Babbling Hill
They babble on in Babylon.
All these tongues roll down the hill, over me
All these tongues to learn, all my goals
But all these tongues work at the same thing
Is it better to know five tongues and change how you think
Or know one tongue to express the purple light within?
Can the tongue express the purple light?
Can the sun fall on me right?
They babble on in Babylon.
White Sky
A white sky rises
from just below the commercial business roofs
The white sky will stay there
well into tomorrow too
And it is no use worrying
about what comes next
All could end
with a crack in the neck
The white sky will remain
the country's eternal coat
It should not be regarded with apprehension or disdain
But acceptance and a light trace of hope.
The Heat Within (White Sky Within)
The heat within
The white sky has settled in my head
I sit perched upon the bed
My back to the open window
I will seek the heat within
Seek to balance it, to spread it otu
To the edges of my body, to the pores of my skin
(Last night my sweat puddled my sheets
My body sought, it seems, to break the heat)
But heat and cold, uneven and perceived
Our desire to get it right is sometimes not believed
The wind and the sun work at opposite ends
Our perceptions are setenced to perpetual bends
But I will fight for my heat within
I will fight my heat within
I will know my heat within
The heat within is, or could be, where I begin.
Something About an Island
There's something about an island. The way water is never far, never really out of sight. How the sky is more mutable, a living and volatile being; sun shines through blue translucency, then light white clouds pass over, the wind quickly blowing those on before the ominous gray blocks settle above, except of course they settle not at all, thundering and pouring and gusting their innards out before the wind takes them too away, returning the sun blue sky to preeminence. Such are 15 minutes on an island. (Weather forecasts must work like probability density functions, providing general ranges for what the weather will be like in the next day, hour, or minute. Variance is great, and a fact of island life).
An island possesses its charm. As a rule, each island has its own charm, but there are charms that fall under the general island heading. One reaches an island by boat, by ferry, hence by means uncommon to a landlubber's daily routine. 1-2 hours of slow rocking, all ferry rides seem about this long, and a new port, a new ground, well-removed from before. Hardly as transportive, as transformative as air travel, a boat journey, a ferry ride brings space, comfort, and calm views.
Then there is the village on the island. Every island is removed from time. Not completely, for time stops for no island, and no minute is an island, as they say. But an island falls on its own pace and custom, a lag behind the mainland, the inevitable source of civic questioning. To wit: should we keep up with the times or keep on preserving. Nowhere is this clearer than the village.
Each island preserves its village in its own way. Nantucket makes it a rule that all new buildings in a certain area must be built in the gray cedar style predominant on the island. On Ærø, where we stayed for two days, wihtout the summering crowd, pink shirts, and Gatsby strut of the previous island, they forbid the construction of new buildings near the center. Gingerbread yellow red and orange houses stack up on the streets, their burnt orange shingled roofs sloping dangerously convex into each other, former sea captains' homes next door to homes fashioned out of one-time ship decks or poops or what have you: this is Ærøskøbing preserved since the 18th century. Many buildings have the year of their construction displayed on their outer wall, old styled black digits spelling out 1784. There is an old-fashioned windmill just above the center to the south. I should say: of course there is an old-fashioned windmill on Ærø, just near the village.
Every house in Ærøskøbing has antiques displayed in the window, dogs and china and sea relics. The displays are redundant: the town is an antique. Each shop has its opening hours displayed but on the tail end of the high season, those hours operate as a guide, a framework of when the store might be open, should customers be present and should the shop owner have no more pressing business than his/her business. Each shop may fill its own niche - pharmacy, book and school supplies store, gardening shop - but each store also sells souvenirs and services the outsiders, admitting in a charmingly open manner that outsiders dictate life on the village. Without knowing for sure, we sensed that everyone on the island, 7,000 residents, must know each other, and the outsiders as such must be easily marked. The open velkommen is usually felt, except when we poke our heads into the local watering hole and cannot decide which is less welcoming: the steady inquiry that confronts us from the gaze of every local in the full room, or the wall of cigarette stench that flooded our nostrils and eyes immediately. We did not enter the bar, ultimately.
We stayed on the island for about 42 hours. The weather was indecisive and tumultuous but on the whole ok. We only left the village once, on our walk to the windmill. Our experience was limited: walking, cute shops, nice dinners, a charming pension; in sum, a travel experience distilled. Sifted until the essence of a trip comes out: the romance of being alone with someone important, or of just being alone, in a new, beautiful, strange place.
There is something about an island.
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