Winter Covers Thrown

Tongue tips to snow
We clutched against blizzards
Mud frosted Earth
We slaughtered Orion
And plunged into boiling
Life's lightning pool birth

Happy Thanksgiving!

To all who are celebrating, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Have a wonderful day.

Insight: Delicious Pain

What are you addicted to?

I'm not talking about the easy ones to see, the cure-all highs. Like drinking, drugs, or even shopping.

What are you quietly addicted to? One of these?

• Relationships/love.
  
  Perhaps you feel insecure or unworthy. Or perhaps you were abused or neglected. Someone loving you, wanting you, needing you, soothes the pain.
  



• Companionship/not being alone.
  
  Perhaps you were isolated or ostracized. Companionship soothes the pain.
  



• Solitude.
  
  Perhaps you were smothered or denied the chance to grow on your own. Fierce independence and solitude soothes the pain.
  

Sounds fine, right? A minus added to a plus equals healthy and happy.

No, unfortunately it doesn't. Because once you're soothed for a while, something curious happens. You start unconsciously damaging what you've achieved in order to feel the delicious pain again.

Why?

Because that's how we get the even more delicious feeling of being soothed.

Without the pain, we won't feel the spectacular high again. That's why addictions are so hard to heal. We don't really want to heal the pain that leads to the addiction. We're drawn back again and again, despite the harms and the dreadful cycle.

So what happens to our addicts?

• The love addict hammers the relationship with insecurity or finds ways to feel neglected. (Or even enters relationships with abusive people.) The relationship sours. Our addict is primed for the next high. (Which doesn't necessary mean leaving. Souring a relationship in order to reconnect and reconcile can be just as powerful.)



• Our companionship addict becomes jealous or overbearing. Friendships become unpleasant or erode. He/she moves on. Our addict is primed for the next high.



• Our solitude/isolation addict? He/she dances closer to people, even needy ones, building the uncomfortable attachments just to feel justified in pushing them away.

Think about the most precious unfilled wish in your life. The one that endures years upon years.

That is where to look for your pain.

You may cling to it. You may even jealously guard it.

Maybe it's good thing, I don't know. Maybe it's powerful motivation to push us to greater things.

But also consider the damage it does.

Are you better for it?

Or is it the walls of a prison you've lost the ability to see?

I Wouldn't Stand

Close lightning cracks, and you flinch, you can't stop yourself.

You know it.

The shock rips a hole from your brain, between your shoulder blades, down to the meat of your calves.

Scruuuuunch.

You contract. Your hot wired body. The ripped hole is squeezed shut.

I flinched when the gun boomed, and bark exploded off the tree. Pieces stung my cheek. Clung to my hair. The rifle, like the slam of lightning.

Was I bleeding? Something felt tickle-watery, like I was bleeding.

I could run to the next tree.

Or the next.

But he's so close. Why didn't I run and not stop? He might not hit me. Not in these tress.

Another boom and flinch.

This time the bullet hit solid tree. My skull thumps. Fucking hurts. The impact flashed right through the wood where my head rested.

Footsteps in the leaves now.

The metal clack, clack of the rifle reloaded.

More footsteps.

I could run.

But I don't want the lightning in the back. Not knowing.

Not knowing where.

I used to think about people being marched to die. Regular people. Knowing it, but desperately believing anything. After walking, in a line facing the guns, crumpling in genocide, just standing there. Just fucking standing there, waiting to take theirs.

No way, I thought. Too much white hot anger.

Never let some fucker march me there, make me stand. My eyes already fading to milk and shadows.

By God I'd go down with a mouthful of them. I'd fight.

But then, the rifle clears the tree.

And the glint of a scope.

I don't even raise my head enough to catch his eyes. My legs twisted in the ferns don't fight.

I don't taste blood. Curling in the stare of the barrel.

No savage fingernails and teeth.

Dead leaves rasp with my shaking. My hands reach to push away the barrel.

