Soapbox

She is beautiful but cannot see it
in a world that values "pretty" so much more.
She is precious, but will not understand it
until one day a small piece of her heart
leaves her body and walks across the room.

She is fierce in love and loyalty,
a defender of small things,
easily angered by injustice
yet quick to forgive everyone but herself.

She lives with her heart wide open,
defenseless against the calloused and entitled,
easily scratched and dented
yet still she walks unafraid.

She is utterly her own person,
wanting to belong
but never willing to conform.
Her laughter infects the blood,
spreading happy contaigen.
In joy she is incandescent
and like a sparkler on a summer night
her heart lights up the darkness.

It is my solemn burden and highest honor
to worry about her,
to brag about her and feed her,
to entertain her when she is bored,
fuss over her when she is sick,
to cry with her,
rejoice with her and about her-

to call her my child.

Do you remember?
Do you remember us
sitting in twos and threes and fours
cross-legged, on the floor of your bedroom,
under the tree in the neighbor's back yard,
among the shelves at the library,
in my dorm room,
talking about our plans and wishes and dreams?

Do you remember
when we really believed that we could make the world a better place
just by loving one another better than our parents had,
by seeing things with our clear, unjaded eyes
and then finding a way to tell the world what we saw?
Do you remember
when we all believed that love really could be forever,
and so we held on to each other tightly
as if the covalent bond we shared
might one day spread, reach critical mass
and spark a reaction that could change the world
if we just didn't let go?

But of course, we had to let go.

 I remember those as the most potent times of our lives,
not because we were young
but because we really believed
in ourselves, in a future with limitless possibilities
and in the power of our own dreams.

I remember- for how could I forget?-
when we sat around campfires on clear summer nights,
forever friends,
talking about love and pain, hope and fear
and how we could fix what was wrong with the world
if only the world would listen.
We wove together our words and tears,
love and laughter
with the pop and crack of the flames,
the shriek of cicadas
the pungent smoke in our faces,
the flash of firelight in our dream-filled eyes
and the passion of our convictions.

And so we combined our elements:
earth, air, fire and faith,
our impassioned gestures the sigils and signs of conjuration
as we implored the universe to listen…
and the flames, dancing upward
and the smoke, rising upward
and our dreams, flying upward
among the swirling sparks,
circling, climbing, up to the waiting stars
to join the heat of a billion other visions dispatched
from campfires and dorm rooms and back yards
of a different, better, more love-filled future.

Maybe the stars are our wishes.
What if the lights we see tonight
are the dreams we dreamed as children,
winking and sparkling above us
igniting the cold vault of heaven-
the light of all our dreams streaming across the vastness of space
at the speed of utter faith?
Perhaps it takes so long for even dreams to come back from heaven
that by the time our dreams return to us, fulfilled,
we no longer believe in dreams.
And so they remain suspended forever above us,
unable to come home.

But maybe, somehow,
all those abandoned dreams out there really have changed something
and the universe is a better place because of our love
and we just don't know it.

Do you remember
when we dreamed the stars
and they came to be:
our selves, fulfilled,
a better world,
a love made real-

just impossible, now for us to hold?

Driving home one evening I passed a small sign on the berm that advertised “Christian Dancing”, which I found to be distressingly vague.
After all, there are so many different types of Christianity that there must be many different types of Christian dancing.

In the interests of preventing unpleasant surprises on the dance floor I present this handy reference so you will know just what to expect, should you ever attend a night of “Christian dancing”

In Quaker dancing there is no music to dance to.
In Shaker dancing they all move around quite a bit but no one ever touches anyone else,
while in Catholic dancing only the priests get to touch someone else.

A Fundamentalist Mormon dance consists of one old man and 9 young women
who must dance together for all time and unto eternity.

On Episcopalian dance nights everyone brings a covered dish and a bottle of wine to share after. Then they eat and drink and talk and usually forget about dancing entirely.

At Methodist dance nights your position on the dance floor depends a lot on how much you paid to get in to the dance hall.
Unitarian dancing is when the dancers all dance however they like, and not necessarily at the same time, or the same place, or to the same music.

Anglican dancers really want to be at Catholic dances, but they just don’t like the music there.
If you decide to attend a night of Christian Scientist dancing, be careful. If you fall and break your leg, you’re out of luck.
At Amish dances they just turn out the lights and everyone makes cheese.
At Jehova’s Witness dances no one is allowed to wear a costume, or celebrate,
or, well, dance.

