Inner Animal

<Inner Animal

year of the alligator and year of the cloud

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January 13, year of the alligator

A cinch early that morning squoze her mind till she screamed. Then she was clear to freshen up the poppies on the desk. On Saturday she was sixteen and went over the hill to see the Queen. The Queen gave her the moon and it sliced her deep in her breast and she bled. Nothing so much as harmed her thereafter. She walked home in the morning and didn't say a word to her mother. Not even good morning. It was Sunday and the rains began to come more and more fiercely. The day darkened and blew and she heard the howling from the trees. The birds were silent. The cows were under the branches. She knew she would leave her father's house that night and never return. She knew it did not matter what she took with her, because she would eventually renounce all her father had given her.

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February 4, year of the alligator

Even now on the steppes she thought of him. The sound of grasses moving behind her gave her hope. Was his spirit riding the deep afternoon breeze to her as she fled? Ahead, she saw the red slash of Karin's scarf as it blew up from her neck. Karin was taller and moved faster across the plain. Last night in the darkness she had heard Karin cry out softly and she remembered a melody four girlfriends had sung together. The friendships and loves of her short life, all she was tied to, had been loosened to flutter away from her, out of reach forever. Now, because of a single hot night, she and Karin had, well, had been something so new and different that it severed them forever from the people they had known. Karin's red scarf, she thought, was the perfect banner to lead the two, the tainted, away from home and into the wilds.

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February 10, year of the alligator

They were running and shallow puddles shining in the asphalt slapped and splashed as their feet hit them. Street after street and their breaths came harder and harder. A burning chill began to slash her chest on the inside. Finally, leaning against a cinder block wall, she stopped and hoarsely grunted out "Hold it!" panting and lowering her head. She could hear his feet stomp as he stopped abruptly. He was a hulking silhouette against the streetlight when he stopped and turned toward her. He moved in the dark and she could see he was limping a little, holding his right shoulder lower than his left, his arm dangling, unused. "We've got to keep moving, Sheila. We can't stop yet." She looked at him with her sternest look: "Yes, but for how long? Where can we go?"

"I know a place down by the water. We can rest there. And we can get Julie to come down with some supplies."

"Supplies!?" She was angered at the word, it meant to her more running, more hiding, and made words like home and wardrobe and theater utterances of a foreign tongue. Made her foreign to her own life. "I don't want supplies, I want supper and a dress and a shower, Jonathan." She called him by his birth name. They had been Johnny and Sheena as kids together. Now everyone called him Mag -- Mag for magician, Mag for magnet, for caller of the devil.

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February 11, year of the alligator

Put the china cup on the window sill. Fill it with a solution of tumeric and water from the holy spring. Float three leaves in it. This will call out to the tiger in the mountains. And out of the mist of your fearless mind will spring your most powerful talent. And in the woods down by the creek the low growling breath of a new tigress will be heard by the children in the night.

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February 12, year of the alligator

Throwing up Frogs

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February 15, year of the alligator

Once there was a lobster,
Saltier in mind and less even in temper
Than our old grandfather.
Smooth, cold, and rosy, lobster lobster.

Once a kind of disbelief overcame the children.
Then what happened? Nothing,
Because no one ever imagined anything again.

---
February 16, year of the alligator

Even another ballad
Would never weaken
Would never soften
Never bend her.

Even a dandelion wish
Would never whisper
Would never sparkle
Never show her hope.

Even a giggle in the grass
Would never make her smile
Never make her whole
Never uncoil the serpent's heart
Lying deep between her chocolate nipples.

---
March 12, year of the alligator

Sheep on the fading green at dawn. The white sky melts all barriers with its water. And out between the thighs of the land a sliver of water and a tan crack of rocks lay open tiny gate to hope. A gate into and beyond this landscape.