I choke on the last of my air.

Reading Rainbow

My friends, I find I must return to the subject of work bathroom behavior.

Sorry to subject you to this, but you all being my peeps, I know I can count on you for a fair, um, shake.

Here's the situation for today.

Imagine you're in your office (not urine your office), reclining back, about to enjoy the newspaper.

You crack open the daily. Enjoy the crinkle of recycled paper. The color-fast ink that's not bleeding onto your fingers.

But wait.

You stop.

Something's not right.

Yes. Yes. I know what you're thinking!

How can I enjoy this paper without the aroma of sh!t??

From my coworkers, to be precise.

So you pick yourself up and head to the bathroom, where you proceed to sit on the can for 25 minutes in the hope that someone will join you and provide that coveted, sensory soup. Fine words. Fine stationary. And fine fragrances.

Now, I certainly understand folks who like to catch up on a few magazines, crossword puzzles, or classical French literature on the toilet at home. It's just you and your emissions, after all. God's in his heaven, and all is right with the world.

But why would anyone choose group defecation to propel their reading experience to unseen heights?

If you're like me, you're kind of hoping that the bathroom will be empty. Get in, get out, before another set of footsteps stroll in. Totally toilet ninja.

But then, alas, you find feet in the nearby stall.

And even more galling, complete silence.

You settle in. Get all the necessary equipment primed and ready.... Then you hear the newspaper page turn.

It all becomes clear.

This person was waiting for you!

Oh, sweet sweet happiness! Smiles and tickles for all!!

By all means, oblige, my friend. Forget the pregnant silence. Let it fly and deliver mysterious and mellifluous gifts.

It's all in the giving, my friends. Listen to those joy pages turn.*


(*We at The Clarity of Night apologize for the shameless sarcasm in this piece and would like to express the sincere hope that in the matter of workplace bathrooms, someday will we see the spirit of the anal retentives come together with the party poopers in fresh, pine-scented compromise.)

Water Song

Your wet autumn wind
clothes me
Wet yellow sunshine
Dipped in tapestry leaves
Fading now
Slowly
But will not die today
I hope it won't
Because you're so very close
Just behind the
Royal speckled ground
And scry glass stream
I can't join

Once I was stronger
With all the colors
And russet whispers
But what side am I on now?
Maybe both
The song
And the silence
After

When...

He breathed on your neck.

And your lips parted.

He brushed your skin there. A kiss. And the chill ice-skated to the roots of your brushed back hair.

Liquid mercury raced when he squeezed you.

Pooling its hot weight.

And when the most delicate death begged to drop you at the knees...

you--


(The end, you remember. Take a moment to float there and remind yourself what it is to live.)

(And for the guys, you know what to do.)

Overheard in the Forest

November Poem (In Four Visions)

Last year's winter dreams
Slither on ice crystal leaves
Yellows draining to browns
Purple briars fingers
Clawing back to ground



Green hemlocks listen
Their bones don't scratch
Still touched with sun
In bright blazing winter



November kisses my cheeks
Cold mask walking
On sprouts of spiky moss
Soft and crying
Their dying days



The mountain towers over the valley
Dark, ruminating grey
Sun glows in the clouds
Breaks
A moment of bright
Cheers the end of day.

I Will Follow You Into the Dark

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
      --Death Cab for Cutie

"You don't have to do it, you know," he said.

Her eyes returned to his. Just for a moment. "Do what?"

"Suffer alone. By yourself."

"Who says I'm suffering?"

"Some people have a darkness," he said. "They fight hard not to be alone. But no matter how hard they try, they can't shake the feeling."

"You think that's me?"

"Yes."

"Maybe I don't want to shake the feeling," she said.

"No way. You're not one of those people who wrap themselves safe and tight in their pain."

"So, are you one of the dark ones too?" she said.

"Yes. And no."

"Oh?"

"I know the enemy well," he said. "I know how to pry him out of the dark."

"Really," she said.

