Words of Worlds

Gallery: The world in pictures

courtyardjester — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:34:00 GMT

Ancestry Lost

courtyardjester — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:25:00 GMT

Ancestry Lost

By Matthew Abrams

The sun held a creamy gold as it hung like a fiery sickle over the mountain’s edge. A vulture’s screech echoed through the North Country highlands. And the colors of the late Montana sky were ignited – clouds of fire blazed upon Montana’s stretched cerulean canvas.

Deep in Glacier National Park I heard the drumming. I followed the sounds down a foothill. Yellow and white cloths twisted around many of the trees honoring those spirits who’ve transcended the human form. The smell of sweet grass was thick in the air as I passed the burning moss rock. In short descent was the lodge, a low hut, eight feet in diameter adorned with a patchwork of carpets and retired rugs - contemporary rawhide.

I stepped lightly by the entrance flap. Outside the hut a braid of sweet grass, a tail feather and an infant steer skull sat on a stone ledge. The chanting and drumming silenced. The back of my neck tingled. The chanting resumed.

As I entered the forest, Little Tree, a man I’d met a week prior, was walking toward me. I gave him 5 pounds of Webster – the steer we slaughtered at the farm - and three packs of Marlboros. He paused, then grabbed my offerings. He walked passed me, put them in his trunk and left. In a ceremony of respect, my tangible offering drove away before it reached the palms of the participants.

Beside the pit, towels and white sheets laid at the base of evergreens born before Whitman. Cigarette packs, lighters and water bottles strewn about. Behind the lodge dropped a steep precipice where bluebells, pink bitterroots, lupines and fireweed swam among wild horsetail. In all compass points the giant mountains gazed like ancient sages with glacial beards and smoky cloud coiffures.

The chanting turned to staccato talk. The air was still. Silence hung for a moment. Everything glowed through a scarlet gel. Pink was peach and orange, crimson. The flap flipped open. A tall gangly German man stepped out. Sweat glistened on his pink flesh. My eyes drew to a silhouette of a buffalo tattooed on his shoulder. He looked at me with glistening eyes and offered me five bony fingers and a smile.

“Fabian”

“Matthew, good to meet you.”

His hand was warm and moist in mine and his knuckles slid off each other.

One by one they came out. The women first. Pale cheeks speckled with red lakes. Rivers of hair squiggled from temples to necks. Most greeted me with smiles. Some ignored me. Some laid down. Most lit cigarettes. There was little talk.

I recognized two women. One woman surveyed my presence. She was plump. Her belly distended round and firm. Her floral dress stuck to her like a grape wears its skin. As she spoke an unlit cigarette bobbed in her mouth.

“Did you tell Wilbur you’re here?”

Wilbur is the eldest and the spiritual leader and this is his show.

“No, not yet.”

She swiped a match and spoke. “You should. He’s in there,” she said, tossing her head to the structure then lighting her cigarette.

“Alright.” I said with most of a smile.

I ducked into the hut and was hit by a bucket of damp heat which fogged my glasses to solid. I removed them and saw three men on the west side of the circle. In the middle was a dugout in the earth where stones smoldered. Wilbur sat in the middle.

“Come in,” Wilbur said. “You came back.”

Wilbur sat on the other side of the circle from me. The three men were elderly, hair just shy of waist, skin painted with animals and design. Adorned in shorts, necklaces of bones, stones and crystals hanging from their necks.

After sitting on my knees a moment by the door, I crawled around the circle and sat by the men. A small pillow separated us. The air was sweet and sharp.

“You like to be with the women” the one in the middle said inciting giggles from the other two. Not understanding, I smiled.

“You are sitting on the women’s side,” Wilbur said pointing at the pillow.

I allowed myself a little laughter as I crawled back to where I entered.

“First time,” I said. “Sorry.”

