Look at your hands
Current mood: blessed
Category: Life

Look at my hands

like a prayer

they look old

they look strong

I look at my hands

And remember

creating

the art

the music

 the great sex

we all had together

we were collecting

agates and jade

back in the day

 in Humboldt

We climbed the rock

made our stand

And in broken rain

 they chopped us down

Anyway

I was just playing

The hummingbird song

and decided to come in

reach out across the universe

To our place …..online….

 Our face

I look at my hands

 And people they say

Andromaeda and our Milky Way

Are gonna collide!

(someday)

Racing toward each other

at 75 miles per second.

wrap your mind around that

Look at my hands

 I am in love with

some Cat in Berkeley

this dripping cedar tree

a married man in a parallel universe

a prehistoric fern in south florida

the spaces between the notes

water dripping off

that body

this thirst

……..

Look at my hands

They move the clay

Build the island we live on

Shower the sky with stars

come in your face

to remind

of what is real

releasing

the bones of truth

I see those hands

and remember Anna Mae

Such innocence

Woman and soft

Blew that skin away

Look at us

Women everywhere

Will collectively

crush HIS fingers

With unsteady hands

on a brand new Alveraz

my roommate plays

songs from the old days

by Alice Di Micele

recently watching her hands

 playing the weight of us all

Hypnotic, large and strong

I see her face and think of tall cedars

And the redwoods of Humboldt

Holding me forever

Remember…

Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee

Not like they’re gone or anything

Remember like

Wake up and feel/hear/see

See me looking

at your hands

And remember

Where we were

  where we are now

Where we are headed

Is it really perfect?

It is perfect….

……listen

Currently listening : Rei Momo By David Byrne Release date: 25 September, 1989

7:44 PM - 11 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Winter is Here
Current mood: dreaming
Category: dreaming Writing and Poetry

winter is here

My roommate and I .... innocent bystanders
(just kidding.... there is no such thing)
we are sitting around watching the blue herons
scare the seagulls into silliness

our cat watches from the hillside

my roommates' lap-top decides to play it's own random selection of music

only the middle of a grey noon…and we are sipping syrah
...discussing the need to put up more wood

my internet business stumbles along and we laugh anyway

at old jokes noone else would understand…..

(nine years together will do that to you)

the cat glances our way, silently like an owl

if it were nighttime ... her position never would have been given up...

I want to be like her

her indifference to the moment rises to a fevered pitch.

and the lap-top begins to play     'terrapin station'

the glitch in the matrix... ripples outward from the speakers

melancholy settles over us
  ~  like fairy dust  ~

we can't shake it

Look... the tide is high
time to pull in some floating logs
save the hillside.....our disappearing bank

the cat vanishes

life goes on.......

Currently listening : A Meeting by the River By Ry Cooder & V.M. Bhatt Release date: 23 February, 1993

3:37 PM - 9 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Bring on the Night
Current mood: enthralled
Category: Writing and Poetry

drifting lightly
through a moon-lit meadow
i bent down to kiss a stream

water healing
taste the wonder
awake or in a dream?

i felt his spirit
gently approach me
no need to look behind

i know this love
throughout the ages
aligning heart and mind

gently stroking
with poetic fingers
the length of my long hair

closing my eyes
to suspend the majic
a spell to keep him there.

I feel his skin
and know it's red
this love now has always been

we can't escape
nor ever forget
truth beneath our skin

Moon glowing high
we meld into one
no cause for rush or flight

holding this love
his scent of my longing
how useless... human sight

we slept in peace
until the morn
when daylight crushes dreams

open my eyes
to empty arms
and nothing as it seems

walking away
I watch my love
grizzly covered with hair

loping in sadness
limitation bound
the human and the bear

Currently reading : The Mayan Prophecies : Unlocking the Secrets of a Lost Civilization By Adrian Gilbert Release date: September, 1996

5:56 PM - 19 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

A Native View of Immigration...by: Mahtowin Munro
Current mood: awake
Category: Life

