| Home | Pottery | Massage | Classes | Contact | About | More |
Eric's PoemIf I said I died six times, maybe thatwas too many. It was god's hand pressing like nectar from apples and pears and there I was formally being massaged somewhere between the pines and firs. I saw groves encircling circles, enclosing space, rain undivided, no rows, no corn, no bravery. Lying on the couch, face pressed, my body was not mine, but a stand-in for the world. My breath was the weather, my hips the valleys, shoulders turnpikes. And the hands that went in, God's hand, shaped and sowed that body born according to Mom on June 1, 1964. A switch, a kidnap, a swap, the earth became my body and seeds were placed by birds and the palms of she who was healing. In that world nothing was built but lines and curves, shapes that stole the light. Leaving the earth, that June 1st body became a pin cushion, a stand-in for all the sufferers; those born outside and away of that glory house in Boulder Creek where I came, driving a blue car filled with pears and mud. I became, unknowingly all the suffering children, the aching grandmother and all those who stored their courage in twisted arms, arched backs, and crippled toes. My back was their back, breathing, though the lengthening was theirs. And then I died, face in the mud which like a wool cap, I relied upon in winter. Pressed in deep brown, butterflies left with my breath and danced above my June 1st body. No longer breathing, no longer enjoying the show. The same circle of trees, sticks stuck around me, I heard another body laugh, though not the one I knew. It died, the second body, lying along side the first. I was dead but the pinching of my foot called another body, and I died a third time. Next week, I thought, I would find the circle, sit down and mourn for the three bodies, somewhere beneath a lake green and red. Someone kissed me on my cheek, a girl with bouncing curls who left the day before, holding my hand and opening her heart. So there I was the June 1st body, dead three times, three more to go. My head this time pressed deep into the mud began to cry for joy was released, no bones to pick, no muscles to move the steering wheel. I was dead six times, a new comer without a telephone. Coming back to life, I couldn't breathe but only cried for I knew now that June 1st was always and the world was new, some garden, some grove somewhere where singing birds pushed off. I laughed, having died six times yet only still learning how to drive. Copyright 2000 Eric Seifert |