I sat with the men for a few minutes in silence before Wilbur called out, “Let’s do seven.” A wood plank was laid through the entry flap into the middle of the hut where there was a hole the size of a large globe. One by one, seven heated moss rocks called Tunkashina, or Grandfather, were dusted with sweet grass and rolled into the earth-pit. Once all seven were in, Wilbur called out, “Okay, let’s go.” Men and women crawled around the pit on all fours. The women leaned back on straight arms and inverted palms. There were twice as many men sweaty knee upon sweaty knee two deep. When everyone was in, the flap was shut and the heat swelled through the inky blackness. My lungs struggled to expand. Immediately my forehead and cheekbones grew damp. A pinch of powdered sweet grass was dropped in the pit, sizzling, it glowed orange to a deep burgundy. Water splashed on the stone. It smelled like strong like marijuana.

“Three splashes for the Creator.” Wilbur said dropping three handfuls of water upon the stones inciting pops and crackles. “Thank you Grandma, Grandpa, for giving us this opportunity for understanding. This time to celebrate the Creator. Thank you Grandma, Grandpa, for giving us the power to heal. Let us offer these powers to Roberta Whitetree and her family. Together we will guide the power of the Spirit to her. Omytakouias he said in Siksiká – we are all related. “That is all.”

“Aaaiiiyeeehaa.”

Was the howl that escaped from a woman and was followed by the answer of its brother. The primal calls nudged a long dormant creature from within me.

A cool wave passed through my body. The rattles pounded in syncopation of my heart. The song continued. Beneath the music Wilbur chanted, praying for all species and life in suffering and in joy. An intense whirlwind of sensual experiment swirled my conscious in upheaval. The round ended as it began: like a tornado twisting over a field. Rivulets of sweat coursed the length of my face, back and chest as my eyes were drawn to needles of light dancing across flesh and soil as the door was handled. The flap lifted sending a shard of light running across twiggy soil and crossed legs. Everyone exited sun-wise. Towels draped over shoulders wiping faces. Some people smoked and some rested in the cooling Montana twilight.

Beside the hut a man smeared handfuls of earth upon his body. I felt like doing the same, but didn’t. I was in a cognitive battle between embracing free will respecting the norm: The White Man’s Burdon.

“Seven again,” Wilbur said. And again seven stones were dusted and rolled down the plank upon the hearth of the circle. Just as the stones absorb the heat, they absorb the impurities of the Spirit. They are called Grandpa because they are of the Ancients. Our teachers.

We crawled in. Fabian flopped down the flap. Heat and silence grew in the darkness.

“Three splashes for the Creator.” The beads of water sizzled on the stone like spit on a griddle. The sizzle fizzled to silence. Then another three splashes. The air became a thick porridge that burned as it entered me. The rattles slowly drummed. My eyes pinched with sweat creeping in the corners. My hair was hot. My hands formed a pyramid over my mouth and nose to filter the heat. Three more splashes. One woman left.

The chanting began to assuage the heat that was once employed by my senses. I removed my hands, held my toes and rocked like a shokeling Hasidic to the beat of the rattles. More splashes. The hot water bounced off the stones and splashed hot on my bare legs. The chanting grew in timbre. My fingers squeezed tighter around my toes. I wanted more heat, more beat, more song. My senses drifted further. My feelings and thoughts no longer guided by my mind, but by something grander.

Like a snap of the maestro’s arm, the music seized. Some let out grunts, some howls. Round three was over.

Outside the lodge Wilbur stood nibbling on a hard green and brown root. It cracked in his teeth like a carrot. He walked the periphery of the pit, bent over and rose up. He walked to the woman who had left as the third round began.

“Chew on these,” he said to the woman handing her three dandelions. “It will boost your energy.”

“Let’s do seven more.” Wilbur said to the group.

The heat was taking its toll. In the past hour and a half my shorts had grown fully sodden and stuck coolly to my hot flesh. Muscles tiring physically. Mentally, in place of the familiar din was an absence. An ice water clarity. I rose and walked hearing only the sound of my naked feet cracking sticks and leaving leaves.

We assumed our plots on the twiggy floor and let the blackness get used to us. I noticed for the first time sweet grass filigree coursing the roof of the hut. The scent was strong and piercing. There were no splashes this time.

Two of the original three elders exchanged words in Siksiká E-nŭks-äp-ĭ! e-nŭks-äp-ĭ! “ Let me be old, let me be old.