Baptist dancing…. oh, I think not!
Except at places like Westboro Baptist church, where dancing is restricted to dancing on the graves of liberal politicians and homosexuals.
Calvinist dancing is simply another term for writhing in the flames of hell
and at agnostic dances no one ever shows up because deep inside, they weren’t really sure there was going to be dance that night.

Let the music begin!

Last night I watched "The Lion in Winter"
Kate Hepburn in all her glory-
and contemplated the changes of season that come upon us all.
I know that I have been fortunate.
While there is no almanac to predict the weather still ahead,
no sudden squalls or early, bitter snows
have rushed the perpetual forward progression of my life's season.
For me there is a gradual dimming and loss
like the slow, sweet leeching away of light on a long summer's twilight,
casting long, violet shadows on knees and elbows,
on the stamina to run up and down stairs all day
or to function coherently with only a few hours' sleep.
 

My attitude towards all this is somewhat sardonic.
it sometimes feels as if my body,
trusted friend and companion low these many years,
the one I have counted on to "have my back", so to speak,
has been unmasked as a traitor, a double agent all along,
secretly working for the other side.
Evidence of my own duplicity is everywhere:
once keen eyesight betrayed to the enemy,
firm skin and graceful hands sold out for thinning hair and odd brown spots.

But in my hopefully middle years the changes I can see and feel-
creaking joints and slowing reflexes,
and even the bleak, unexpected funerals that remind me
of the mortality of my once-immortal youth
are not the ultimate perfidy.
Nor is it concern over internal changes perhaps just not yet evident-
a rebellious heart  or the insurgency of quiet malignancy
that makes one fear alien invasion
and wish we could seal the borders and burn the bridges.

It is the looming spectre of frailty,
of feebleness and confusion, a coup d'etat over grace and reason
that lurk in the dark closets of all our minds,
waking us in the night (along with that shrinking bladder)
and we are reminded:  what use to pull in the drawbridge
when the enemy could be already within the walls?
You realize that if your most private secrets,
the nuclear launch-codes of self
are betrayed, compromised by your own body without knowledge or consent,
by the time you realize what has happened
the sequence will have been initiated, fail-safes bypassed
and that substance drifting down around you
will not be the expected December snows
but the ash of nuclear winter.

I want to sail majestically into my winter, like Katharine Hepburn,
and carry my wrinkles and spots and myriad small self-betrayals
bravely into the sunset, head gently shaking but spirit undimmed,
the essential glory of my self uncompromised.

How sharper than a serpent's tooth is an aging back
and the change in weather it foretells.
For the only way to guard against life's betrayal
is not to live at all.

A few days ago I found a piece of paper on the computer table, written in Katie's hand. I thought it was lyrics to a song she liked, and the words touched me, so I googled them to find out who wrote it.
   Turns out- she wrote it, when she was about 15. She didn't seem to think much of the effort, but I liked it so much that I wanted to make it into the song I originally thought it was. So, with a few tweeks and some choruses added by me, it is. Maybe some day you'll get to hear it. Meanwhile, Here's to us!

To all of my beloved,
to the people, one and all,
Come close and raise a glass
to what we're losing as we fall.
Here's to all the smiles
that never left our lips,
An expression to move a nation
or to launch a thousand ships.

Here's to all the laughter
at nothing important,
Mindless giggles on the floor
and the blissful tears they grant.
Here's to all the hugging,
to chase a little pain
Or to steal one last moment
with those we'll never see again.

    Here's to us, to you and to me
    And to a thousand
    and a thousand lovely possibilities:
    To those who'll stay together
    And those we'll only keep in our memory….
    Here's to memory!
 

Here's to all sweet kisses,
a tenderness bouquet
To catch within our hearts,
so lost in disarray.
Here's to all the dreams
of some glad brightness in this world,
That helped us keep our footing
as it spun and it twirled.

Here's to the time that slipped away
    And the secret wishes,
    all the wishes we could never say.
    Here's to the selves that we surrendered
    On the road to who we are today.
    Here's to today!

Here's to all the memories
of you and me and us-
All the things we'll not forget
and those we can't discuss.
To bonfires bravely tended
from just a little spark
And to keeping up our courage
as we whistle in the dark.

And lastly, here's to you-
my friend, my light, my love
Know that, in times of memory,
you're who I'm thinking of.
I only ask this of you now:
laugh, love kiss and dream
But if time serves you right,
could you spare a thought for me?

    Here's to the past that seems so far
    And the future, shining future,
    that leads us like a star.
    Here's to all the generations
    Who helped to make us who we are.

    Here's to us, to you and to me.  
    And to a thousand
    and a thousand lovely possibilities:
    To those who'll stay together
    And those we'll only keep in our memory….
    Here's to memory!

        K and T Meisky