"Yes."

This time the mineral strength in her eyes held him.

"You don't have to do it, you know," she said.

The usual tide of confidence in his mind stumbled. "I don't?"

"No," she said. "I know how deep it goes. Especially for you."

"What do you mean?"

"You've teamed up with your own enemy," she said. "But in the end, loneliness isn't a good companion. It always betrays you."

He thought for a moment.

His voice grew quiet. "You're right."

"I know," she said. "So here's what you do. Let me stand with you instead."


(Dedicated to the people who choose to stand with us and push back against the dark.)

Ventilation, Part 17, Final (fictionalized history)

(In 1952, polio reached its peak in the United States with 21,000 cases of paralytic polio. The first polio vaccine was introduced in 1955. By 1965, the total paralytic cases had fallen to 61. In this fictionalized history series, we will be experiencing the aftermath of polio, before the dramatic triumph of a vaccine. If you're just joining us, go back to Part 1.)

Fifty-Five Years and Three Months Since Hospital Admission
October 2007 (63 years old)


Fierce, heaven light slashed through the black windows.

Blue and violent.

The night nurse waited for the rumble of thunder. Impatient, it rattled the windows. The storm gusted and marched closer. Looked like they sat in the firing line.

The nurse glanced at the board.

No call bells yet. That was good at least.

The ones chronically awake tended not to care about weather, and the sleepy ones need way more to crack through those calloused ears.

But they would wake eventually, and with her luck, all at once.

A vicious crack and boom landed right outside the building.

She jolted from the shock.

The red exit sign glowed in the fresh darkness.

"Holy moley."

She hurried to the window and saw a maple tree laying in two tangled halves. Smoke, or maybe steam, curled from splintered wood.

"Geez."

The lights surged. From the emergency generator. But something wasn't right. They pulsed three times down to a sickly yellow.

Out by the maple tree, a brilliant plume of electric sparks exploded like hot fire works. The generator was by that tree. The assisted living home winked back to black.

The phone rang.

The nurse rushed over.

"Hello?"

"I just got an emergency alarm," a groggy voice said. The administrator was waking up. "What's going on?"

"Lightning strike! No power!"

"But--"

"The generator's out!"

"Jesus," he said.

Cold sweat erupted all over the nurse's panicked movements. "The ventilators!"

"Call 911. How many patients?"

"Four."

"Wait. I'll call. You get portable oxygen on those patients. Better than nothing."

Black nausea rocked the nurse's stomach. "Julia...."

"How long?"

"Two, maybe three minutes. I'm not sure."

"You have to operate the iron lung manually," he said. "I'm on my way."

"I don't know how!"

"Levers on the side. They move the diaphragm. Go!"

"Which side?!"

"I don't know!"

The nurse slammed down the phone and ran.

She skidded into Julia's black doorway.

How strange, the silence.

No clanging, mechanical breaths.

"Julia!"

Absolute silence.



Several months ago, I learned of the death of Dianne Odell, who was confined to an iron lung for nearly 60 years following a Polio infection she contracted at three years of age. Her courageous life was cut short by a power outage during a thunderstorm in May 2008. Years before, her father kept her alive during a power outage by hand-operating her iron lung for hours until the National Guard brought a generator. After that experience, the family purchased a generator for the house. Unfortunately, on the night of the power outage, they could not start the generator. Dianne passed away before help arrived.

I was so moved by the story and the plight of Polio victims whose iron lungs are no longer manufactured or officially maintained that I wanted to write this series. This story is not Dianne Odell's story. Julia is my creation, my attempt to understand some of the pain, and joys, of life so severely affected by disease.

I dedicate Julia to all those who have suffered because of Polio--the victims as well as their families. I hope history never forgets them. I hope we will always celebrate their lessons of the extraordinary reach and triumph of the human condition.

I Saw a Blood Tree on an Autumn Day

Blood
Is less than blood
Until you bleed

Joy
Is less than joy
Until you need