Again there was silence. The final sweat began.

“My name is Lillooet.” His words were woven with the threads of emotion. “My white name is Don... Donald. I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak, to share myself with you and to participate in the collective spirit. I know it is not easy to make this commitment. With the time, with the heat. So, thank you. We do this to obey the integrity of our souls. To find happiness in this world the white man has created. To understand our power and to respect the oneness. That is why we are here.” He paused, swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “I’d like to speak a moment about my brother, Wilbur. He is a man that has always given. Given never expecting anything. Giving all the time to people and nature. You have taught me more than you will every know, my brother.” Silence

The heat that was in someone else was now in me and mine in another. A tear mixed with the sweat in my eye. Sorrow and sweetness swelled in me, pushing from my core, gathering behind my sternum. For decades this passage of spirituality was forced to secrecy for fear of floggings and death. Floggings and death induce by my white forefathers. 100 years ago missionary teachers slapped Indian women across the face for speaking Siksika or Pikanii in the English-led mission.

“I have learned so much from you Wilbur.” A deeper strain cracked his voice. Lillooet said something to his brother and there was laughter among the tears. The rattles cracked. The passion intensified. The verses sang. The white man stole away this element of life. And I remain conflicted as to my true ancestry.

Cape to Cairo

courtyardjester — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:13:00 GMT

Cape to Cairo

In life, there are a few people we meet who change our lives forever.

Karl Langdon is one of those people.

I met Karl in South Africa where he’s a game ranger at Ulusaba; Richard Branson’s private game reserve. This is where he told me about a trip he took – from Cape Town to Cairo.

On foot.

Karl Langdon’s twenty-five. Within his tissue culture lives volumes of National Geographic. In his…younger days, he served as a body guard to an army general. Today, he holds his rifle with the same relaxed grace as the doorman at the Waldorf holds his umbrella. He’s wiry and tough, wise and gentle. I once saw him pick up a cobra by the neck and place it off the road so we wouldn’t drive over it. In this walk, Karl had one mission: to fill a black film canister with the sands from Clifton Beach in Cape Town and another from the Alexandria Beaches north of Cairo.

Like many of man’s greatest desires, this one bloomed under the auspices of red wine.

Maudlin and romantic Karl Langdon sat sipping on something from the Stellenbosch vineyards looking into the eyes of his good mate Bruce.

“We should walk from Cape Town to Cairo.” Karl said.

“I’m going to need a couple more before I say yes to that.” Bruce said.

“I’m serious, man. Karl said, There’s a guy who traveled the west coast on camel back, with vehicle support.”

“We don’t need vehicle support.” Bruce said.

“Yeah, you’re in?” Karl asked.

“Why not.”

And a ting rang from the two glasses kissing over the table.

Then Monday came. Bruce called Karl at work and said, “Look, about the walk, are you serious? Karl thought a moment, staring under the fluorescent wash of his office. “Let me call you back in five seconds.”

Honest truth, I took a coin out from my pocket, flipped it and said heads I go, tails I don’t and it was heads. I got up, walked into my boss’s office handed in my resignation, told him I was going to walk Africa and said “thank you very much.”

Karl wrote Mandela informing him of the trip and asking for support. Mandela replied with a handwritten letter on official stationary biding luck and praise and hopeful indemnity through their travels. As the months passed, possessions were liquidated and the coals of their souls were stoked by tribal, botanical, navigational and political research.

Soon after, they took their first step.

On the evening of the third day they decided it was too much. Burned by the sun and beat by the walk they decided to quit. In the morning, they awoke without speaking.

And continued.

Every day they awoke with the sun. Twenty kilometers in the morning with the fist of the sun at a distance. Then another ten in the afternoon. From small town to small town. Eventually the soreness subsided as the muscles matured. The mind was growing sharper. But there was still money for food and drinking water from the tap.

Three months going and they made their way over the Tropic of Capricorn and soon thereafter, walked into Zimbabwe. Through the Zimbabwean bush calluses thickened and beards grew.