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April 3, year of the alligator

I looked out the window and saw him, head down and leaning toward the wind. I saw his shadow in the shiny black street. I saw his shoulders hunching forward because he went where he did not want to go. I stood very still for a while, then realized I had drifted, that I was not seeing what was before me, but what I remembered of another time, daytime, when we drank wine in a naugahyde cafe, living a moment that had no past or future. A swish -- and then the night street was wiped by the whisper of a car -- strangers moving through. I dropped the gauze curtain and turned back into the room, Its colors faded in the light of the streetlamp, its silence a menace.

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April 17, year of the alligator

We went out in it. Sara led the way. I heard her voice as she leaned against the door. "Ready. Go." She pushed it open, leaning hard against it and holding tight to the knob, to keep it from flying away as it opened into the storm. I plunged out onto the walk behind her and stepped, weaving a bit, down the short steps and out into the street that ridged the hill above the beach. We wanted to look at it, look at the source of the storm, but the wind was mighty and tore at our faces with slashes of sand. So we proceeded, slowly, deliberately, heads down, along the ridge and down a bent path to the hollow. From there we could get behind it. We thought we knew what to do about it; we thought then that we knew how to stop it before it doomed us all.

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April 25, year of the alligator

He opened his eyes. Turning his head, he wondered, "Where am I? What time is it?" He took a deep breath as he sat up and looked around. Livingroom floor, clock says 5:00. Looking out the window, he deciphered the greying sky as morning and passed a hand across his face, his dry lips and eyes. "There was something ... Something important, is it something I have to do?" he thought as he pulled the blankets up around his shoulders and leaned back against the couch. He was now searching inside his dream, or was it a dream, was it something that happened last night, yesterday? Something he remembered powerfully, but just could not bring into focus. Something he could see in the dark. He got up quickly and went into the kitchen where there was a pad and paper. He wrote. He drew. He could see something, a figure in darkness, standing very still, its face in shadow, a light breeze moving its hair. A man. A man waiting for something. Waiting for him. What was it he was supposed to do? What was the man waiting for? Maybe it was just a dream. Just a dream remembered imperfectly, as all dreams are, dreams that take place in a world where words cannot clearly describe the flow and feeling of events. But still, he felt a sense of duty, something he would know if he just cleared his head. Coffee. He began the mechanical gestures of coffee making while he continued to sort it all out. The problem was, he did not remember last night at all. Did not remember yesterday. Did not really remember any context for the present. He knew who he was, that he was in his own apartment, where he worked, his mother, his car, Jenny. But he could not place the present moment in any logical flow of recent time or experiences. Did not know even what day it was. He looked down at the paper he had written on while waiting for the coffee and saw, "11:00 pm Naples Jonathan Mary is waiting for you." That's what he wrote beside an awkward figure in silhouette. An assignment snatched from a dream? Or something he was supposed to do soon and urgently. That's what he felt about it. Soon and urgent. The coffee sputtered in a way that says it's ready. And the phone rang.

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May 5, year of the alligator

It had been three days. What could have happened? She walked to the front of the flat, moved the curtain aside and looked down into the street. That was silly, maybe a symbolic act. What she was looking for was not down on the street. She let go of the curtain and went over to sit at the dining table. She had known that it all was an enormous gamble. She had known that they just didn't know what they were doing, but had to take a step, had to try to make it stop. But now, after three days and no word from Sheila, she began to feel afraid, even guilty. She should have gone instead, but Sheila had insisted. She got angry and needed to take some kind of action, so they decided that Sheila would go and try to make a difference.

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May 21, year of the alligator

Forget to remember your story,
Your dream in this moment.
Here is the meaning of your struggle and your lust and your hunger.
Here is
The path down back behind the shed.
Down you run at the end of summer to meet
Her again, feel her forehead touch yours,
Watch her balance, bare foot in the air, across bald wet rocks.
And you know nothing,
Nothing but her voice and the grasses,
Especially know nothing
Of the cooling damp darkness that's coming
To shut the twilight door upon you
And bring summer and passion to an end.

