Mons, Belgium
I.
All my plans to leave are slow,
but I'm a patient man.
Patient with whom, it's hard
to say.
Snow makes my shadow
indistinguishable
from my Self.
I paint.
I paint until I can see you again,
iridescent in the fumes,
plastic car parts as limbs,
your body
a cloud, off-white like thunderheads,
the kind I used to dream
I could walk
or run
or lie upon
without
fallling through.
II.
All my plans to leave
are slow, but I'm
a patient man,
since there are still
leaves on the trees, still fires
burning in the Interior,
& the sick haze
they make is a fever
dream,
of the sort I once had
ill in bed for days,
heat like a hot wax
creeping up my face-
this it it
then,
death mask,
features solidified-
& you
brought me what you call
your 'special drink':
lemon peel
& clover honey
& a shot of whiskey
in black tea:
Drink this
& I tried, blaze
in my throat like the taste
of you under
my tongue
the day you said I was the only
one to make you do that,
ever.
III.
All my plans
to leave
are slow
but I'm a patient
man & today
I smoked
the last
cigarette:
Marlboro Lite
because
you always told me
smoking kills
& here I am
chewing peppermint
gum
poking today's paper
into
the fire
with the cigarette
packet, waiting
for the craving,
for the descent
toward madness
to start.
IV.
All my plans to leave
are slow but I'm a patient man.
I can walk to the sea from here,
& from there I can, & have,
cast out bottles,
with notes inside, sometimes,
& other times with scraps
of sheet metal, or paint scrapings,
or bits of wire wrapped in copper,
or full of the shavings
from a fiberglass boat hull.
I thought you might like
them, & I'm not good
with words.
Only with my hands.
Only with them wrapped around
a welding torch, or a paintbrush,
or the stubs of black pens,
the ones I used to shade your hair
in that sketch.
Most of the time, I toss
the bottles out
full of my hopes, which I rest
on you,
& these bottles are full
of nothing, of nothing at all.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Let me tell you why I cannot go to Auschwitz.
There were women scattered over the floor on scraps of straw, some, some of them quite obviously with the mark of death on their faces. Uh, their, they, they, all of them looked just horrible, and of course we could see they were emaciated and, and ill. And something that I have never been able to forget, was an extraordinary thing that happened. The girl who was my guide made sort of a sweeping gesture over this scene of devastation, and said the following words: "Noble be man, merciful and good." And I could hardly believe that she was able to summon a poem by the German poet Goethe, which was called--is called--"The Divine," at such a moment. And there was nothing that she could have said that would have underscored the grim irony of the situation better than, than what she did. And it was a totally shattering experience for me.
-Liberator Kurt Klein, from the Holocaust Museum's archives.
Cracow, Poland, November 2009
For god's sake.
I invoke something I don't even believe in, thinking of this. We are sitting around the kitchen table at the hostel, a group of us, and discussing what we're planning to do in Cracow. Everyone else, all six of them, have a bit of a go-around. Two of them are Jewish.
-Are you guys going to do Auschwitz?
Yeah, I reckon we'll go in the morning.
-What about all you guys? You going, too?
I am the only one at the table who says no. They stare. I stare back. There's a division between us now, and suddenly I am swamped by protests:
-You can't come here and NOT go to Auschwitz. I mean, it's so important. You really have to go.
I bridle, as I always do when someone tells me I HAVE to do something. No, I don't. I don't have to do anything. But this time it is not a mere refusal out of petulance; it's not just that I feel backed into the inevitable corner formed by the intersection of one person's choice to action, and another's to inaction.
I cannot do this thing. I cannot go to Auschwitz.
-No, seriously! I can't believe you're not going. Why not?
Let me tell you. Let me tell you, as I told them, why I cannot go to Auschwitz.
It is not my story to tell.
All these comments around the table underscore immediately what makes me shudder with revulsion when I am dragged into a conversation like this one, all about how, to truly be confronted by the horror and the grief and the scale of it all, one must go there, must attend the sites, and hear the true accounts, and listen to the 30-minute documentary film. The same revulsion surfaces again whilst reading others' blogs or essays about how they've gone there and done that. How 'here is a photo of the gate that says ARBEIT MACHT FREI'. About how it's changed them.