Three months became eight months and they entered Mozambique where the aromas of a twenty year civil war lingered. They found themselves within the nefarious confines of the Tete Corridor, a mine bracketed strip connecting Zimbabwe to Malawi; also referred to as ‘the bone yard stretch’. A place where, just a few years earlier, navigating the stretch would mean a great chance of being robbed or murdered. Or both. Now the chance was just fair. They found a place to spend the night. The grey of the evening shed gravely upon the twisted and skeletal limbs of Transvaal Gardenia trees. Night was falling.

“We saw an abandoned house shot up with bullet holes everywhere, but nobody was around so we decided to stay. In the middle of the night, there was a lot of noise, in and around the area. We realized it was people. People shouting, people moving all around the building. We really thought this is it. This is the end.”

The coals from their fire were still smoldering. A car came down the dirt road. It passed the house. Stopped. And turned around. People came out of the car, one holding a spotlight. The suffused light danced and bobbed with each step. Karl and Bruce squatted under the window sweaty-palmed, watching the shadows flash upon the bullet-pocked wall. The light came up to the house and passed on. In time the voices faded into the inky blackness as the nocturnal insect choral resumed their symphony. In the end nothing happened.

“It was here we first realized the negative potential of our minds. We had been warned repeatedly about this pass and kept nurturing a fear that that had little reason for being.”

The next evening, they came upon a small village. The children wore rags but they laughed. The adults were missing teeth, but they smiled. They owned nothing but their lives. The rain began to fall as they pitched the tent. An elderly man with skin cured thick by sun and stretched low by gravity, walked toward Karl and told him to bring their sleeping bags into his house. They kindly declined. An hour later the man returned with a tray of twenty hard boiled eggs he collected from other villagers. The next morning the whole family was there when they awoke. They brought water for tea. Filled up their jugs and sent them on their way. The villagers stood behind waving hands until the boys disappeared into the bush.

They had walked twenty-six hundred kilometers when they crossed the famed Zambezi river and shortly thereafter made it to their fourth country: Malawi.

‘I was totally, totally reliant on myself. I was pushing my body to the extreme. Most every night I’d go to sleep in tears, but every morning I’d wake up and my body had recovered. It was quite amazing. It was a profound realization. You realized who you were. Not just mentally, but you found yourself. You figured out what we’re all about and how strong our survival instinct is.’

They navigated north along Lake Malawi, sleeping on the beach. As they fell asleep the big African moon rose and sprinkled itself across the glassy water. The fire cracked as a flurry of sparks twisted and disappeared into the night. During the day’s walk, the villagers would smile and talk to them. The children would touch their skin and pull the hair on their arms. None had ever seen a white man before.

The beauty that glistened off the lake reflected in its people. Not an evening passed in Malawi where they weren’t invited into somebody’s home. Every night they’d pitch a tent and every night someone would approach them and say, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Pitching a tent.’

‘No, no. I can not let you do that. You must stay with us.’

They moved the kids out of their house and welcomed Karl and Bruce and gave them a bucket to take outside and wash up. Ritual. From the same continent, but from seemingly different planets, they sat, cross-legged on the floor eating with their hands, talking. Both the South Africans and the Malawians hugely curious about the foreign elements of the other. ‘Teach me this,’ they’d say. ‘Teach me your language. What are your games?’ The children would cordon off the South Africans, dig holes in the sand, place four seeds in each hole and together they’d play Mancala.

So it went. Every passing day different tribes were experienced: The brightly colored beadworks of the Zulu, The pure white dress of the Amhara, the Samburu herders, the bejeweled Maasai warriors adorned with neck ornaments like the rings of Saturn, huge spears and red cloaks. All eating different foods, playing different games, speaking different languages. A submergence into the most beautiful and uninfluenced cultures in the world.

They’ve got their family, their culture, their religion, their beliefs and it’s so simple. Most countries have lost their culture. You look at the States, the UK and the culture is slowly diminishing. But you go to rural Africa and you see culture is everything. That’s their life force, that’s what they are. The more we traveled, the more we saw it.

