Hardy

Where are the amateur sleuths?

The Bird Men of Burnley (1970) by Leonora Carrington

Have you granted yourself the luxury of secrets yet? Which part of this picture belongs to you and you alone, which hour of your day can you sit with your feet in the warm lake and sort smooth stones, plum and steel gray and the faded tangerine of an old sweatshirt, remembering who you were a long time ago? Which small corner closet in your brain can you paper with lilies and house finches and ripe lemons, climbing passionfruit vines and dragonflies? When and where can you dance like the wicked savage you still are, lithe and bright like a flame, curving and twisting and disobedient, cursing gravity, taunting space and time?

Who catches a glimpse of what you’re made of? Who has eyes like that, darting restlessly around the room for hidden harmonies, looming disasters, buried treasure under the floorboards, poetry inscribed behind the stove? Who has eyes like a telephoto lens, who has a heart cobbled together from old bricks and razor wire, who has hands like predatory spiders, who lurks and creeps and worries, who haunts the small hours, doubting everything?

When do you treat yourself to the luxury of belief, that some soul just like yours is digging past the earth’s crust, into the glorious hellfire, searching for clues about what comes next and how it will feel, wondering what’s worth building and how long it can last?

Connection itself is a risk. Art is a risk. Oxygen is a risk. This day is risky and so is tomorrow. What plans do the others make for themselves, to keep the risks out of sight? Sweep the dead under the rug and keep scrubbing, no secrets in the sock drawers, no surprises behind the walls. Let’s build a clean and level future, they tell each other, steady gains with no hidden fees, predictable upward trajectory, eternal victorious ascent into the sky. Why can’t I feel anything they ask each other, as the air grows cold and scentless, as the high notes fall flat and the low notes have no echo, dull and hollow, as the musk of decomposition and the sweetness of growth fade from memory.

Fall to earth and rediscover sticks and stones and broken bones, terror and grief and longing, blood and apple blossoms.

I see you clearly. I hear the risk under your breath, I see the tiny sanctuary you built from stray marbles and old bottle caps, glue and gum and baseball cards, I loves you Porgy, don’t let him take me, hardcover Hardy Boys and birthday notes. Best wishes on your big day, your grandfather writes, best wishes and remember that every single thing you do is a risk, you are in peril every minute you’re alive, feel the pain of that, welcome the fear, drop to your knees and smell the cold ground, I will be gone soon but dare to remember me after I disappear, don’t let him handle me and drive me mad, dare to hear me singing about ruby dahlias and cold green oceans and hot hands, dare to hear me grumbling and growling about the bitter end.

It was bitter at the end. It almost always is. Sweet and bitter and excruciatingly sour, a long, low echo of rage, an unrelenting aftertaste of regret. Don’t run away from it. Don’t scatter my dust to the wind. Expand your tiny sanctuary into an enormous secret temple, filthy with sparrows and cardinals, draped in flowering vines, mysterious and painful and real, belonging to you and you alone. Faith is a risk. Memory is a risk. Love is a risk. Never forget.