labyrinth
this is what i kicked their asses with.
not the greatest piece, but it did its job.
Mrs. Hee left me at a BART station in Oakland and gave me a map of the Bay Area. She marked in red the places I should see and drew it out on the map how I would get there using dots, her pen following the route I would walk, making a decent size rectangle in the city drawn on the unfolded paper that ended right back to where I would begin. She smiled at me, saying, “Now have fun,” excited, not worried, giving me a piece of paper with her cell phone number written on it.
I sat by the window on the BART, and the train went under into the tunnel, the windows suddenly black; fast; and the rails shivering, almost piercing. And inside, they read newspapers, thin books, or covered their ears with headphones; and there were the some that looked around. I did too, and I felt like a voyeur, because this is their routine, and I was in it, watching them.
There are smooth stops on the BART, and it was so on mine. I was still underground in tunnels, but I took the escalator up, to ground above, to found pigeons, hundreds of them, like gray grass growing and eating from the cement sidewalks with their talk of coos, and people waiting in line to take the trolley that would carry them up the hill. I heard its ring, coming.
I preferred to walk up, and I had been smoking and was tired. Bikers carried their bikes on their shoulders, spandex hugging their legs; they passed me without looking, sort of like everyone else better dressed than I, behind large sunglasses.
The wind’s cold here, not like home, where it doesn’t exist (except for mid-March) and the heat stands still and crawls under your shirt. But when I reached the top of the hill, I wasn’t in shadows anymore and I could take off my scarf, and roll up the sleeves of my knitted thrift-store cardigan and saw the cathedral. A cathedral in stone, towers, on top of the hill. I saw the sea below, ships with white sails. But the cathedral, the cathedral was there, still a little higher; I took the steps up to reach its doors and took pictures of it before I went in.
And inside, it was quiet in a loud way, the way the inside of old churches always are, in warning moans that sound like the color of buried stones; the sound of knowing everything, but understanding. And have I said anything about the dark? Tunnels. Tunnels lit in some places where the light from the stain glass-turquoise and violet; crucifixes and saints-reaches. And that’s where I saw it, and that’s when I saw it.
The wool tapestry labyrinth, lines in that brownish purple color, lying on the tan marble-small pebbles of stain glass colors falling on top.
I stood there for a moment, and just watched it, walked around it as two elderly women walked the path of the labyrinth and talked on the way. They saw me, wrinkles below their eyes, and I saw them reach the center. They held their hands to the chest of their kitten basket pink sweaters, and then extended their arms out and claimed how much better they felt, both agreeing, how fulfilled.
They walked out of the labyrinth, and I was still thinking about going in; they knew I was still there.
“He can’t do it, Betty,” one said, trying to be discreet, and the other giggled, not because it was funny, but because she knew what the other meant about me, in San Francisco.
And of course, I did go in, into the labyrinth, and took small steps and felt the way I didn’t want to feel, like I was lying. And I walked in circles to get to the center, made turns, and stopped to see where I was in the maze. The women had left and I was left with the sound of the stones, and the labyrinth in me.
Then I was in the center.
There was a sign before the labyrinth that explained the trip into the center. It said once I’ve reached the center, stay there as long as I’d like. It is a place of meditation and prayer. I’ll receive what is there for me. And I was there, in a space drawn like a six leaf clover. I was still, and I wanted to hear harps and a voice singing about how it will all come together in silence.
I walked out; took my things that were lying by the sign and pushed the doors of the cathedral open and saw the sea, moving the way eyelids try to stay closed.
And I wanted to call Mrs. Hee, pull her number from pocket, and tell her that I had her map but I still didn’t know where I was; tell her that had I left the hundred raging waters in the center of the labyrinth and I didn’t know where I was.
not the greatest piece, but it did its job.
Mrs. Hee left me at a BART station in Oakland and gave me a map of the Bay Area. She marked in red the places I should see and drew it out on the map how I would get there using dots, her pen following the route I would walk, making a decent size rectangle in the city drawn on the unfolded paper that ended right back to where I would begin. She smiled at me, saying, “Now have fun,” excited, not worried, giving me a piece of paper with her cell phone number written on it.
I sat by the window on the BART, and the train went under into the tunnel, the windows suddenly black; fast; and the rails shivering, almost piercing. And inside, they read newspapers, thin books, or covered their ears with headphones; and there were the some that looked around. I did too, and I felt like a voyeur, because this is their routine, and I was in it, watching them.
There are smooth stops on the BART, and it was so on mine. I was still underground in tunnels, but I took the escalator up, to ground above, to found pigeons, hundreds of them, like gray grass growing and eating from the cement sidewalks with their talk of coos, and people waiting in line to take the trolley that would carry them up the hill. I heard its ring, coming.
I preferred to walk up, and I had been smoking and was tired. Bikers carried their bikes on their shoulders, spandex hugging their legs; they passed me without looking, sort of like everyone else better dressed than I, behind large sunglasses.
The wind’s cold here, not like home, where it doesn’t exist (except for mid-March) and the heat stands still and crawls under your shirt. But when I reached the top of the hill, I wasn’t in shadows anymore and I could take off my scarf, and roll up the sleeves of my knitted thrift-store cardigan and saw the cathedral. A cathedral in stone, towers, on top of the hill. I saw the sea below, ships with white sails. But the cathedral, the cathedral was there, still a little higher; I took the steps up to reach its doors and took pictures of it before I went in.
And inside, it was quiet in a loud way, the way the inside of old churches always are, in warning moans that sound like the color of buried stones; the sound of knowing everything, but understanding. And have I said anything about the dark? Tunnels. Tunnels lit in some places where the light from the stain glass-turquoise and violet; crucifixes and saints-reaches. And that’s where I saw it, and that’s when I saw it.
The wool tapestry labyrinth, lines in that brownish purple color, lying on the tan marble-small pebbles of stain glass colors falling on top.
I stood there for a moment, and just watched it, walked around it as two elderly women walked the path of the labyrinth and talked on the way. They saw me, wrinkles below their eyes, and I saw them reach the center. They held their hands to the chest of their kitten basket pink sweaters, and then extended their arms out and claimed how much better they felt, both agreeing, how fulfilled.
They walked out of the labyrinth, and I was still thinking about going in; they knew I was still there.
“He can’t do it, Betty,” one said, trying to be discreet, and the other giggled, not because it was funny, but because she knew what the other meant about me, in San Francisco.
And of course, I did go in, into the labyrinth, and took small steps and felt the way I didn’t want to feel, like I was lying. And I walked in circles to get to the center, made turns, and stopped to see where I was in the maze. The women had left and I was left with the sound of the stones, and the labyrinth in me.
Then I was in the center.
There was a sign before the labyrinth that explained the trip into the center. It said once I’ve reached the center, stay there as long as I’d like. It is a place of meditation and prayer. I’ll receive what is there for me. And I was there, in a space drawn like a six leaf clover. I was still, and I wanted to hear harps and a voice singing about how it will all come together in silence.
I walked out; took my things that were lying by the sign and pushed the doors of the cathedral open and saw the sea, moving the way eyelids try to stay closed.
And I wanted to call Mrs. Hee, pull her number from pocket, and tell her that I had her map but I still didn’t know where I was; tell her that had I left the hundred raging waters in the center of the labyrinth and I didn’t know where I was.