The Long Encounter

1

The traveller from a far-off land
was he in search of a lost pattern?
Places of the mind, never visited before, he thought
where love blooms
under a tree of knowledge
forget-me-nots
In a paroxysm of grief
the Partian shot comes to mind
that the customs officer 
or was it the girl at the reception desk of the hotel 
had for him when he left
Is there ever, a homeland that makes us secure?
I don't know how he arrived
how he encountered Daphne
Daphne the  hunter of hearts
the youthful one
in the shade of her Parthenon

Marriage among the Maori was 
by no means an unregulated 
cohabitation; it had its 
own series 
                    of rites 
                    and ceremonies, in which the feast 
played a prominent part
 

but we know so little
of our worlds
so little of the heart's longings
how it beats
and yearns
and searches for happiness 
Was there ever
                            such a thing?
Is happiness – a thing?
Is it  you?

No human ever, a thing 
we knew it once
and one cannot possess
everything is in flux, who said so,
the ancient Greek sage?
OR AN INDIAN ENCHANTER
A WISE WOMAN FROM FAR AWAY
LOST IN THE BLUE
OF A PACIFIC WORLD?

I don't know how you met, Mike
and you, Manue – but I know
the feast is important. Ask the Maoris ask
the priest in Reims, hidden under his black cassock
ask, no –  not Conrad as he travels upstream on that wide river
but Germain, in France
Abidjan a memory in sleepless nights
Chris embraced, tenderly as if it was yesterday 
that both met
we pass on our hopes
ask Gillian

The marriage feat, as Firth tells us,
had both a legal
and a social character
Is it always like that?
WE FRAME THE MOMENT
give it symbolic significance
we promise
but what?
In some places of our world
you could find another one
  but never divorce
the first wife
How strange that sounds
to our whitewashed ears
that are not so innocent
What was it they had in mind – the Others?
IN THEIR TRADITON-FILLED SOUL THEIR LIVING CUSTOM –
Was it loyalty
was it response  / to what? 
WAS IT WHAT? Response &
ability, that word
broken,  it seems, in the middle

I KNOW THE OLD ONES GET SCEPTICAL
WHERE HOPE IS A FIRE IN YOUNG SOULS
do not speak of the soul as separate of 
what's physical, it's merely its form
and the body's FIRE is the soul's fire
and lets us burn

THE OLD ONES PLACED ASHES ON THEIR HEAD
WHEN THEY HAD A REASON FOR IT
TIME IS REAL
WE AGE, we travel on
the feast just a moment
on a long trip
 

2

The pakuwha takes place 
at the time  when the tie 
is formed
                  by the lovers
or later, when days and 
months have passed 
and they've  slept together

IT IS THE FEAST which has
two families encounter each other
and as they celebrate the occasion
they also break with the routine of life
and the excitement of travel
the reception of guests
and, reciprocity being the rule,
the pleasure of being received 
and honored by the host
is experienced
and an observer has noted  the obligation
that friends should not hesitate
and make excuses
but take part in it
 
 

mon amour, she said
ma belle, he returned
the union of opposites that old William Blake
dialectical thinker, poet and revolutionary
print-maker and visionary
told you about
isn't it the creation of a new poem 
                                                  that is alive
                                that lasts a whole lifetime -
creation of an androgynous being
the manwoman? 
the womanman? 
the couple united?

les mariages célébrés 
                              selon la coutume 
doivent être enregistrés 
à l'état civil, it is true
but it is not only in China
that the old ones know 
                      about another truth
Hunyin xingcheng zai tianshang 
marriages are formed
in heaven, they say

yes, we nod
but where is heaven
and on earth
“hell, that's the Others” 
the thinker in Paris warned
life is not
without obstacles

And still
the joyous moment
the thoughtful moment
the tired moment at times
persists on a day of reunion
a fest for lovers
lovers and families and friends
We single out
privileged moments
rites of passage, needed it seems
to structure life
 

3

Les cinq  catégories 
                  de situations matrimonales
retenues par l'E.P.R.
souffrent d'un excès de simplification
et ne permettent pas
d'apprender dans toute leur complexité,
la diversité des situations

or to put it more simply
you cannot put the richness of life and its customs
in a law book

he loved his mother
he saw her, as the wife of a man
Abraham, the eternal father
who slaughered the goat instead
not his own flesh and blood
but how close it had been
how close!

How many have searched
to overcome it
the bondage of patriarchy
the eternal pain
LONGING FOR PARADISE
IN THE OTHER,
the man in the woman
the woman in the man

We are so far away 
from liberated, humane relationships
all of us travellers
on board a Titanic or –
or what?
WANDERERS,
in a desert?
Like Moïse, escaping a Pharao and his
secret police?
 
 

4

perhaps should turn 
to a marabou, not Monique Barrère, not
Marc Dumetz

it was Agostinho the poet who showed me
the true face of my brothers
it was Paolo, from across the Atlantic waters
who helped spell
the message
universal brotherhood
       Tian  ren dou yi

let us go back to the source, then
life itself
sacred sacred sacred
LET US NOT WAR AMONG EACH OTHER
not inside the family
nor between families and nations

5

Jeanne la pucelle
born in the shade of an elm
not that of the cathedral, like Jean d'Orbais
a girl of the country
and a rebel girl, a resistance fighter
a woman on the barricades
I see her on that painting
carrying the red red red white and blue
a bosom bared
stepping across the wounded the dead

we all marry histories
nay, not histories it's her stories
her memories
the book Jeanne wrote 
Jeanne la pucelle vous requiert...
je vous prie, supplie, et requièrs... 
i beg you, i ask you, my lord
I IMPLORE YOU
keep it in mind
I GIVE EVERYTHING
I give myself
 

as I turn the page
I READ 
aujourd'hui, today
...jour de ce present mois de Juillet,
...en la cité de Reims...

A Dieu vous commens, 
et soit garde de vous 
s'il luy plaist,
et prie Dieu qu'il mette 
bonne paix. 
 
 

June 27, 2013

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