..> ..>

I have lifted this from Ben Carnes site and agree with his words below describing this talk given by: Mahtowin Munro, his friend who is Mohawk. It is lengthy...but well worth the time. Thank you, S A Native view of immigration The following was not written by me, but by a Mohawk woman I know and I believe it is worth preserving since the "immigration issue" will be around for a while. It is a well thought out presentation with intelligent reasoning and points that should be considered whenever a discussion on this topic arises. Ben ______________________________________________________________ Body: A Native view of immigration Published Nov 22, 2006 12:34 AM Mahtowin Munro The following talk was given by Mahtowin Munro, a member of the Lakota Nation and co-leader of United American Indians of New England (UAINE), at a Nov. 18 Boston Workers World Party forum entitled "The Struggle for Indigenous sovereignty and immigrant rights." I am going to be talking about immigration tonight from a North American Native viewpoint. Many of us who are Native to this country have been outraged as our sisters and brothers from Mexico, Central America and South America have come under increasing attack by the right wing. We are deeply alarmed by the existence of white vigilante groups such as the Minutemen, and by the stated intention of the U.S. government to build a wall separating the U.S. from Mexico. As Indigenous peoples, we have no borders. We know that our sisters and brothers from Mexico, Central America and South America have always been here and always will be. The immigrant nation that is the U.S. has a short memory and is in denial of its historical facts. This government is descended from immigrants who came here and took our lands and resources, either by force, coercion or dishonesty, and banned the religions, languages and cultures of the original Indigenous peoples of this continent. In the various discussions of so-called "illegal immigrants," one historical fact is always overlooked: America's own holocaust directed against African and Native people, carried out by uninvited foreigners who came to these shores and took everything they could. Surely the deaths of tens of millions of Native and African people at the hands of marauding, manipulative European immigrants during a 400-year span should be worth bearing in mind. U.S. history brims over with brutal, bloody instances of inhuman European immigrant actions that are far removed from the basic aspirations so often associated with today's immigrants. The undocumented workers today in this country dream of a better life and seek to escape the poverty and repression engendered by U.S. imperialism. Unlike the earlier immigrants and the perpetual forces they set into motion, I highly doubt that today's immigrants are plotting to seize others' property, kill babies and earn bounties based on body parts brought back from raids. Consider that, in the late 1630s, the British wiped out nearly every man, woman and child of the powerful Pequot tribe of southern New England in retaliation for conflicts arising out of fur-trade struggles. A few years later, Dutch authorities in charge of the settlement of "New Netherland" on the island of Manhattan carried out nighttime raids against the local Indigenous people, where infants were torn from their mothers' breasts and hacked to pieces in the presence of their parents. Legislation approved in Massachusetts and elsewhere in New England in the 1700s authorized bounty payments for scalps or heads of Indians, young and old. As it turns out, the immigrant authorities were just beginning their efforts to obliterate "the savages," as American history chronicles. Some of the best-known names in American history are dripping with prejudice and arrogance aimed at Native people. Not only did Thomas Jefferson—a holder of hundreds of Black men, women, and children—live a life of ease on his great plantation as a result of that slave labor. He also was convinced that the best solution in dealing with Native peoples was to drive all of us west of the Mississippi. The war-hero president, Andrew Jackson, was one of the most despicable Indian-haters on record. He made no bones about his racism and championed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forced the Cherokee and other southeastern Native peoples from their homes and caused thousands of them to die on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. The 19th century in particular is rife with accounts of the foreign intruders' invasions of Indian country, especially in the Southeast and West, and the carnage that resulted. The December 1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee of over 300 unarmed Lakota children, women and men by the U.S. Army is perhaps the best-known of what were countless massacres carried out by the immigrants and their army. The wholesale abuse of Native peoples continues to this day, and it springs from the same destructive capitalist practices that were brought here by foreigners long ago. As I listen to some people call other people "illegal" immigrants, I often wonder: How could it possibly be that their ancestors were considered to be "legal" while so many immigrants now are considered "illegal"? These comparisons between past and present miss a crucial point. So few restrictions existed on immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries that there was no such thing as "illegal immigration." For instance, the government excluded less than 1 percent of the 25 million European immigrants who landed at Ellis Island before World War I, and those mostly for health reasons. We begin with a simple fact: We Native peoples had