Month: March 2024

Poker

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

When you start out writing a poem, you may end up telling the truth.

The complexities of The Deities formerly known as God predispose us to make dangerous assumptions about toxicity, truth, and time. Time does not heal all wounds. Some wounds are lethal and most leave visible scars. Truth is an approximation. An act of bravery. A ride down the rapids of turbulent realities. Truth is neither for the faint of heart nor those unwilling to change perspectives. And toxicities are often invisible. The shake of the hand, the brush of the lips. Misunderstood intentions, unwitting contaminations.

Fall back, I tell myself. Fall back to the basics.

But without permission, The Deities have dealt me in. I don’t like gambling. I try to slink away, but they shake their heads. They are Holograms. Robots. All-seeing Eyeballs. Holy Drones. They’re more like devices than deities.

Each of them has at least three arms, and their ears hear everything. The future is permeable, fertile, and seductive. I want more than the hand I’ve been dealt. I want more than today. More.

“You couldn’t handle more,” The Deities say. “We don’t believe you.”

“Well, I don’t believe you,” I tell The Deities.

“Yes, you do,” they state flatly. “You do.”

And they’re right. I do believe, but it’s twisted. How dare I believe in love when I know what I know? I want to love and be loved without motive, without pockets full of caveats and caution. I want to love smart, not gutted. I want the thick armor of wisdom, not penetrable vulnerabilities. I want the faith to travel unencumbered, but instead, I over-pack.

“Texas Hold ‘Em,” the Dealer declares.

“Ha! That’s rich,” one of them chuckles. “Texas doesn’t wanna hold ‘em.”

The Dealer slaps down the last card, face up. All that’s visible strongly suggests I fold. I do not have two aces in the hole. A poker game with omniscient players is an idiocy many of us cannot resist.

We play until the wee hours bring light over the horizon. Outside, a red-winged blackbird balances on an impossibly thin twig. The Deities commune over breakfast beer and my sister’s deviled eggs. It is Easter morning, and as usual, I’ve bet more than I can cover.

The Deities pluck Eider down from their own chests to make me safe and warm. They grind themselves from grain to flour and break the steaming, fragrant bread. I am nourished. Mercy oozes from the pores of the fatally wounded earth. My gambling debts are covered.

“Good game,” the Deities declare. I’m at peace. I’m tempted to rest. But because of the flood, there are stones to move. There will always be stones to move.

Volcanic Activity

Rita Sommers-FlanaganLeave a comment

A derisive voice arose from the cracks in our tongue and groove flooring. “No wonder you thrash around looking for someone who understands, someone who loves you just as you are. You don’t even understand yourself. Whatever that means. So good luck with that.”

I grimaced. God was rumbling up from below, apparently trying to be therapeutic. True, I am in fact wrestling with the complexities of love and understanding within myself and others. But I hate paradoxical interventions.

“Hello, Nasty God,” I said in a resigned voice. “You’d make a lousy psychologist.”

Bully God, Blunt God, Mean God, Bad Mood God, Belligerent God, Greedy God, and Hot Shit God crowded around the table. Nasty God poured coffee and served cake and ice cream. They chewed with their mouths open, burped, and scratched themselves. One of them purposefully passed gas, and the rest laughed like unchaperoned boys at a slumber party in the basement.

But they weren’t by themselves. And they weren’t in the basement. They were front and center in my muddled mind. I stole time from my meditative morning to scorn them, one by one.

“You will not behave like that in my house.” I shook my finger, matronly and severe. It had little effect.

“You will not be so damn hard on yourself,” they cried in unison. “You will loosen up and cavort.”

“OMG, I will NOT cavort,” I said.

“You WILL cavort,” they shouted gleefully and began to sing in three-part harmony:

Don’t sell us short, you will cavort.

You will smirk and go berserk.

You will rant, and you will pant.

You will flail, and you will quail.

You will cast the evil eye,

you will curse, and you will cry.

It’s who you are, our little star.

We’re never far. We’re never far.

I crossed my arms and glared. They mimicked my posture, climbed on top of my shiny table, and danced an Irish jig, belting out round after round of their ridiculous song. The table expanded into a dance floor, and the Wily Women in tall black boots arrived. All hell broke into angular pieces and floated away like iceberg calves. Iceberg calves.

It went on for weeks. Finally, a nearby volcano erupted. A thick cloud of Messianic Ash blanketed the exhausted inner party, and we melted into nothingness.

For a blessed moment, it was profoundly quiet. No color. No light. No longing. No fear.

Then, “Care to cavort?” they whimpered, breaking the silence in strangulated voices.

I smiled and shook my head.

“We’ll be back,” they promised as they dusted themselves off and faded away.

“I know,” I said, centered and calm. “And I’ll be here.”

Oh, Baby

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

This is the narrowest time. Night has loosened its grip, and old wine is poured out as libation to the rising sun. My head slumps to my chest, and my shoulders curl inward to make the passage less painful. Less prolonged. To the east, a thin blaze of orange takes hold. With kindling gleaned from around the chopping block, I light a fire so I can immerse my hands in the warm liquid of another day.

“What sayest thou?” I ask the newly arrived Sandhill cranes.

“What thinkest thou?” I ask the rising river.

The answers come on the in-breath and dissipate before I can inscribe an adequate translation. I will have to ask again and try to be worthy of the answers.

My inner audience isn’t kind. The promise of spring is shrouded in snow, and for some reason, the fire is burning more reluctantly than usual. I suspect it’s the blessing and curse of the thick bark still clinging to these beautifully split logs.

Before I slept last night, someone told me they loved me, and someone told me they hated me. The raucous rise of the north wind relieved the barometric pressure of leftover miles. There was just enough time to make a cursory inspection of my seashells, sticks, and rocks before the paralysis set in. Even then, I had to lean into God to make it to the safety of my flannel sheets.