Every boarder crossing would yield a three month visa. And every month they’d overstay it and be forced to approach the government offices. The most dangerous places on the continent. At the crossing from Malawi to Tanzania Karl presented his visa to the official. He looked at it, then looked at Karl. His chest flexed and his eyes yellowed as he stated, “These are expired. You’re illegal in this country. I should arrest you.”

The boys explained the walk and Karl extended the letter from Mandela.

“I don’t give a shit about that.” The official said, smacking Karl’s hand away from him. “If you don’t get out of my office now, I’m going to arrest you.” As they left the office and closed the door, they heard the man scream “You better get out of my country!”

They left the immigration office and headed to the South African embassy.

They walked in and explained the situation to the official. The official lent them his Series One Land Rover and told them of a little building off the road where they could renew their visas. And off they flew through the African bushvelt, dust whipping in their wake. Nothing but the occasional impala or dikdik galloping across the landscape. They came over a hill and slammed on the brakes skidding. To the right, just like the man said, was a shack. An old man with a newspaper bent over his face awoke and issued the visas. On the way back the Land Rover broke down and was rigged to run with shoe laces.

And then it began to rain.

And rain.

For the next hundred and twenty days.

From northern Malawi into Tanzania, El Nino gripped the land like claw.

For four months it was terrible, it was the hardest thing ever. It rained day in day out. We’d pitch out tent in the rain. Our socks were wet, our feet were wet. We got terrible boils on our feet. Our backpacks chaffed our backs where there were already terrible welts. We decided this was ridiculous and the next time we’d get to a phone we ring up and say we’re coming home. This was a terrible idea. Then we got to the town. We didn’t even discuss it. We took off our backpacks, filled up some water. Kept going, didn’t even think about going back.

In time the skies allayed from an impenetrable slate to a mere thick soot. For the next month and a half, neither one talked to the other. Fending off dehydration and starvation they had fallen into a catatonic state. A realm of extreme introversion. There was nothing to say and nothing was said. Every night would be the same. They pitched the tent at dusk and Karl gathered wood. Both sat to the crack of the fire and the communications of nature. Bruce with his pencil and paper. Karl with his cigarette and thoughts.

The sun came back in a rage. As if making up for lost time, it hit the land like an anvil. The mud dried to dust and cracked. Dust filled the air. Mirages lifted from the streets. The tar began to melt.

However, the mind was lithe. South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania – walking for weeks shy of a year. Six thousand kilometers in and they reached Arusha, in northern Tanzania. Not only had they reached the halfway point, but it was the only break they had allotted for. They hopped a two day, third class train to Dar es Salaam, where they were to rendezvous with their moms and Karl’s girlfriend, Llane. The guys arrived at the airport a few hours early, dirty as a baboons backside. Bruce had three breaks in his foot (as he had for the past thousand kilometers) and Karl was sick with malaria and dysentery.

Llane came out first, her head on a swivel. She walked within feet of Karl, looked at him and continued looking for her boyfriend. She darting around as Karl said ‘hey, hey – hey, it’s me.’ She saw Bruce and asked ‘where’s Karl.’ He pointed by his side to her sweet love who had gone from grape to raisin. Long hair and big beard. A bushman.

Karl and Bruce had organized a couple possible hotels. The women said they had taken care of it. They drove the car toward downtown Dar es Salaam and pulled up to the Hilton.

The Hilton had heard about the walk and sponsored everyone for the week. Karl and Bruce stood in the lobby as Karl saw a mirror for the first time in two seasons. At the onset of the walk he weighed a hundred sixty five pounds. The walk, the stress and the diseases left him threadbare at ninety-three pounds. And he was yellow.

He shaved and bathed half a dozen times. Each time the water looking less like vanilla extract.

With a down pillow under his head and Llane by his side, the steel wheels of the traveling train clenched. Karl had grown strong. Healthy. His skin smelled of the soft lemon and lavender fragrances of hotel soaps and rinses. And just as he slipped back into the amenities of civilization, it was time again for the bush.

It was the biggest mind-fuck. It was the hardest thing to get over. Having to say goodbye to her. Me in tears, and she in tears. How I’d love to go back with her, but how I can’t go back with her. I knew I couldn’t. I knew I had to complete my mission.

So they walked.