And yet, what is it that changes within them, save for the amplification of non-generational guilt, of that universal apology that wells up in all of us when we think of it? We are so sorry. We are so sorry that someone did this to you. We are sorry, of course, but for what? The cliches are flying all around the table: overwhelming, terrible tragedy, absolutely unbelievable, living people like skeletons. I can feel my irritation growing. Why is everyone so intent upon this, the one denial they've heard of the desire they all feel to set foot on that grass and to walk through that gate and to view the collected, preserved piles of eyeglasses, of children's shoes, of human hair?
It is because they do not understand that there are some things so profound one does not need to see them to experience them. We've all heard the speeches following 9/11, from politicians and celebrities and public figures. We've all seen the news clips, read the articles. As much as those events were unbelievable, they were also a source of deep sorrow for the world at large, in countries to whom nothing had as of yet happened, in places one might not have expected. And some of these sympathizers, who cried when they heard, whose furrowed brows appeared on T.V. or in the paper had never set foot on U.S. soil. The mere thought of it, the application of the imagination--placing themselves in the shoes of the victims, of the families, of the country as an entity--was enough. It was too much. It was more than they could handle.
And maybe that's it then, the primary reason that I simply cannot bring myself to view Auschwitz: selfishness. I have sat through enough films, in class or at home, with the lights dimmed, with tears streaming down my face. I have read Anne Frank's diary, and Eli Wiesel's novels, and transcripts from interviews with survivors, with civilians, the Nuremberg Trials. I know what's there, in Auschwitz, now arranged and displayed and ready for viewing. And I know what I would do, if I went:
I would lose my mind. I would lose my mind from sorrow.
To confront this place is to confront what I already know: that evil in its human forms exists like this, that 6 million people were shot and gassed and starved. I already know these things, the numbers. I already know what I do not want to know: that we are capable this. Yes, we. For why should we be allowed to distinguish when humanity is itself an entity? I know what would happen there, in front of the display of children's shoes (children! My god.). I would be broken by it. I would cry. Perhaps I would vomit. And I would become angry. I would become angry at us. I would become angry...at myself.
All of this, dear reader, to you, seems perhaps hyperbolic and perhaps false. I cannot convince you that it isn't. I cannot convince you, either, of how one should react. They're asking me again, why I cannot do this thing. Why I don't decide to go with them:
-You should just come. You might be surprised.
Yeah, isn't that the point? It's supposed to be hard on you.
-It's not like it's fun or something.
Someone asks about flash photography. Someone else pulls out a brochure.
-No, no. You can take pictures there. It says.
Oh, ok cool.
Pictures. As if this were another tourist attraction. "This is me in front of Auschwitz."
For god's sake.
This, again, I have no desire to do, to experience. Hordes of tourists with cameras, people with backpacks and purses and maps. To be surrounded by those who have come "to do Auschwitz", to feel a powerful remorse, then to get back on the bus and inquire where one might find some lunch around here. I do not want to be near anyone, if nor when I fall apart. I couldn't bear it. I cannot bear a mass of humanity standing about trying to fathom what it all means, in the same spot where humanity was being dismantled, defiled, torn apart.
And so I tell them with as much vehemence as I can:
This is not my story to tell. It is and always will be my story to hear.
For when I cease to listen and begin to speak, I am adding a layer of sentimentality, a layer of falsehood, a veil. It is not my story to tell how I stood in front of a tour guide and was moved to tears by his speech. Not my story to tell anyone that I have seen the gate marked ARBEIT MACHT FREI, nor how it might have chilled me. It is not my story to add photos to, of the barracks emptied and cleaned, or the ovens.
It is my story to hear and hear alone, about how someone else was saved here, and someone else died, and some people more lost their mothers and children, and fathers, and lives. To never put an image to save for those made by voices, by memoirs and films.
As to the need to see it, to understand, I will tell you now that I never, never want will. That going there will not help the desperately angry and lost feeling I have when I am reminded that this thing has happened. I do not want anger to dissolve completely into sorrow; anger is active. Anger has inertia. I must grieve and rage at the same time, sometimes, to continue on in a world where we battle the seeds of this thing always.
I cannot be the person who sits at a table, and puts on a list of things to see today, Concentration camps.
Perhaps no one accepts this. Perhaps I sound bitter, or disdainful to those who did choose to go. I assure you I am not. They tried to convince me once more to come with them, and in my head, once again, I heard my own voice crying out,
For god's sake, don't ask me. For god's sake, I can't.
the pleas we make to divinity when we cannot comprehend what is asked of us, what's happened, what we thought could not be.
