sound

My speech voice is missing.

I make rolling guttural sounds expressing metaphors, similes, intonations, frequencies, meaning, sense, time, ideas, dreams, relationships, secrets, my traditional family values, fear, passion, heart and sadness. Joy.

By the time I learned the alphabet it was late in life toward primordial dusk.

Late in the moment from before now and then. Late in the whisper of silent air singing from the trash collector’s plastic bottle. He pulls his rolling cart. Filled with cardboard. A muscular rhythm stirs sonomulent dust on broken stones. I see, said the blind girl. You can’t step in the same river twice.  

Possibilities and probabilities, chance and coincidence flutter finger fragments. Unknown mysterious sensations fling from my signing hands. Fingers and hands are language extensions. Blossom being. My lover visualizes me in tropical brown skin toned worlds. He imagines I will join a hearing impaired community. He’s a dreamer. I jump ahead in my story. It won’t happen. I am a slave.

secret

Shhh. I have a new secret short term lover while Thorny is home in OZ.

I am easy going with a willingness to share honest emotional connections. 

No commitment is a temporary abstraction. My passion is immediate truth in my brown eyes. My eyes are complete sensory awareness. I see voices.

I am a voiceless one, quivering lips and tenacious touch with my secret lover. I am a tiger trusting the darkness of respect where my sexual joy is shy and mutual. I dance a tactile tenderness in a silent breath. 

My unfinished symphony lives with visual touch, holding his small kiss along my spine. I do this because I love it. It is my destiny. A wild swan feels air lifting its wings. A flower opens its petals to sun, warming my heart-mind. It is my fate. 

My tender lover comes to me in the heat of the day. I welcome him with my eyes, gesturing a finger on lips, shh. He is kind. My passion is deep and strong. My languages speak eyes, smiles, hands.

Gestures create us in space. 

  

ancient ones

A young Anasazi girl shared her wind note vision.

My name is Kokopelli the humpbacked flute player. I am 1,000 years old. My image is found on petrogyphs or rock carvings near here. My image is also on rock paintings or pictographs in kivas, ceramics and woven baskets.

The ancient ones, the Anasazi, regard me as a symbol of fertility, a roving minstrel or trader. People also call me the rainmaker, a hunting magician, trickster and seducer of maidens.

In the Pueblo myths my hump carries seeds, babies and blankets to maidens. I wander along the upper Rio Grande between villages carrying seeds and bags of songs on my back.

Because I represent fertility I am welcomed during the corn planting season and sought by barren women but avoided by maidens. If you listen well, you will hear my flute music echoing through canyons playing traditional songs.

She disappeared along fault lines in long undulating dry washes full of sagebrush playing her flute near rainbow mesas strewn with geological strata.

your move

Amy is a shy girl. G7.

A wisp.

She feels sad because her father left to find work.

It takes courage to raise a child.

Reminds him of some adults - lost, sad, bored.

She is gradually becoming more self assertive.

She moved closer to his desk.

 

He asked about chess. Yes, she said, I can play.

Ok, he said, Let's play tomorrow.

The first day he immediately saw her thinking, planning and skill.

Now they play every morning from 745-815 before class begins.

Others stand around watching with short attention spans.

She had some opening weaknesses.

He gave her some suggestions to strengthen her play.

Castle early. Develop knights and bishops.

Now she plays with stronger confidence. 

This is a great joy.

He introduces chess to all the kids this month.

Life's lessons.

Your move, Amy said.

His heart sings hearing her voice.

save face idiot

They are thinking: We have ways to make you talk.

They don’t tell me this but I know how it works. I’ve read Tu Fu’s work. I’ve digested their bone dust history through dynasties.

“Yes, well, we’ll see,” she said. “We need to remind you to remember this very carefully.” Her voice rose an octave.

“The bent nail gets hammered down!”

"Just because you speak our language doesn’t mean you are special. We can revoke your visa and force you to pay a fine. We can put you away where no one will ever find you. We will discuss your situation with our leaders. We have driven the talented people abroad. Some went into hiding but we know where they are and we find them. We always do. We find them in their homes, schools, jobs. Some accepted positions at foreign universities where they form counter-revolutionary groups bent on overthrowing the state by writing articles, stories and books critical of their homeland.” 

Her face resembled nuclear fission. She pounded the table. “They are a disgrace! They are running dogs!” 

“I see,” he said, dropping his eyes to save face.