Into Kenya and over the equator. The mission became them. Over the months the moon waxed and waned like a celestial wink. But during the days the swords of the sun sliced gashes into the fallow land. The dehydration had grown worse. Urine the color of copper. Occasionally they ran into former lakes that had grown into fecal-rich swampy marshes. They drank whatever wetness they could gleam.

Of all the adversity we went through, drinking water like this, I believe, was the most harmful. When we eventually finished our walk and went to the doctors to get checked he said ‘from the way your stomach looks, I don’t know how you survived.’ I had five ulcers on my stomach lining.

Into Ethiopia and under the smothering sun. They pushed through thorned bushes as they ascended a mountain in their path. And in the moments of extreme adversity, they reached the mountain’s zenith and all the weight of the world was below them. In the distance, Lake Tana: The source of the Blue Nile. A breeze swept across the summit evaporating the sweat from their dusty flesh. They turned around and saw two hundred kilometers to the south where they had been at the beginning of the week. It was the most salient milestone of the trip.

They had tea.

A few more days and they were at the South African embassy. The ambassador had been expecting them. He invited them to his home. They indulged in food and shade. During the days, Karl and Bruce shared traversing tales to the ambassador’s children. On the third morning as they shared in tea with the family, the ambassador looked up from his cup and said “Look, I’m terribly sorry, I can’t let you go on.” The faces of the family members shared a single sadness.

Bruce looked at Karl, both with sort of smiles and Karl said ‘Don’t worry man, we’re fine. We’ve been through worse areas. We can handle it.’

The ambassador looked at Karl and said ‘You don’t understand. The choice is not yours no more. You, as a South African citizen and me as the government embassy here, we can’t let you continue. We’ve been told there’s a war starting up over the boarder. All the embassies are flying their citizens back to their countries. I’m sorry.’

They walked for two years across eight thousand five hundred kilometers of Africa. All they had to do was ride the Red Sea north to Cairo and the mission would be complete.

The ambassador didn’t think it would be much of a war and suggested the boys stay a while and see how it goes. They waited weeks and the conflict grew worse, until one evening Karl looked at Bruce and they knew it was over. It was time to go home.

The conflict lasted over two years between Eritrea and Ethiopia and wound up killing thirty thousand Eritrean soldiers.

And then we arrived home. It took us two years to walk there. It took us seven hours to fly back. We flew past Kilimanjaro, we walked passed Kilimanjaro half a year earlier. It took us minutes what took us days. And all of a sudden we were landing on the tarmac of Johannesburg International. And it snowballed.

As Karl finished his story, his eyes narrowed and pulled to where the bush met the sky. Perhaps he was searching for a lost part of his soul which still has a mission to complete.

No Place Like Oz

courtyardjester — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:11:00 GMT

Oz Letter

By Matthew Abrams

I once heard someone say the first generation makes the money, the next protects it and the third runs out of it. People talk of those who grew up in the depression as the greatest generation. The ones who earned it. That would make generation xyz, my generation, the third generation. The ones who blow it.

People say today’s truth has fled. We’ve traded in Cronkites for Geraldos, Murrows for big boobed broadcasters with names like Summer Crest. The virtue of tomorrow has sold out for short lived highs of today as we, the youth, pop out of plastic molds and roll into our dotage on the dog leash of conformity. Yeah, those people are probably right.

It was a Tuesday when I met Kyle Shike. The heavens opened upon Sydney’s King’s Cross district. Rivers ran down the sordid street of Darlinghurst. Hookers in scarlet spandex and black steel tip boots took shelter under denim jackets and canopies which glimmered in the red and blue hues of neon sex joints. The pavement glistened silver under street lights. Curry, pizza and beer filled the air as an intoxicated commotion swirled like cigarette smoke in a Biloxi pool hall through the night.