Two days later, we take a tour of Wieliczka Salt Mines. On the bus, I meet two women from Holland, one who's been to Cracow many times in the last few years. I've been to the camps, she says, I've been more than once.
She tells me she doesn't know, anymore, what to make of it. She says she's always brought to her knees by it. Then she tells me she won't be going this time. Her friend will just have to go alone.
-Why is that?, I ask her. Why not this time?
She tells me that (and this she cannot take any longer), between the gate exiting Auschwitz, and the gate leading into Birkenau, there are always people taking photos. She says she can't go anymore, that it's all too much, each and every time.
Then she tells me, her eyes raised to the sky, that just inside the gate to Birkenau, they have built a pizza stand.
-A pizza stand. Pizza and hot dogs. Right there. Right there where they starved them to death.
On the bus ride, I can think of nothing but that I want my mother. I sleep a little, I think. I think I dream of vultures.
-Liberator Kurt Klein, from the Holocaust Museum's archives.
Cracow, Poland, November 2009
For god's sake.
I invoke something I don't even believe in, thinking of this. We are sitting around the kitchen table at the hostel, a group of us, and discussing what we're planning to do in Cracow. Everyone else, all six of them, have a bit of a go-around. Two of them are Jewish.
-Are you guys going to do Auschwitz?
Yeah, I reckon we'll go in the morning.
-What about all you guys? You going, too?
I am the only one at the table who says no. They stare. I stare back. There's a division between us now, and suddenly I am swamped by protests:
-You can't come here and NOT go to Auschwitz. I mean, it's so important. You really have to go.
I bridle, as I always do when someone tells me I HAVE to do something. No, I don't. I don't have to do anything. But this time it is not a mere refusal out of petulance; it's not just that I feel backed into the inevitable corner formed by the intersection of one person's choice to action, and another's to inaction.
I cannot do this thing. I cannot go to Auschwitz.
-No, seriously! I can't believe you're not going. Why not?
Let me tell you. Let me tell you, as I told them, why I cannot go to Auschwitz.
It is not my story to tell.
All these comments around the table underscore immediately what makes me shudder with revulsion when I am dragged into a conversation like this one, all about how, to truly be confronted by the horror and the grief and the scale of it all, one must go there, must attend the sites, and hear the true accounts, and listen to the 30-minute documentary film. The same revulsion surfaces again whilst reading others' blogs or essays about how they've gone there and done that. How 'here is a photo of the gate that says ARBEIT MACHT FREI'. About how it's changed them.
And yet, what is it that changes within them, save for the amplification of non-generational guilt, of that universal apology that wells up in all of us when we think of it? We are so sorry. We are so sorry that someone did this to you. We are sorry, of course, but for what? The cliches are flying all around the table: overwhelming, terrible tragedy, absolutely unbelievable, living people like skeletons. I can feel my irritation growing. Why is everyone so intent upon this, the one denial they've heard of the desire they all feel to set foot on that grass and to walk through that gate and to view the collected, preserved piles of eyeglasses, of children's shoes, of human hair?
It is because they do not understand that there are some things so profound one does not need to see them to experience them. We've all heard the speeches following 9/11, from politicians and celebrities and public figures. We've all seen the news clips, read the articles. As much as those events were unbelievable, they were also a source of deep sorrow for the world at large, in countries to whom nothing had as of yet happened, in places one might not have expected. And some of these sympathizers, who cried when they heard, whose furrowed brows appeared on T.V. or in the paper had never set foot on U.S. soil. The mere thought of it, the application of the imagination--placing themselves in the shoes of the victims, of the families, of the country as an entity--was enough. It was too much. It was more than they could handle.
And maybe that's it then, the primary reason that I simply cannot bring myself to view Auschwitz: selfishness. I have sat through enough films, in class or at home, with the lights dimmed, with tears streaming down my face. I have read Anne Frank's diary, and Eli Wiesel's novels, and transcripts from interviews with survivors, with civilians, the Nuremberg Trials. I know what's there, in Auschwitz, now arranged and displayed and ready for viewing. And I know what I would do, if I went:
I would lose my mind. I would lose my mind from sorrow.
To confront this place is to confront what I already know: that evil in its human forms exists like this, that 6 million people were shot and gassed and starved. I already know these things, the numbers. I already know what I do not want to know: that we are capable this. Yes, we. For why should we be allowed to distinguish when humanity is itself an entity? I know what would happen there, in front of the display of children's shoes (children! My god.). I would be broken by it. I would cry. Perhaps I would vomit. And I would become angry. I would become angry at us. I would become angry...at myself.