no immigration policies. When the Europeans began arriving and stealing our land from us and massacring our people, we did not have them take a citizenship test. We did not have them pass through Ellis Island. We did not have quotas for how many could come into the country. So, when did the U.S. begin to have immigration policies, and what were those policies? For many years, whiteness was the prerequisite for citizenship. The first naturalization law in the United States, the 1790 Naturalization Act, restricted naturalization to "free white persons" of "good moral character" once they had resided in the country for a specified period of time. The next significant change in the scope of naturalization law came following the Civil War in 1870 when the law was broadened to allow African Americans, whose ancestors had been forced to immigrate here in slave ships, to become naturalized citizens. During the 1800s, male Chinese immigrants were excluded from citizenship but not from living in the United States, because their labor was needed by the big railroads. Female Chinese immigration was severely curtailed. Congress in 1882 passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was a virtual ban on further Chinese immigration. The Chinese immigration ban was not repealed until the 1940s. In the early 1900s, Japanese immigration was limited as well, but the Japanese government continued to give passports to the Territory of Hawaii, where many Japanese resided. (At that time, Hawaii was not yet a U.S. state.) Once in Hawaii, it was easy for Japanese to continue on to settlements on the West Coast, if they so desired. An 1882 law banned the entry of "lunatics" and infectious disease carriers. After President William McKinley was assassinated by a second-generation immigrant anarchist, Congress enacted in 1901 the Anarchist Exclusion Act to exclude known anarchist agitators. A literacy requirement was added in the Immigration Act of 1917. During the 1920s, the U.S. Congress established national quotas on immigration. The quotas were based on the number of foreign-born residents of each nationality who were already living in the United States. In 1924, the Johnson-Reid Immigration Act limited the numbers of southern European immigrants. Italians were considered not "white" enough and an anarchist menace. The numbers of Eastern Europeans were also limited because Jews, who made up a large part of those leaving that area, were not "white" enough and were considered to be a Bolshevik menace. I should mention that we Native people were "naturalized" and "granted" citizenship by the U.S. government in 1924. In 1932 President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the State Department essentially shut down immigration during the Great Depression. In 1952, the McCarran-Walter Act revised the quota system again. This act removed overt racial barriers to citizenship but solidified inequalities. Most of the quota allocation went to immigrants from Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany who already had relatives in the United States. This law was also particularly aimed at preventing socialist, communist or other progressive immigrants from entering the country. The anti-"subversive" features of this law are still in force. During all these years, the entire Western Hemisphere, including Mexico, was exempted from immigration regulations. That changed in 1965 with the Hart-Cellar Act, which abolished the system of national-origin quotas. A last-minute political compromise introduced, for the very first time, quotas for Mexico and the rest of the Western Hemisphere. This law racialized "illegal aliens." A hierarchy of those deemed worthy and those deemed unworthy of becoming an "American" became increasingly deeply rooted. Several pieces of legislation signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996 marked a turn towards harsher policies for both legal and "illegal" immigrants. These acts vastly increased the categories for which immigrants, including green card holders, can be deported. As a result, well over 1 million individuals have been deported since 1996. In short, the notion of "illegal aliens" is a construct, an invention of the racist U.S. ruling class. The dominant powers for centuries codified Indigenous, African, Chinese and other people as essentially not "American." The revolting use of the word "illegal" as a noun is a linguistic way of dehumanizing people and reducing individuals to their alleged infractions against the law. I do not have time tonight to discuss the details of the economic and social conditions created by U.S. imperialism and neoliberalism that have forced our sisters and brothers from Mexico and many other countries to come to the U.S. The United States is the true culprit in this situation through the robbery of the Mexican people, which began with the theft of their land and has continued with economic policies like NAFTA, which have destroyed the economy that sustained thousands of families, forcing them into exile and particularly into emigrating to the U.S. As an aside, I want to explain what I mean when I say that the U.S. government stole land from the Mexican people, because this is rarely discussed in school or anywhere else. First of all, the land of course belongs rightfully to Indigenous peoples. Later, the various colonial governments claimed territory. The "Mexican Cession" is a historical name for the region of the present-day southwestern United States that was ceded to the U.S. by Mexico in 1848 under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo following the Mexican-American War. The cession of this territory from Mexico was a condition for the