a floorboard for his hidden sweet breads and tea bags, his eyes catch a flash of light. Turning to the source, he sees the pendant, suspended over his sleeping mat. He had not thought of Melissa for a long time. He looks up sharply, eyes darting to the doorway- it is, of course, empty. He silently chided himself. She would never be back here; indeed, she could never return anywhere. 

"It wasn' mi fault, but a coulda never your own." the kettle, a once shiny copper thing, starts to shuffle on it's fire perch. soot blackened, with a plastic nub for a handle it whistles lamely. John reached for his mug,  wrapping his right hand with a corner of his shirt to grip the kettle, he pours his cuppa. a teabag flows up as the water level in the mug rises. the water very slowly becomes coloured by the leaves - or by the dregs of previous cuppas - He has ceased to care. This was the last one she gave him, and though now more of a suggestion of, than the once strong peppermint, he sips with a sort of lazy reverence. He hated tea. She had always been the tea drinker. 

not to you, not for you, but maybe of you?...a

So deeply have i loved YOU
that there is little that can come
to usurp your place
as holder of my hand

So deeply have i loved YOU
that my erasure is secure
of course, it is pure
now an absolute thing

So deeply have i loved YOU
that i scarce see the point
of clinging to a half life
content without the whole

so deeply do i love YOU
that soon there will be
no reason for 'i' and 'me'
...after all...

were they ever really...

applicable?