All of this, dear reader, to you, seems perhaps hyperbolic and perhaps false. I cannot convince you that it isn't. I cannot convince you, either, of how one should react. They're asking me again, why I cannot do this thing. Why I don't decide to go with them:
-You should just come. You might be surprised.
Yeah, isn't that the point? It's supposed to be hard on you.
-It's not like it's fun or something.
Someone asks about flash photography. Someone else pulls out a brochure.
-No, no. You can take pictures there. It says.
Oh, ok cool.
Pictures. As if this were another tourist attraction. "This is me in front of Auschwitz."
For god's sake.
This, again, I have no desire to do, to experience. Hordes of tourists with cameras, people with backpacks and purses and maps. To be surrounded by those who have come "to do Auschwitz", to feel a powerful remorse, then to get back on the bus and inquire where one might find some lunch around here. I do not want to be near anyone, if nor when I fall apart. I couldn't bear it. I cannot bear a mass of humanity standing about trying to fathom what it all means, in the same spot where humanity was being dismantled, defiled, torn apart.
And so I tell them with as much vehemence as I can:
This is not my story to tell. It is and always will be my story to hear.
For when I cease to listen and begin to speak, I am adding a layer of sentimentality, a layer of falsehood, a veil. It is not my story to tell how I stood in front of a tour guide and was moved to tears by his speech. Not my story to tell anyone that I have seen the gate marked ARBEIT MACHT FREI, nor how it might have chilled me. It is not my story to add photos to, of the barracks emptied and cleaned, or the ovens.
It is my story to hear and hear alone, about how someone else was saved here, and someone else died, and some people more lost their mothers and children, and fathers, and lives. To never put an image to save for those made by voices, by memoirs and films.
As to the need to see it, to understand, I will tell you now that I never, never want will. That going there will not help the desperately angry and lost feeling I have when I am reminded that this thing has happened. I do not want anger to dissolve completely into sorrow; anger is active. Anger has inertia. I must grieve and rage at the same time, sometimes, to continue on in a world where we battle the seeds of this thing always.
I cannot be the person who sits at a table, and puts on a list of things to see today, Concentration camps.
Perhaps no one accepts this. Perhaps I sound bitter, or disdainful to those who did choose to go. I assure you I am not. They tried to convince me once more to come with them, and in my head, once again, I heard my own voice crying out,
For god's sake, don't ask me. For god's sake, I can't.
the pleas we make to divinity when we cannot comprehend what is asked of us, what's happened, what we thought could not be.
Two days later, we take a tour of Wieliczka Salt Mines. On the bus, I meet two women from Holland, one who's been to Cracow many times in the last few years. I've been to the camps, she says, I've been more than once.
She tells me she doesn't know, anymore, what to make of it. She says she's always brought to her knees by it. Then she tells me she won't be going this time. Her friend will just have to go alone.
-Why is that?, I ask her. Why not this time?
She tells me that (and this she cannot take any longer), between the gate exiting Auschwitz, and the gate leading into Birkenau, there are always people taking photos. She says she can't go anymore, that it's all too much, each and every time.
Then she tells me, her eyes raised to the sky, that just inside the gate to Birkenau, they have built a pizza stand.
-A pizza stand. Pizza and hot dogs. Right there. Right there where they starved them to death.
On the bus ride, I can think of nothing but that I want my mother. I sleep a little, I think. I think I dream of vultures.
Highway to Katowice, Nov. 2009
Double-decker bus:
we're stacked above what moves through this world
as small, as significant
in the ways of ants,
the ways of industriousness,
and here that industry is: landscape
of provincial Poland, strips of green farm, billows
of smoke topping red brick
and gray shingle rooves,
below us (for we've chosen to ride on top,
to climb as high as we're allowed),
a thousand cars, a thousand
drivers aimed towards the setting sun, ablaze
to the left and slightly ahead.