end of the war, as U.S. troops occupied Mexico City and Mexico risked being completely annexed by the U.S. The United States also paid the paltry sum of $15 million for the land, which was the same amount it had offered for the land prior to the war. Under great duress, Mexico was forced to accept the offer. The region of the 1848 "Mexican Cession" includes all of the present-day states of California, Nevada and Utah, as well as portions of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. Note that the United States had already claimed the huge area of Texas in its Texas Annexation of 1845. So we see that the U.S. literally stole millions of acres of land from the Mexican people, then established arbitrary borders such as the Rio Grande, and now hunts down those who dare to cross those borders. The U.S. government has now escalated its war against the Mexican people, whether they are in Mexico or in its Diaspora, by approving $2.2 billion to begin construction of what is to be a $6 billion apartheid wall between the two countries. At the same time, massive raids are being carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security. In cities across the country, ICE is trying to push immigrant workers further underground and scare them away from organizing and fighting for their rights. Local and state governments, most notably in Pennsylvania and Arizona, have been passing vicious anti-immigrant legislation. I just read on the Internet the other night that the Bush administration and the Justice Department now claim the right to hold any non-U.S. citizen indefinitely, without the right to a trial in a civilian court. In recent years, we have also seen how attacks against even documented immigrants, particularly Muslims, have been carried out under the guise of "homeland security." So all in all, there is a calculated attempt to create a thoroughly intimidating and threatening climate for immigrant workers, especially the undocumented. Further, racists continue to push their "English-only" campaigns and to oppose bilingual education. I feel outraged by these "English-only" campaigns. Is English the Native language of this country? Generations of Native people were beaten for speaking their Indigenous languages and forced to learn English. Instead of English-only, maybe we should be insisting that people speak Mayan or Cherokee or Wampanoag. Well, things were looking pretty bleak for a while. It had appeared that the capitalist ruling class and its representatives in the U.S. government had the upper hand completely, and that the mass struggle was dormant. But then came the magnificent immigrant rights demonstrations of last spring. These were led by workers from Mexico and Central America and South America, but they were joined by Caribbean, Asian, African and other allies. This development shook the ruling class. It frightened and deeply worried them. It gave a glimpse, even in the midst of periods of reaction, of the crucial struggles that are on the horizon. Step by step, day by day, this movement will grow. The government can pass anti-immigrant laws but those laws will be repealed in the streets. It was the earlier heroic struggles of immigrants in the U.S. that led to the historic International Women's Day as well as May Day. Without a doubt, immigrants will make that kind of history again. Let's ask some basic questions here: Why does the U.S. need immigrant workers? This country depends on immigrants being the most exploited workers, the ones who work in sweatshops and keep the luxury hotels running. Without immigrant labor, the economy would collapse. So why the witch hunt? To drive immigrants further underground and to manipulate this reserve army of labor. The corporations want to super-exploit immigrant workers. They just don't want to be responsible for paying them the value of their labor or for providing benefits, services and basic democratic rights. The corporations and the government are using the anti-immigrant legislation to mask the truth about the crisis looming for U.S. workers and the huge financial debt of the government. This criminalization is also aimed at the rising tide of change developing throughout Latin and South America, from Venezuela to Oaxaca and Chiapas, a tide of resistance like that of the people of Cuba to U.S. global policies. Capitalism thrives on the scapegoating of certain groups of people, which they use to try and divide us as workers. They want to keep us divided amongst each other because they want to prevent us from uniting to fight back against their bloody-handed system. This is not the first time that immigrants have been scapegoated. Irish immigrants of the mid-1800s were vilified. During the 1800s, Chinese workers in the western part of the U.S. were subject to the most virulent racism, including lynching, and endured the most brutal working conditions. From World War I until the 1920s, the government conducted anti-Jewish and anti-Italian reactionary attacks, including the Palmer Raids. Former President Theodore Roosevelt and many other prominent citizens of his era proclaimed their fears that the Anglo-Saxon was an endangered species due to immigration and to higher birth rates among the immigrants. On the West Coast, Japanese immigrants were interned in concentration camps during World War II, and there were widespread police attacks on Chican@ youth in California during the same era. The current attacks against immigrants must be seen as attacks on all workers. This current assault on immigrants is just another tactic—like racism, homophobia and sexism—that the ruling class uses to pit workers against each other. The only winners when this happens are the