soiree

I felt tired and a little worn out on people when I got home. Tim gently inquired if I wanted to go to a poetry reading. I really didn’t want to, but I didn’t say. We ate a light dinner of bread and cold bean salad quietly. He was so cheerful that I wanted to spit. I didn’t want to be. But as I ate the good food, and drank cold juice I began to relax and agreed to go—just for an hour. When we arrived there was a man reading. The setting was the semi=circular veranda of a house built in 1820. It was dark and the crickets and cicadas were accompanying the reading. As I sank into the old wicker chair and closed my eyes I could faintly hear the waves. The area where people read was ringed with jasmine garlands and candles were lit for lighting, along with a hanging bare bulb for better light for the old eyes reading. An old woman came up and sat on the mat and told a love story of Sita who could think of nothing but Krishna. Even as she washed the floor her bracelets jangled “Krishna, Krishna.” She sang in a thin high quavering voice a long song telling the story. Many of the people in the audience hummed along, and smiled at some of the parts of the story. A young man stood and shared some of his poems he had written himself. A group who came from Delhi came up and sang a song. An Argentinean man played Chopin and a piece called Summer written by an Argentinean that smelled of a tango. Another read and translated Sufi poems, one of which said, “In times of oppression, Silence is Violence.” One man read this poem by Thich Nat Han:

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow --

even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving

to be a bud on a Spring branch,

to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,

learning to sing in my new nest,

to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,

to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,

to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death

of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing

on the surface of the river.

And I am the bird

that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily

in the clear water of a pond.

And I am the grass-snake

that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,

my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.

And I am the arms merchant,

selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,

refugee on a small boat,

who throws herself into the ocean

after being raped by a sea pirate.

And I am the pirate,

my heart not yet capable

of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,

with plenty of power in my hands.

And I am the man who has to pay

his "debt of blood" to my people

dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm

it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.

My pain is like a river of tears,

so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,

so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can wake up,

and so the door of my heart

can be left open,

the door of compassion.

An hour passes somewhere into the darkness, and then another. I could have sat there all night. Everyone was reluctant for the evening to end. Beautiful moment upon moment built up, shared in our hearts.