Still

 

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

2017 is passing. Christmas songs are being played again. Soon 2018 will be here with some surprises. The surprises I can deal with, but the challenges need more effort.

Challenges need more effort especially because they have something to do with family and friends, people I love, who demand from me certain things I am unable to give for many reasons. Suddenly, I feel tired, tired explaining, and I cannot find words, good or bad, and that is a dangerous stage for any relationship because it means, somehow people involved got stuck, stood their ground, and are just allowing all the other forces of nature to bear on its fragile existence. Fragile because so much patience is required, something I am short of lately, and I am also tired of being patient.

I ask myself, “What happened to me?” I have no answers, except that when space is being asked, openly or subtly, I give it so easily now, unlike before, when I would make an effort to convince, explain and get back on track. Perhaps, the track has suddenly ended, allowing travelers to get down, smell the flowers, and also smell themselves. Perhaps, I got tired, smelling. Perhaps, I want to smell me.

I am at a point where, I can see the horizon, I can see where I am, but the energy is still. My mind is still, it refuses to take a step, it just wants to take in the sunrise and watch the sunset. Yesterday was the same, I watched people doing the normal things they do, and I found it amusing, instead of being annoyed, that a lady came up to me and attempted to cheat the long line by giving a litany of her troubles and getting in between me and an extremely obese person who can hardly move. It did not bother me to move to the end of the line and give her my post, but before the stillness left my consciousness, the others shouted at her, “Hey, move back to the end of the line, have some respect!” And she walked away.

But I also smile a lot lately. I smile at the least provocation. I even smiled at the thought of the man whom I wanted, but left him just to be, in my thoughts. Finally, I made him into a poem. The poems are flowing in the stillness, and I am in the inevitable stage of becoming a poem myself. That is what is happening to me. A poem. A poem without words.

 

Leaves

anytime soon
gravity will drag me
to the ground
and decay me fast,
for roots to feed on

but now
let me sway to the whistle
of frogs longing to be kissed
let me flirt with the fireflies
and be hypnotized
by the flickering light

let me be adorned
with the dropping of the birds
and get cleaned out
by the tongue of the wind

for tomorrow I shall be blown away
by the fancy of the gentle breeze
or felled by the greed of men
or decimated by the intent of God.

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