bosses. Native people have dealt for centuries with the terrorism of the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and other colonizing governments. I urge all of you here tonight to consider the knowledge that we have gained during that time. If we had unified early on, worked together rather than as separate nations, we may have prevailed and pushed the Europeans right back into the Atlantic Ocean. When we unite struggles, when we build a movement, we must have sensitivity for each other's struggles. We must respect the right to self-determination of all oppressed nations. That means, for example, that only Indigenous peoples can decide what our goals are in the struggle and how we should best fight to achieve those goals. But others can help and support us while having respect for our leadership, and this is what happens at National Day of Mourning. And we cannot subordinate the fight against racism to any other struggle. That is at least in part why today's antiwar summit in Harlem is so important. At the same time, while we are involved in the struggle, we learn about each other, and learn to trust each other, and become internationalist in our outlook. That is the kind of unity perspective we will bring to the streets on December 1. That is the kind of unity perspective that we bring to the antiwar movement—and I want everyone now to mark the date of March 17 in your brain, because that will be an international day of action for the fourth anniversary of the U.S. war against the people of Iraq. The things we seek, such as self-determination and sovereignty for the oppressed, an end to killer cops and racism and war and the oppression of LGBTQ people, full rights for disabled people, jobs and education, can never be fully realized under capitalism, a system that is centered on exploiting people and resources and making a profit. Reforms help a little, but we need a whole lot more than reforms. We don't need a little less police brutality; we must put an end to it! We don't need a little more money in our minimum wage paychecks; we need a living wage, and free healthcare, and affordable housing for all! Youth and students shouldn't have to join the Army to be all that they can be; they need a real future! Rather than reforms, what we need is to commit ourselves to making a revolution together! We cannot allow ourselves to be fooled by the elections. We have been told for decades that we must put our faith in the bourgeois elections and in the Democratic Party, which supposedly will show us the kinder, gentler face of capitalism. Didn't the Democrats vote for this war, and all the other wars? Wasn't it Bill Clinton and the other Democrats who happily gutted programs such as welfare, food stamps, college education grants and so many others? Have the Democrats freed Mumia Abu-Jamal or Leonard Peltier? The Democrats represent the same class interests of the big bosses and corporations as the Republicans do. Regardless of who has won an election, millions around the world will continue to live in misery because of U.S. imperialism. And if we really want a revolution, the history of Chile and other countries has taught us clearly that the ruling class will never just quietly give up power based on elections; at some point, there's going to be a fight. The Democrats and Republicans alike have both feet squarely planted in the luxury liner of the big corporations and the filthy rich. I can picture them, out on their fancy cruise ship, living the high life, drinking champagne and eating oysters. Meanwhile, all us poor and working and oppressed people are in a simple birch-bark canoe together. We look over, and we can see that their ship is named the Titanic. We know it is going to sink, baby. When they get little leaky holes in their ship, the rich get afraid and desperate, and throw more and more stones to try and sink our canoe. Now, our bark canoe may not be as fancy as the Titanic, but it is sturdy, we have really made it well, and there is room for all of us on it. Every now and then, somebody tries to have one foot in the Titanic, and one foot in the canoe. The boats go their separate ways, and that person falls into the water and drowns. We all have to choose one boat or the other, the Titanic or the canoe. Which one will you choose? Sisters and brothers, the map of the world is colored with the patterns of our ancestors' spilled blood. I believe that someday we can make a new map of the world together, a map that does not have borders among workers. Ultimately we will take back everything that is rightfully ours, everything that was stolen from us and built by the blood and sweat of our ancestors. But in order to do that, we must be highly organized and have a plan of action, because the ruling class knows perfectly well how to join ranks against us. What is required is a new movement of unity, solidarity and resistance in all parts of the world. Workers World Party is and will continue to be in the forefront of that new movement and we invite you to join us. Our future, and the very future of our Mother Earth, requires us to struggle toward a socialist future. The threats to life in this country and around the globe demand from all of us a new way of thinking, acting and being. We must come together in unity to fight against this vicious government and the corporations that control it. Together, we can build a new movement, the likes of which this country has never seen before! Sisters and brothers, this is OUR world. Let's work together to take it back! Free Leonard! Free Mumia! Ho! Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Currently listening : Good Morning, Friend By Druha Trava Release date: 27 June, 2006