Now, alert and alive, we are filled with equal amounts of dread and joy.

“Oh, baby,” God sighs. “Oh, baby.”

“Oh, God,” I say, pushing back a little. “Oh, God.” I look into myself as far as I can. “I wish you wouldn’t sigh at me. Go sigh at someone else.”

This elicits a smile. We sip coffee, eat toast, and raise our glasses to the trains arriving, the trains departing, journeys beginning, journeys ending. These simple routines grease the wheels, and we’re off.

Who can guess the length of their days? Who can predict the hard hatreds and easy loves? No one knows their own soul very well, let alone the redemptive mind of God at rest in the protective bark of scorched and fallen trees. We cannot be expected to do any better than we can.

“Oh, baby,” The Cosmic Drama Queen sighs again, so inclusive, so determined. Her obsidian eyes are sparkling, her broad shoulders squared. “Oh, baby.”

Generosity

Rita Sommers-Flanagan8 Comments

If for some reason, Jeff Bezos wanted to give away a million dollars a day, he could do so every day, 365 days a year, for well over 500 years. So could Elon. I sit with this incomprehensible trivia hoping God might make a sarcastic comment. She doesn’t. She’s staring out the window I’ve opened to let her in.

“I don’t want you to call me God anymore,” she says, her voice crossing the room like light from the fire. Like air cleaned by the nearby evergreens.

Why would God say such a thing? Maybe She/It/He/They are tired of this centralized, politically charged, maliciously manipulated name that defines and limits them.

“That’s not quite right,” The Entity tells me. “The name limits you. Nothing limits us.”

“What does Jeff Bezos call you?” I ask.

“Helicopter.” They chuckle.

“And Elon?”

“Moon.” They collapse in giggles.

I don’t laugh. God is being elusive and self-indulgent. I don’t know what to call her. I don’t even know what to call myself. I’m a body of one and many. I have more brain cells in my skull than there are humans on earth. Jeff Bezos has twice as many dollars as the Milky Way has stars. I can write these facts, but like God and infinity, they are abstractions far beyond my grasp.

“You’re coming apart,” the Voice from the Garden murmurs in my better ear.

An observation? A warning? A taunt? I’m not sure. I feel defensive.

“No, I’m not,” I say, looking down and away because in my heart, I know it’s true. I am coming apart. Unhinged. Unglued. Along with Bezos and Elon, the unsheltered and the powerful, my friends and my enemies, I’m coming apart. Muscles and memory. Bone mass and eyesight.

“And you’re coming together,” the Voice from the Ocean adds in a reassuring voice.

The earth sustains life as we know it because, unlike the sister planets we’re aware of, it has surface water separating the ever-changing islands of land, and if things are working properly, death begets life. I stand on the shifting shore, toes immersed in salty water, coming apart, coming together, balanced.

In the slow dissolving, I have not yet given all I have to give, or given back what was never mine to keep, but if the Source of all Generosity, the one I’ve nicknamed God, continues to be of help, I will carry on.

Guesswork

I think there is a God

Her name is Water.

But she is known by other appellations.

Light. Fire. Longing.

Her brother’s name is Greed.

Sometimes known as Fear.

His legs are short and stocky.

Hers are long.

They meet for coffee

at the little place on the corner

but they go home

on different roads.

There is a path

that climbs gently

out of hell.

and opens

to a soothing meadow.

Tread lightly. Eat something.

Find your still small voice.

There is a little girl

beside you.

Her name is Truth.

Take her hand.

There is an old woman

in front of you.

Her name is Wisdom.

Follow her.

Woven into your bones

there is a quiet voice

called Compassion.

Listen.

Default Settings

Rita Sommers-FlanaganLeave a comment

 My friend’s computer got hacked so he had to strip down to default settings to cast out the algorithmic demons. Having essentials saved in the cloud turned out to be a very good thing.

God is perched on my new orange ottoman sampling an experimental kefir popsicle I made yesterday. “Could I regress to default settings if I get corrupted?” I ask.

“Too lumpy.” She puts the popsicle on a plate to melt. “And no, you don’t have default settings. You have habits and intentions.”

Some people call God The Cloud of Unknowing. At the moment, this seems like a great name.

“Well then, Cloud,” I say, smiling. “Good thing I upload occasionally, huh?”

The Cloud agrees. “I save all your previous versions, false starts, half-assed plans, and unrealistic tangents.”

“Ugh,” I grimace. Having multiple versions of myself is confusing, and I generate vast numbers of intentions and ideas. I can never decide which ones to delete. “Do you at least have a logical naming system?”

“No,” The Cloud says. “That’s your job, though I do empty the trash once you actually delete and let go.”

“What about things I should have deleted but haven’t bothered?” I ask. “Could you make sure I’m remembered accurately?”

“No,” The Cloud says again. “No one is remembered accurately. But I’ve already remembered you well.”

All my mortal selves leer at me. A wave of vertigo hits, and suddenly, I’m being crushed by a density that makes it difficult to see or move. “Where are we?” I ask.

“Death Valley–282 feet below sea level. The atmospheric pressure is heavier here than anywhere on earth.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Yeah. Generally, I’m a bottom feeder, but it’s not easy here. Cloud formation is limited and whimsical.”

“Let’s go home and upload,” I plead.

“You sure? We’re 65 words short.”

“I’m sure,” I nod. “It’s only going to get worse. We don’t want to upload nonsense, do we?”

“I have some of your early poetry. Want to fill in with that?”

“No way,” I laugh.

I may not have default settings, but The Almighty Programmer faithfully saves my indeterminate multiplicities and understands my intentions.

And regardless of errant deletions or too many versions, there is enormous comfort in this: I am already remembered well.