| The white amber oil spilled all over the marble floor. The vial. in which I bought it in shattered in a strange way. The glass was thick, and of the kind that does not easily break. But it did, and I quickly dropped to my knees to try and salvage whatever remainder was left inside the broken vial. It was as if my scent was spilled out onto alabaster. It permeated the air with subtle hints of feminine musk. I turned my gaze away from the floor and remembered the little Jamaican shop in Kensington where I bought it from last winter. Had it been a year already? How time flies away... it was January of last year in fact I stepped into that shop to buy another vial. The Rasta quoted a sonnet of loss as he massaged shea butter into my palms. He asked me why I looked so blue. I told him someone I cared about was dying, and his eyes glistened with empathy. How many teachings were in store for me for 2016.... How much to be learned, at what depth, fully comprehended, accepted, digested.... it was as if it marked the end of something... the breaking of the vial. With a cloth, I cleaned the oil off the stone. It was gone, but the scent still permeated the room. Life is clean and simple. I enjoy the ordinary in indescribable ways. ....I just lost half my entry again. Sigh. So frustrating, this keeps happening and it's too late in the night to continue. I will talk about the bathhouse again another time. I want to cry, the best part my words have vanished into the ethers again. Much like the vivid dreams I have at night, only to awake to a blur of intangible flashes. Like the many lives we have had and cannot any longer remember. Though the past does not haunt me anymore, I will always be nostalgic by nature. It is nothing to gloat over. Nostalgic people have made an art out of longing. And all writers it seems, have this in common. |
Day peaks without sunlight, my eyes open all the same.
I sleep in a tavern of sheepskin and Persian velvet. Music like Shankar plays inside my head. The songs of longing reverberate silently through the corridors of this most sacred space.
My life is nearly celibate, consistent, grounded except for perhaps the occasional wine and flirtation of the eyes. I am cocooned safely in the embrace of my own arms and have no room for another. I have never enjoyed this state more than this new year. My song has become the wallowing intensity and release of Shankar's violin. He knows how to play me mercilessly. And I rise, stronger than ever and no longer beg for more.
Give me the salted tears of yesterday's woes that I may bury in the gardens of this beautiful temple. My life has become what was once only dreams. I enter the steaming bathhouse that intoxicates with the scent of eucalyptus oil and oleander leaves.
The murmur of the outside world is far behind us now. We emerge nude and in a state of vulnerability that is quickly enveloped by silence and serenity. There are no words to be spoken here. The Savage garden in my heart makes way for Eden.
I let the hot waters submerge me before work.
The days and nights are filled with a play of elements. Earth and Fire, Water and Air...
the beauty may have overwhelmed before, but my appetite remains wet with capacity.
I am lulled into sleep. Into a present moment where memories or fantasies cannot stay. My Garden of Eden and me...
the resonance of my new found peace marks the start of this piece. Last night, I spoke of the rains that accord the Northern districts of this state. We are blessed with the end of a twelve year drought. Twelve years of laboring pains, to birth what beauty and splendor?
The earth is ripe with shades of emerald and jade. My eyes caught beneath the rays of sun glisten like dark ambers. The whole world has become a jewel sight in my life.