9:49 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

as children sleep
Current mood: heart broken
Category: heart broken Writing and Poetry

like snakes coiled
and falling from walls
shadows of the night
approach and curl around
her feet

imploring her to recognize
dark side of the face
embrace and love those

hiding in the blind spot

once
this child with faerie eyes
gazing past the mid-point
of a camera's shutter
measured the equidistance
her hand reaching through time

how to pull your molested inner child
          forward
into the healing now
(101)

like rabbits racing
from inside out
she remembers being trapped
in a home not her own

a body she could leave
and protect secretly

watching from corners
of her bedroom

these feelings stayed
inner bombs imploding
like land mines
you can't see

shadows of the night
are comforting friends
where she dances freely
and others stumble

a woman through life
carries ghosts on her back
children who could not speak
believing in a world to trust
as they peacefully slept

Currently listening : Blue Horse By The Be Good Tanyas Release date: 25 September, 2001

9:28 AM - 8 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

There are no innocent bystanders.....
Current mood: awake
Category: Writing and Poetry

From: Ring the Bells, by: Leonard Cohen

"I can't run no more

with that novice crowd,

while the killers

in our faces

say their prayers out loud.

Oh but they've summoned

they've summoned up a storm cloud

And their gonna hear from me!

so..  Ring the Bells

that still can ring

forget your perfect offering.

There's a crack....

a crack in everything.....

....that's how the light gets in

that's how the light gets in."

There are no innocent bystanders

From where I can see

These times now on earth

Wobble and spin out of hand

….. our life out of balance

We all saw it coming…and kept going.

We are all masters here….gurus of the game

Songs, poetry, prayers and tears ….they keep coming

yet, the destruction of life continues….life as we know it….

life as we knew it…will never be the same.

There are NO innocent bystanders

chem.-trails soar overhead

a temporary blanket on global warming

star wars and peace-keeping missles

mad-scientists at the helm

crazy stewardship of our sacred planet

life goes on (and under)…no matter what we do

What are the animals thinking about the humans

What will our children remember most

About this time….the last we will ever see.

Looking back at the last one hundred years

What have we done? What have we NOT done?

 What choices we made….for their future.

Doing nothing…is a choice. A big one.

There are NO innocent bystanders

only a few are truly in the frontlines

Flying into the radar…. line of fire

Seems like a lose-lose situation while the others

Keep the blinders glued to their botoxed faces

If things don't seem right…take another anti-depressant

Rather than address and correct the problem.

In this poison Nutrasweet and Teflon food madness

Columbine is the norm…not the exception

And we wonder why.

I've seen mothers feeding their precious children

Nutrasweet…a known causation of manic depression.

Parents worn out from economic slavery of the day

Sit them in front of television babysitters.

TELEVISION BABYSITTERS!!!!!!

What will our children remember (if they survive)?

What have the dolphins, whales and native peoples

Been trying to tell us throughout the ages?

Do we even remember who we are?

That we all came from mothers.

That we live on our Mother Earth?

tread lightly … for every step a prayer.

There are NO innocent bystanders

Our prison cells decorated with plasma T.V.'s

The latest computers and stereos< P>

High fashions hanging in our closets….

Still a prison cell…no matter how you decorate it.

Humans at the top of the endangered species list

A list they created….can't say they don't deserve it.

There are NO innocent bystanders.

You call this ranting?

You call this raving?

This is nothing.