Out the bar and into all of this we went. The rain seized and everything wet wore diamonds when the light hit it right. I ran my finger along the banister of a bar knocking a row of hanging drips to the sidewalk. There was music. I ran ahead to an old timer sitting on a milk crate slapping his six string beside a Guerrilla amp. His carnival face moved as his frayed rubber-soled shoes tapped and slid upon the midnight sidewalk. Kyle caught up; along with a Dutch couple we met at the bar. The song: Van Morrison’s brown-eyed girl, but tonight it was ours. I don’t know who started dancing. It was a reaction. A blink to a fly in the eye. The four of us twirled and howled into the night. We sang our throats sore and it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. “Hey where did we go? Days when the rains came. Splishin’ and a splashin’ all along the waterfall, with you…My brown eyed girl.”

Da Vinci said “Humanity could reach God through a study of nature and passionate investigation into the world in which we live.” This is bullshit. We reach god through Music. A beautiful girl with eyes of ripe olives took my hand and lifted it, spinning beneath my arm. She pitched on her bare footed tip toes and whispered in my ear “Phoebe.” Over the black cotton spaghetti strap of her smooth naked shoulder Kyle danced with a drunk forty year old woman His twenty year old, 130 pound frame was rocked like scallop shell in a tidal wave. I laughed. She spun him out like a top. Instantly her hand split between me and Phoebe’s like a knife through trailer park butter as she squeezed the bones of my fingers. She had a grip like a logger and danced like a jackhammer. Quick jolts, arm jabs into the air, forced dips. Her face was made of Texas leather, her fragrance, Kentucky Bourbon.

Kyle was now kissing a punk girl with short black and bleached blond spiky hair. Brown eyed girl danced herself still as the song ended. And just then the music man played what we didn’t even know we wanted to hear: Blister in the Sun. We were now a dozen spinning with another dozen standing to watch. The night was ours. I looked at Kyle, who now danced on his own. He looked at me. It was at that moment I knew.

If the soul is alive the body is well. Those of pure form appear as the soul, not the body. This is the language of the brotherhood.

Three nights later, five hundred miles north when Music would open god’s door once again. This time me and Kyle, three Spaniards, and Brit named Joe. Whitman says ‘I do not seek good fortune for I am good fortune.’ That night the lot of us were rich. Our treasure: four hands on the side of a camper, an empty bottle of Stella, a spoon, keys, a bed post, a fan blade, a harmonica and six willing hearts. Again, when the door to the deities opens you don’t hesitate, you don’t question, you don’t ask for clarification, you just go.

And we went.

Joe and one of the Spaniards pounded pink open faced palms upon the walls of the trailer making them sound like Cherokee rawhide. One of the Spaniards tapped the belly of the Stella bottle with a spoon as another racked a set of keys upon the bedpost. Kyle, always appealing to customs, took the metal grate off the fan and played the plastic blades with his fingers. And me, well I was in the middle of it all, the beer cans, the heat and the grime, sitting on my shins, torso arched, abs flexed, sweat dripping from my face, as I wailed the most beautiful sounds through that harmonica my swollen heart could offer. The spirit was alive in all of us. It must have been past two in the morning when we finished. All of the two dozen trailers in the park must have heard our orgy of sound. And I’d like to believe they set off to dream with a smile on their face.

Saturday, two hundred miles north. Two German girls we stayed with wanted to go to the bar, Kyle, Joe and myself were too busy drinking moonshine with one foot dipped in the maudlin night, writing poetry and talking life. By the time we got to the bar the chairs were upside down on the tables as bartenders and bouncers stood on tired feet bumming cigarettes. The German girls talked of going to find the party as the three of us stared at the ocean in silence. One of the girls said “Vee are goving now” and left. Our girl glittered under a million chipped rhinestone pieces of moon. She was our checkered flag. And for some alchemy of the cosmos it dropped at the same time for us all. And we ran to her. And as we did, off came our clothes until we were three naked silhouettes running on the sand under the moonlight. Children of the night. Tap, tap, tap went our naked feet through the skin of the Pacific until we dove. For the next hour we splashed and laughed in those warm Australian waters, belonging to them.

It is now, Da Vinci, I must give you the credit you deserve and disagree with myself. You Ocean, you allowed me a dance with god. Woody Guthrie said, “Our best and most delicious truths are naked truths.” He was right. And as we walked out of the waves, warm breeze upon our flesh, soft sand between our toes, the past and future melted yielding pure life in our collective palm. I stared at Kyle’s back as he walked ahead of me. Lit by the moon, a tattoo etched in black cursive across his shoulder blades pebbled my skin.