---
July 16, year of the alligator

Forest and damp. It drips and you can't miss the drops, they dampen you. We walk through the deepest shadows by day, even though we are tired. It's never silent. Always the nervous scratching and twitting of the local life. At night the sounds are deeper, throatier, the whoo and grr. The thump of the bear. We try to hide at night but during the day we just walk what seems an endless shadowed path. It does not seem we are moving forward, just moving our legs while the forest reshapes itself around us. I can hear some crackling water in the distance. The infrequent streams sometimes part the canopy and we can see a sliver of sky. Looking straight up. Looking up from the bottom of a well. Will we never get past this damp dank place and out into the sun?

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August 17, year of the alligator

Only if I had been there. Only if I had said it. She would be here beside me now. I believe that. Even though many other things happened and rationally nothing I did could really be to blame for the havoc and destruction that wiped through here with such fierceness. I still wonder, what if I had listened to Sylvia and taken her away from here? But how could I believe someone who seemed such a lunatic? Sylvia raving and yelling and, especially, her bringing the first message in through a seance. I thought that was just a lot of baloney. I'm still not sure it's not. Just that, well, Sylvia was right, and something really terrible and inexplicable came through here and wiped out our normal lives, taking many we love, and Sylvia, with it. And it looked like nothing we'd ever seen before. It looked human, only it looked also like a storm. How could we have known?

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August 23, year of the alligator

In the distance a haze covered the low areas between the hills. That was the city. She watched, squinting in sun that burned her eyes after so many days in the deep forest. She turned and surveyed the circle of wild land around her, the rocky hills sloping away from her, the two huge boulders behind her that marked the narrow entrance to the forest, the tiny sliver of water seeping out of the little hill to her left. Then, back around, facing the valley and another look at the city at the far end of it. And she had to admit, the haze was localized, and had the darkness central to its now rising clouds that characterized smoke. Only it appeared that this smoke covered the entire area of the city, from the foot of the sealand hills, across the 10 or so miles to the foot of the mountains. And that just simply seemed impossible. Impossible that the entire city would be ablaze. She realized that, with time, she would know if this was an illusion of long distance viewing. She sat on a log and rested. Drank some of the water from the Entrance spring. And then took another look at the bulging smoke. It was just too far to tell what was going on. She began to descend the rocky trail, down to the valley, toward the road to town.

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September 9, year of the alligator

Whatever she said about it, however we felt at the time, there is no doubt that it was all just a terrible mistake. I don't know where she is now, but I bet if you asked her she would not admit it. No, she would tell you how we were dressed so sleekly and felt so beautiful. She would tell you every witty thing we said, and how Daniel's voice just flowed over you like warm ambrosia. How he seemed to slow everything down from the moment we met him there in the dim chaos of the party. Telling you about it now and imagining that short moment of discovery, when the three of us came together for the first time, I can imagine stepping into the circle -- fumpf -- and all is soft and warm and clear and quiet, and stepping back a few feet into the party and feeling the cold swirling din of music and gossip like sharp blades against my skin. That's how he felt, like a place where everything was different.

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September 20, year of the alligator

in love
out of love
the red of the sunset
the black of her eyes

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October 10, year of the alligator

It was the animals, friendly and hostile, that were close, oh, so close to me; so close I could feel their fur and their feathers and their warmth. I was with a cat creature his long arms around my neck, as I held him on my hip like a child. I walked with him on my hip down a wooden stoop that passed several doors and windows of a long country building, low and narrow and painted a dusty green. Around the corner, just beyond the green building, I met someone with a baby bear. She came up with some friends of hers and my animal lowered his chin and bared tiny sharp teeth and hissed sharply at the person with the bear. His deeply-slanted forehead was profiled in the twilight and I felt he knew my danger and my pain. The cool atmosphere of evening moved in through the pines, but I knew I would not be outside to see the stars. I knew I must flee to a place of safety and warmth where these people could not confuse me with their unmatched faces and hearts.

