Don't let love fool you; It's not my first love. Truth rocks my world, from below and above. ~XineAnn Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking. ~Goethe For experience is the Soul's one and only nourishment ~James Hillman Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point. ~Blaise Pascal He who has lost his soul will be finding God anywhere, up above and down below, in here and out there, he will cling to every straw of love blown past his doorway as he stands waiting for a sign. ~James Hillman Favorites » Their mine pages
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Game Theory
He loved complex systems.
I believe he loved me.
The way he loved
was a complex system
with finite possibilities.
The way he loved
was silent and methodical
and sure.
And that in fact
was its allure.
Infinitely deep, but
ever the same,
the infinite same,
a Mandelbrot set. And yet,
I believe he loved me.
I believe he loves me still
with finite possibilities,
its pattern defined
but undiscovered,
superficially complex,
love within bounds,
unrecovered.
I believe he loves me
and even if I know,
ever after
I see how it must go.
It's forever love
but love by tic-tac-toe.
~XineAnn
Authentically Blue
I want to see what I see
I want no glad savior
to force my head down
and insist that I swallow
no purification
no messiah to follow
to a tenth circle of hell
no inspiration
no salvation
no story to tell
of paradise found
I want what is real
I want to name its name
no catchy
incantation
no unholy
fascination
I want to feel what I feel
I want sacred misbehavior
I want the whole truth
in all the dark places
I say I want the blues
to expose all its faces
to make it make sense
no projected misperception
no frivolous deception
or is this more pretense
I say I love the blues
and sing them round and round
I want what is real
to not feel the same
I want what is real
I want to name its name
~XineAnn
Prima Facie Love
When you talk to me, I listen
even as I look the other way
I listen
to the intonation of your voice
and your choice of words
whether you are mindful
or soulful
When you talk to me, I listen
writing your words in the air
reading there
between the lines
what you might have
meant to say
I listen
When you talk to me, I listen
to something
that carries them to me
that something
that isn't a molecule
that isn't a sound
I listen
When you talk to me, I listen
and after words fade
I listen even more
I listen for your meaning
and after you go
I hear your intention
I listen
When you talk to me, I listen
and your words wash back over me
after you go
and whisper what you always say
in your every breath
When you talk to me, I listen
so listen
When you talk to me, I know
~XineAnn
Hurry, Make a Memory
Hurry up and kiss me.
I want you to remember me.
I want to make a memory.
Hurry, kiss me,
not with the passion of poems
where you carry me
to bed,
to a desperate future
of things we never said.
The future
that lives in your head
begins when you kiss me.
Hurry, close your eyes
to the things you work hard for,
to endless wanting,
to more of more.
Kiss me and let go
that future of lies.
Hurry, kiss me now,
brush your lips against wherever
and make the moment last, but not
forever.
Kiss me in this moment so
we will have a past.
Your body will remember me.
I want to make a memory.
~XineAnn
In Which XineAnn Goes to Church on Easter - Part 1
Yes, I went to church. Overall, it made me happy. And I liked them.
Walking in, everyone was singing "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" -- a fine hymn that is traditionally sung out of tune and so makes me smile. With standing room only in the back, my expectations were realistic.
Originally a Lutheran church, the building's architecture is more stark than Roman Catholic churches I've been to - except in Solvang - where the Lutheran church has carving on the pews and old Danish family names and Mission Santa Ines is rustic California mission, even with the icons. I prefer minimal; in fact I was hoping for Taize. With few exceptions, no Sunday-go-to-meetin' Easter finery here. That must be regional culture. You'd get hats and flowers and poof in Santa Barbara area churches.
The Mass has a definite structure that comforts me in its predictability. Father Neil said mass. The homily was delivered by a woman named Mary -- by this time I am deep in theological ruminations -- and she mentions that Thomas Jefferson deleted all the parts of the bible he didn't buy into and still found Christ's life worthy. Up to here I am doing okay, but then she goes on how Mary and the disciples believed, as if by a Nietzschean act of will to believe, as though they were somehow better for believing. By now I am in quiet self-flagellation mode because I am a failed believer. She ends with "We are an Easter people" and I am reminded that the Light is blinding. I know myself, I am a creature of the shadows. I may come out to sun myself but it's a vacation.
I was distracted from my musings by the children's sermon. There was a Downs girl there, and she stood off to the left while the other children gathered on the steps in front of the altar. I wanted someone to bring her in and include her in the gathering, but they did not, allowing her to come and stand next to the woman leading the children's song. They apparently knew her and she came and went as she wished. She seemed "not engaged", as if she had been told to join in without knowing why or how. Noticing that, I went off on a psychological tangent how alike she and I are, religiously speaking.
When I got back from that head trip, the children had disbursed. This community has a candle-lighting tradition for the Iraq war. A family came up; the mother and son lit the candle -- this is the five year anniversary lighting -- the father and daughter read war statistics and pray for casualties and for peace. I was very touched by the relevance, these candles lit every Sunday for five years. Tears welled up, but I am more Lutheran than Catholic so I did not cry in public. Praise be...
The woman's son then put on rabbit ears and proceeded to hop from one side of the altar to the other, as his father read and mother stood by. This is a Lutheran phenomenon in my experience. Growing up Catholic, I'd have had my ears boxed if I had even thought about doing something like that. I have a theory about Lutheran women and their sons, due to a lack of a holy quaternity like Catholics have. That's another digression.
Poem for a Poem
I loved you.
I loved you from the start,
the way you crawled
out of my heart
and lay bloody and shivering,
an ugly thing
before I warmed you
with my breath, singing a low song,
warming you with words,
bringing life from death
and love at the door...
I loved you
as I strangled you
sold you as a slave in time
to every new conquistador,
a well-dressed servant to my thoughts
but you would not, you could not.
You waved your arms madly,
trying to make a sign.
I loved you,
pulling words from the fire
screaming words I never meant to say,
throwing them in my face,
breaking all my rules,
calling me a liar.
I loved you weary after work,
masked by blood and sweat,
adobe roads to nowhere and
walls of mud and straw, and yet
no rock for my church,
but mission after mission,
conquests of my new religion.
I loved you
each afternoon siesta
under the black oaks,
loved you at rest
in the waves in the oats.
I loved you in the nights
of a milky way of words,
poured from my soul
in spice and sparkle, shimmer and shine.
I made you up with words,
but you were never mine.
~XineAnn
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