The sun has risen again. My panic crows once,
twice, filling my throat. I open my laptop but not my mouth.
The Vedic astrologer says she does not wish
to waste any of my valuable time.
I wonder if I have any clean underwear. The cat
stalks my hand, falls on her side, nibbles my third finger.
My rising constellation: Ashlesha,
represented by a serpent.
In Vedic interpretation, Ashlesha is a difficult constellation
to deal with, the astrologer warns.
You should not concern yourself with mundane
marriage anymore. Seek only the Divine. All other
kinds of bonds cause suffering for Ashlesha.
I know at once that she has not recently wiped the bottom
of a chatty bond with diarrhea, or walked a pair of
aging bonds through the snow, or ordered a gift certificate
online for a devoted maternal bond.
Your 7th lord Saturn is debilitated in the rasi and navamsa,
indicating that having a partner is going to lead to more
negativity for you, than not having a partner.
The cat yawns. The sun picks itself up, excuses itself,
moves several houses away from mine. My panic would
crow all day, if I did not shut it up, swallow it each morning.
Instead, it scratches and scratches until my belly lights on fire.
It’s a blessing to not have to carry that burden or responsibility in life.
You feel alone, only because you are keeping your head at a petty place.
I skim the rest of the reading, will return to it in three months. For now
the house I must find a way to leave is silent, as it is three-quarters of the time.
Sometimes, the cat’s green-gold eyes follow something along the floor
into the next room. If I have let a serpent loose, I want her to kill it. I can
clean up a snake’s mess more easily than I can comprehend detachment
and how to embroider nothingness and I-don’t-care into the patchwork
of bedraggled love and life that is all I have of this time, of the tiny, once-innocent
word me that never meant to be petty, never meant to want more.
Detachment. I have ordered that drink, stomached enough of it, seen its bloodshot
aftereffects in your eyes. I know its taste but still I call out through closed lips,
another innocent word:
you.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Jeez, what do you guys have against my sad serpent ass?
Or was it the diarrhea mention?
Well, I liked it.
Wow. I really like this one. It is so honest. And touching. And vivid. And it flows so well. I admire it.
People who have it seem to take for granted the centeredness that comes from knowing there is someone who is as invested in your life as you are. I have yet to figure out why wanting a partner is such a shameful thing, especially to those who think they can comfort you by reading you the “Cons” side of their page.
“You shall not want” can have two meanings.
(The diarrhea mention was actually delightful, in its way.)
I loved this one, too, but had to think about it for awhile, being new here. Bonds and connections are essential. Along with your cat they can battle that serpent. Panic feels awful, detachment so unnatural. “Patchwork of bedraggled love and life” –wow, I know what you mean there. Such a sweet picture at the top.
Thanks, you guys. I’m really challenged in general by this concept of detachment. It seems like anyone who’s ever been a parent is immediately going to be at odds with it. Are all the gurus preaching detachment as the way to enlightenment single males with no children? I know that’s a simplistic question—and an even more simplistic way of looking at a difficult concept—but it does make me wonder. I’m not so sure I want to attain enlightenment on That Level. Perhaps ignorance is bliss, and it’s damn fine to come back to this earth as a frog, having dared to try to define ‘love’ instead of ‘detachment’ in this lifetime.
As a parent, you’re detached from an expectations of your children. You love them, but you give up your fantasies of them as prom queens, Supreme Court justices, successful artists, best-selling authors or even as solid, contented citizens. You nurture them, you love them, you raise them, but they’re going to be who they are.
And you detach from any ideas you might have about them paying attention to your words of wisdom. They might and then again, they might not.
as painful as it is, ATTACHMENT all the way.
as an adolescent academic overachiever, I remember wishing I could just be a C student, like some of my carefree friends…wouldn’t life be easier. but, alas.
I couldn’t, you can’t. You have too much love, too much feeling,
too much moxie, too much beauty to share–would be a sin to let it go to waste.
attachment/detachment. yes, i struggle here too. how to love enough, but not so much to be obliterated by the pain.
Jenn-There’s no poetry left in me tonight. Let me just say, I find enlightened people (or, better yet, those that consider themselves enlightened) to be totally boring *YAWN*
Besides your beautifully expressed poetry, what also touched me is the photograph. It reminds me of the reality of you, of your life behind the words.
I like this post.