I did flee and entered a large barn. Several people were preparing for a party. There were long tables, some jugglers some women with large bowls. I went towards a corner of the barn it was dim and quiet, near some stairs to a loft. I lay face down on the dirt floor with my arms stretched out. I was wounded in the shoulder. A huge hawk swooped down and landed near me. He came over and climbed up on my back. He then spread his wings out and laid them along my arms and lay his head next to my cheek. He was healing me.

And then a small airplane crashed in the yard.

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October 22, year of the alligator

Only after she saw Pauline's nose twitch did Cathy settle restlessly into her smart smiley rapport that slapped and soared around the dim room like lightening. Cathy hoped to sear the inner gall from the tall pale brunette. Pauline sat still and visibly steaming.

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October 31, year of the alligator

What could she think about
With the sounds of death
'S feet crunching the gravel
Right outside her windows?
She sat writing by lamplight,
Writing a dream interrupted.
She feared she could hear the trees
Screaming as they waved their branches
Hysterically in the chilling wind.
(The same branches, like loving arms,
Had spread above her on a greener day
Years ago in summer)

---
November 10, year of the alligator

Here's a message from a land
Under the realm of dreaming
Just past Saturday and around
The corner from fresh found girl,
Where rocks sound even more thunder
At the edge you never reach in life.
In the cone of a dream,
Standing weeping you know:
No one will ever fill you with joy.
Only this afternoon,
Your hands dripping with clay,
You sink,
Slip past the desire to be loved,
Whole before the potential form.
Can breathe!
Can breathe!

---
December 12, year of the alligator

Into a summons the light of her left eye shifted its flash upon me and I flinched. I turned and stepped confidently from the room. I went away from her demand and shifted that microscopic inch away from greatness into dour boredom.

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December 27, year of the alligator

The light and farther
The night and newer
Younger, yes, than darkness
Out, afire, jeweled and heavenly,
She sits, she sees
Along a soft blue beam
She sees and that's enough --
Guardian Angel

---
January 12, year of the cloud

whisper light seeping,
sullen switches tapping,
white wet air,
baby green hillocks,
so sweet, lickable;
these look back through a wavy window,
and so it is set.
I, still,
not waiting but willing,
sober up the morning of a year
and start tinkering up
the magic.

---
June 12, year of the cloud

All along the edge of the yard nasturtiums sparkled as summer shined down from the blue blue sky. Not at all like home where the sky was white most days. On the slight hot breeze came a rustling sound of crickets sung on a single high pitch, almost out of hearing. And what was missing was the deep hum of machinery that always brocaded the intricate silence of the city.

Ellie felt, well, lighter here, almost aloft, intoxicated under the trees. The tiniest of birds hummed by almost too fast to see, clearly wanting to remain strangers. But the great black raven was a friend, a sentinel and seemingly wise confidant, as she cried out across great distances to her tribe. Ellie was sure mother raven knew all that went on in the broad valley they shared.

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July 14, year of the cloud

She climbed up the ladder in the dim shaft -- hand over hand, one foot then the next --feeling the dank air rising behind her and cooling her back. A slow steady ascent. When she looked up she could see a shining streak that might be a landing and it was only six or so feet above. She climbed up and up toward the streak and found it was not much more than a ledge about six inches wide that circled around the shaft away from her to the right. It was a careful balancing act to mount the ledge and shimmy over, clawing the wall to hold on. About twenty steps of this and there was another set of wooden rungs leading further upward. She clung to the wall a moment, resting her forehead on the rough stone. No one to complain to. She laughed at herself and moved over onto the next ladder and climbed. As she rose up out of the pit the smell began to change from the decayed dungeon smell underground to the sharp dust of what she hoped was a warm day above.

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July 20, year of the cloud

Did you ever think
We would end up like this;
Standing in a rusty place
Listening to the wind play a song on some bent metal
Of a manufactured thing;
Standing warm and juicy inside,
Blood pumping away
For something that's just not happening any more?