Element
Body/passage earth.
Earthquakes, atonalities, and rice porridge. // We (here) had a pretty big earthquake just now, the ceiling and frame of the house rattled and shook. The sound, like something big grabbing and shaking, from the roof. (Later, to add: the place where the concrete wall of the bathroom meets the wood construction, is where all the noise is. Gempa bumi reported as magnitude 4.8, which is not too high, but less than 10 km away, which is close.) I grabbed Sri Rejeki (she had been sitting on my lap, as she does when it rains) and ran out the door. Everything shook for a while. During that time, I remember the vague sense of surprise, that it was happening, that it wasn’t over yet, and then, that Jeki hadn’t clawed away. Looked for that pain. Soon after that, I started shaking, as one shakes after a car accident. When the noise stopped, I put Jeki back inside, went back inside myself and found Ismail and Lalah, safe, looking up at the ceiling. As though there was a serious ghost or a monster, up there. Still waiting to reach E., who hasn’t answered his phone. I’m sure he’s ok, they were driving in Sweet Orange, the truck. Is it possible they didn’t feel it?
The other measurement is that it was 36 km deep, so the total distance from here, of the source of motion, (what exactly does that mean?), was around 37 km. From me, the earth moved. At least, that is much further away than my husband is.
Something odd is hearing them before feeling them. The rattling of joints in the house, divisions between separate parts of a whole, in conflict. Sound is such an earthy sensation. Light is fiery, touch is watery, smell is airy, not sure to what extent I’m making these up. Also: making up a list of seeds to buy, chamomile, okra, interesting greens, like tatsoi.
Husband was fine, he felt it, he just forgot his phone at home. As happens. I’d rather he forget it, than spend too much time on it. As I probably do with mine.
(Always looking for the moment of proportion between two extremes, moderation, balance, but when certain things swing too far, maybe it’s hard or impossible to find a note of ease. Atonality isn’t an abstract thing, but earthy, embodied, off-balance, bad music. Trying to find good music inside of bad music, to hear past the bad music, to listen for atonality’s resolution, to shape one’s ear in that way, as analogies for being a person on their way through these various worlds.
How far can you stretch, to make it whole?)
Turning around, realized I’ve been in a dark place these past few days. Reading got tangled up in a Catherine Wheel (don’t look it up). Writing got tangled up in time, a bad rhythm, “off”. Days are hot when they’re not dark. Assuming this is hormonal, waiting for it to pass. Playing Enya’s Shepherd Moons, and then, Dark Sky Island. It’s the bubur sayur (rice porridge, with vegetables and peanuts) of music.
Saw the moon two nights ago, the thinest scythe of light against violet-pink satin, when Bu and Pak S. brought our offerings for Kajeng Kliwon. Bu S., (wearing pink marimekko flowers), gave me a jepun flower to put in my hair. I said “suksma Bu”, and she smiled and called me “pinter”, and I smiled and said “sedikit saja Bu”. I put two small offerings in the bedroom, with dupa/incense. Then I followed Bu S. as she prayed over the offering in the kitchen, one in the driveway, two on either side of the exterior of the gate, and one large offering in a basket on the ground in the middle of the gate, at the house’s entry. She poured wine in a circle around the final offering, then she prayed, and then it was finished. (She hugged me and patted my butt, which could be part of the ceremony, too.)
Salam to all.
Sky from home (8).
Anger, which is of love and loss, is a dragon (dangerous and dialectical) that you tame, and then ride, through cloud tops scattering rainbows in fizzy, kaleidoscopic patterns at your passing. Its yolk is what heats you from the inside, tears melting as rain into rivulets down clefts of leaf-patterned veins toward the womb of the earth, crying (of servant or master, at sound of own voice), in no color but all color, as metal, water, woodwind, swansong of phoenix, cradled in crescent. You rested there, to watch. From a distance, you beheld charcoal and ashes scattering through atmospheres, burnt snow falling, lining the sponge-tunnels of lungs and gills with glass splinters all colors of black, laying it down until pelvic bones overflow as beggars' bowls, abundantly silent, a prelude to epochal winter. Landscapes, exhausted by element, ripple below you as satin sheets of mineral reflection, and smooth, sonic transitions from error into the opposite of whatever it was you believed, rounding into sustainable orbits, or perfect planetary poems. It’s a chorus of angels, just being themselves, being holy. Those who were decent and kind, who believed with their undine hearts that fishwives were wealthy, and who buried in bosom only what or whom all could be borne by the cosmic queen of moderation, with her gardener’s tools and her grey eyes fading, at staggered horizons, to gold.
(// Fire-egg.)
To the alien, from another side. // Earth used to be the most beautiful place.
You could go running, under-leaf, through waist-deep tangled-grass jungle, wondering about snakes but not stopping because you had lost something in there, your heart breaking along fault lines in egg shells of worry and the impossibility of searching this dense pocket of hiding. The sharp limits of eyes. (It could start to rain and the drops, clear pinpoints and gashes on your naked arms, would feel body-temperature, not quite cool.) You would give birth to yourself, clambering out from staggered layers of green into a rice field, shifting pale to yellow, (footsteps uneven in cracking, caked mud, swaying in) needle-soft fibers cascading with grain. A sea of it. (It could start pouring, but the heavy, like wind-whipped-metal, grey holds.) Do you go left, right, forward into the field, or back to the jungle? (Ok, good choice. Turn to page 56.)