All Is Not Yet Lost

And finding it hasn’t a goddamn thing to do with money.

Raglan

courtyardjester — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:00:00 GMT

There is no time. Not to say we’re in a rush, but rather the concept is void. A red Toyota hatch is parked atop the grassy mountain 400 meters up. In the distance the small town of Raglan sprouts a road which winds up past us and down the west coast of New Zealand. To our left the sun hangs still like the theater’s red curtain There are seven of us: 3 English, a German, a Kiwi and 2 Americans. Together we are perched upon a rock. Gazing. Long shadows cast eastward upon a score of milk cows that stand staring at us. Some of them lick grass and dirt that has found itself under the Toyota’s open hood. Some of them moo and nibble while some unsuccessfully attempt to procreate. But most stand staring. And we sit, staring back.

The sun’s descent turns a purple aura to the eastern sky and the show begins. A southwest wind picks up blowing in the memories of winter’s recent defeat. In the east the blue moon blooms over the horizon like a glacial coin. The coppered sun crops images in shadowed frames. Both celestial bodies declaring their full glory like two peacocks flaunting their plumage for our affection. Balancing perfectly at the center of horizon’s vast reaching circumference is us, the radius.

We don’t speak for the last twenty minutes as the poetic powers of mother nature grow undeniable. The moon lifts upon the purple sky as the sun soaks into the ocean, melting clouds on its way. The ocean between them and before us infiltrates the slack black sand shores like regiments of soldiers filing an advance. An unceasing liquid army of silver-studded knolls. The cold wind picks up fierce, blowing over the rim of Julia’s beer bottle sounding a soft, constant, ‘whoooont.’

Knees duck into sweatshirts, beach towels wraps around legs as the sun officially signs out and the moon goes on the clock. Shivering bones jangle. The pink grass turns cool blue. The ocean no longer sun gold, but moon silver.

Into the red Toyota hatchback we go, with the exception of Frano, the Kiwi. He takes his dirt bike and pioneers our return mission. Quick rubs to biceps and thighs warm our skin as we gain awareness of our eminent decent.

In the ’83 hatch, spider webs abound. Water puddles in foot wells. Rust. Dents. Cracks. We beckon its loyalty once again to scale us down the cold grass coated mountain’s edge. At the helm, Mar, a Briton and a sure descendent of Mad Ahab.

(The path was not paved and therein lies the beauty.)

The rattle of the engine sounds. Into gear and movement. Mark dodges slippery cow patties, slaloms boulders and negotiates dips as we bounce, bobble and bound down the cool dark grass. We lean back as if to keep the car from loosing grip and sliding head over tail. The slipping corkscrew is anything but methodical. The engine pitches in flats and sighs by rocks. Nervous giggling chimes intermittently from the back seat filling silent spaces looking between deft maneuvers. Darkness deepens. We hug shadowed precipices of the mountain’s once sun-jeweled crown. Around the bend and down. Fast. No knowledge of his intent, but I held a respect for his driving as Kerouac had for Cassidy in On The Road.

The distant engine of the 75cc dirt bike hums from our north star Frano. The occasional glimpse of a headlight on cutbacks flashes. Frano’s shadowed silhouette points a detour from steep drops, shrouded gullies and tire flattening rocks. The grassy mountain’s edge lets to a burn sienna path pitching steeply downward then again up like the curve of a wine glass. Up to 35 kph as we shoot toward the sea down the winding dirt ‘road’ gaining inertia to ascend its equal. With the engine screaming in second and my hands on the dash we rip back up that hill rolling to the flat sparing not a teacup of momentum. Without a moments breath to all applause, Mark hits the gas heading over the pitch we could not see past and down the side we went.

The eventual paved path materialized and our fingernails found their way out from the car’s vinyl. While the adrenaline softened, the residual serum left us stoned in our mission. And in the pinnacle of Mark’s glory he passes the entrance to our hostel thus simultaneously blowing his perfect game while ensuring its preservation.