Listen……

Currently listening : Techarí By Ojos de Brujo Release date: 20 February, 2007

11:13 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

wish I wrote this
Category: Writing and Poetry

'Renascence' by: Edna St. Vincent Millay

All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I'd started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.
Over these things I could not see;
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
And all at once things seemed so small
My breath came short, and scarce at all.
But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
Miles and miles above my head;
So here upon my back I'll lie
And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and, after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
And -- sure enough! -- I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
I 'most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky.
I screamed, and -- lo! -- Infinity
Came down and settled over me;
Forced back my scream into my chest,
Bent back my arm upon my breast,
And, pressing of the Undefined
The definition on my mind,
Held up before my eyes a glass
Through which my shrinking sight did pass
Until it seemed I must behold
Immensity made manifold;
Whispered to me a word whose sound
Deafened the air for worlds around,
And brought unmuffled to my ears
The gossiping of friendly spheres,
The creaking of the tented sky,
The ticking of Eternity.
I saw and heard, and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense
That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence
But could not, -- nay! But needs must suck
At the great wound, and could not pluck
My lips away till I had drawn
All venom out. -- Ah, fearful pawn!
For my omniscience paid I toll
In infinite remorse of soul.
All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire, --
Craved all in vain!  And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each, -- then mourned for all!
A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.
No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God.
Ah, awful weight!  Infinity
Pressed down upon the finite Me!
My anguished spirit, like a bird,
Beating against my lips I heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about
There was no room for it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death, but could not die.

Long had I lain thus, craving death,
When quietly the earth beneath
Gave way, and inch by inch, so great
At last had grown the crushing weight,
Into the earth I sank till I
Full six feet under ground did lie,
And sank no more, -- there is no weight
Can follow here, however great.
From off my breast I felt it roll,
And as it went my tortured soul
Burst forth and fled in such a gust
That all about me swirled the dust.

Deep in the earth I rested now;
Cool is its hand upon the brow
And soft its breast beneath the head
Of one who is so gladly dead.
And all at once, and over all
The pitying rain began to fall;
I lay and heard each pattering hoof
Upon my lowly, thatched roof,
And seemed to love the sound far more
Than ever I had done before.
For rain it hath a friendly sound
To one who's six feet underground;
And scarce the friendly voice or face:
A grave is such a quiet place.

The rain, I said, is kind to come
And speak to me in my new home.
I would I were alive again
To kiss the fingers of the rain,
To drink into my eyes the shine
Of every slanting silver line,
To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze
From drenched and dripping apple-trees.
For soon the shower will be done,
And then the broad face of the sun
Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth
Until the world with answering mirth
Shakes joyously, and each round drop
Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.
How can I bear it; buried here,
While overhead the sky grows clear
And blue again after the storm?
O, multi-colored, multiform,
Beloved beauty over me,
That I shall never, never see
Again!  Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
That I shall never more behold!
Sleeping your myriad magics through,
Close-sepulchred away from you!
O God, I cried, give me new birth,
And put me back upon the earth!
Upset each cloud's gigantic gourd
And let the heavy rain, down-poured
In one big torrent, set me free,
Washing my grave away from me!

I ceased; and through the breathless hush
That answered me, the far-off rush
Of herald wings came whispering
Like music down the vibrant string
Of my ascending prayer, and -- crash!
Before the wild wind's whistling lash
The startled storm-clouds reared on high
And plunged in terror down the sky,
And the big rain in one black wave
Fell from the sky and struck my grave.
I know not how such things can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never clings
To aught save happy living things;
A sound as of some joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself,
And, through and over everything,
A sense of glad awakening.
The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,
Whispering to me I could hear;
I felt the rain's cool finger-tips
Brushed tenderly across my lips,
Laid gently on my sealed sight,
And all at once the heavy night
Fell from my eyes and I could see, --
A drenched and dripping apple-tree,
A last long line of silver rain,
A sky grown clear and blue again.
And as I looked a quickening gust
Of wind blew up to me and thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell, --
I know not how such things can be! --
I breathed my soul back into me.
Ah!  Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound;
Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into the sky,
Till at my throat a strangling sob
Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb
Sent instant tears into my eyes;
O God, I cried, no dark disguise
Can e'er hereafter hide from me
Thy radiant identity!
Thou canst not move across the grass
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky, --
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat -- the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

Currently listening : Decade By Neil Young Release date: 25 October, 1990

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