Words come from behind you, you don’t understand those, but fearful fluttering heartbeats, you do. From underneath places, trembling invisibles look back, lines of sight never meeting, from too many directions. You never held what happened, there. Life was snuffed out in missed-crossings, disappeared, or worse, waited past the faltering light, as if to be found again, hoping but knowing, skin and memory growing thin and colder, until heart stopped. It gave up, it was over, but then, you were found. A strange struggle, distracting but home again, having made plans that seem irrelevant, at this point. Washed a sink full of dishes. Sat on the floor, scratching stray sentences in dust. It would be dark, but not raining, and anyway, you would be under the solid wood floor of another world, with footsteps relying heavily on the grammar of your (earthy) answer.
Somebody who loved you might bring you food that was soft and crunchy and salty and sweet. And a lit stick of honeyed incense. Parts of you would fall back in right places. You could remove clothes, find yourself misshapen, and step into a hot shower under pitch-navy sky. Becoming twin bodies, ocean and sorrow in a breathy coccoon against deep space. I would work my fingers into your scalp, and medicinal smells of sudsy substances would rinse off in slippery streams to either side of your (kissed) face. Scrub around ears. You could be clean. (And the miracle of that.) You could put on clean clothes. You could slip between clean sheets underneath a comforter blanket that was the perfect thickness for this night’s chill, with just enough weight to let you feel, well, enough. Plus a cat, on your legs. Yes, cats were amazing. You could cover your eyes, and drift off, as a warm hand slipped softly into yours. Everything that was lost, would be home, would be dreamt or forgotten, singing or held, would be tucked under feathers, bed scattered with blossoms, and the waning crescent would disappear into the better side of night.
One felt gratitude, and mistook it for fear. That is how beautiful Earth was. We couldn’t contain the joy it put into us, so we turned it upside-down, into fear.
Shadow/surface earth.
Sky from home (7).
Little earthquakes can be reassuring. If it doesn’t little-earthquake for a while, there’s a chance the next earthquake will be really big.
(If you haven’t recently, ask a loved one whether they’ve experienced any little earthquakes, lately. This really works!) (And of course, the album too❤️)
Sky from home (6).
Light-caught.
In progress. (pandan)
Anxiety is a small crisis of faith happening constantly under everything. Like lava running under a thin crust of earth, always about to break into fragments of land on a torrent of molten rock. It can burn you (alive), or you could stay still (for fear), or you could become somehow like it (enough to survive). Crazy, you. You must burn through things, sometimes. It makes you unbearably lonely to be locked in a room with human people, but when you exit, you are not alone. You flow outward, or inward. You meet with an interjoining web of rivers of lava, each bringing news of its own catastrophe. Spreading the word. The core is turning, the burning is real.
Do not lose yourselves, any of you. Altogether, you are changing Earth. You are Mother, becoming. I interpret you as terrain, but from the air, one could see, that you have inevitably been channeled.
Sky from home (5).
Slanted sunlight breaks through steam. Limns wet edge of concrete, scatters in leftover droplets, catches ochre fur of hovering fly. Filters through yellowed leaf and turns it golden. East wind, wet and barely cool, carries news of oceans and exhaust. What’s not secured (dry leaves, a crumpled tissue) falls, is blown away.
It’s a lot.
Wijaya kusuma (7). // Clarity.
Beginning again with a tentative rhythm. Afternoon sun, slanted, partial, and hot, with persimmons on the kitchen counter. Irregular spheres, some squat or approaching rounded-square, pale orange or chartreuse waxy skin speckled and clouded with powdery must. I choose three. Stemleaf (calyx) thickly coated, looking ancient. Paring knife separates (as a broken spiral, drops) skin from clean flesh inside, cut open, with octagonally-spoked slivers for (not there) seeds. Firm between teeth, shifts to pulpy softness, floral honey sweet, young and complicated with something nostalgic. A fragrance from childhood candy. Games of pure pleasure being just out of reach.
Wijaya kusuma (6). // Indecision.
Under rain again. Big grey above, sucking sponge beneath, birdcall from all corners. Everyone wants to speak. (Good morning, Frankie.) Knowledge and being known across distance, sound as comprehension. (And what is it you say?) Crowing. A sometime slow sheen, passing in and out of soaking pour, dry under roofs, (mostly), we let the weather check for leaks. You will not know a house until it rains ten-thousand times. (Numbers become abstract, here.) House logic, according to which, demonstration is a demonstration. (And everything is fixable, including you.) Solid structure carries watery indeterminate around the sweet space of human habitation. (A house being clear and present negation.) Emptiness is also comprehension. Toes cold, eyes blinking open, coffee is fire.
Wijaya kusuma (5). // Not yet.