Theirs are impatient faces, heads tilted to one side,
hands on the wheel straying from ten-and-two,
listing counterclockwise
while they speed past, and we in our perch,
all of us longing,
this collective of gravid, vehicular beings,
stranded, and then we see them: three jet contrails,
pure white against Katowice's hazy sky, meeting just above
the topmost curve of that orange, orange
sun and we all strain and silently plead with them
to do what we cannot,
to keep climbing and climbing,
and we beg them against a backdrop of bright light,
of old pine,
to bring us the knowledge
that someone, some man has burst from this earth,
and refused to come back, has done his level best
to bring us all as high as we're wishing for,
as high as we can ever get.
we're stacked above what moves through this world
as small, as significant
in the ways of ants,
the ways of industriousness,
and here that industry is: landscape
of provincial Poland, strips of green farm, billows
of smoke topping red brick
and gray shingle rooves,
below us (for we've chosen to ride on top,
to climb as high as we're allowed),
a thousand cars, a thousand
drivers aimed towards the setting sun, ablaze
to the left and slightly ahead.
Theirs are impatient faces, heads tilted to one side,
hands on the wheel straying from ten-and-two,
listing counterclockwise
while they speed past, and we in our perch,
all of us longing,
this collective of gravid, vehicular beings,
stranded, and then we see them: three jet contrails,
pure white against Katowice's hazy sky, meeting just above
the topmost curve of that orange, orange
sun and we all strain and silently plead with them
to do what we cannot,
to keep climbing and climbing,
and we beg them against a backdrop of bright light,
of old pine,
to bring us the knowledge
that someone, some man has burst from this earth,
and refused to come back, has done his level best
to bring us all as high as we're wishing for,
as high as we can ever get.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Catching up on imagery
I have not posted a single picture to this point, of Portugal or anywhere in between. Here are a few from Krakow. I suppose I should note at this juncture that not a single one of these blogs will appear in chronological order, neither the photographic nor the written, since I have a tendency to enter things into my notebooks as they come into my brain; this last to say that I can't think in a straight line...
KRAKOW, POLAND or: In which we get our hair cut in the bathroom of Hostel Yellow, Stare Miasto (my favorite place) and other shenanigans.
In which Ezza cuts everyone's hair in the bathroom and Stevie mixes up some vodka punch...in a saucepan...and pours it into empty pasta jars...
Sky view, Barbican Gate, Krakow
View over the river from Wawel Castle
All the apostles carved in stone
Kitchen jam session (right before we got yelled at for being too happy and loud) at Hostel Yellow
Main Square, Stare Miasto, Krakow, my favorite place
KRAKOW, POLAND or: In which we get our hair cut in the bathroom of Hostel Yellow, Stare Miasto (my favorite place) and other shenanigans.
In which Ezza cuts everyone's hair in the bathroom and Stevie mixes up some vodka punch...in a saucepan...and pours it into empty pasta jars...
Sky view, Barbican Gate, Krakow
View over the river from Wawel Castle
All the apostles carved in stone
Kitchen jam session (right before we got yelled at for being too happy and loud) at Hostel Yellow
Main Square, Stare Miasto, Krakow, my favorite place
Friday, November 20, 2009
St. Mary's Basilica, Krakow, Poland
Everyone here sees something I don't.
It's a Thursday afternoon in Krakow and it's pissing rain, as it has been since the day I arrived here from Warsaw. I've made it to Stare Miasto (the old city) and paid 6 zloty (roughly the equivalent of $2 US) to duck into this massive old church, preferring this reverent kind of sightseeing to being wet and cold, although it's no less cold inside than out.
A well-dressed young Polish guy, seeing my camera slung over my back, informs me that it will cost another 5 zloty to be allowed to take pictures. So I don't. Somehow, to interrupt all the prayer and worships around me with a camera flash or its insistent clicking seems intrusive and full of the kind of mouth-open-finger-pointing-posing for snapshots tourism I hate.
Because you are, in fact, still allowed to worship here. Certain areas, lined with smooth, old-wood pews and flanked by plaques and dedications in chiseled stone or bronze are cordoned off, and behind those cordons, in the pews, sit elderly women, heads bowed. Or sometimes a couple, the man in a black peacoat, the woman in her long gloves, leaning against each other quietly. Still fewer are the people seated alone, listening for something. Their pleas are so strong I can feel them, can feel the kinetics of forcible thought. I know what they're asking for, having once spent every waking minute of my life doing so myself.
They are asking the ornate golden figures of Jesus and Mary. They are asking the priest who's just snuck into the sacristy, through its heavy carved door. They are asking God to hear their prayers, but not only that: they are asking someone to answer. Not the prayers themselves, but to answer back. To prove that that amorphous divine entity exists. They're all asking for answers, but more than that, they expect to hear only themselves.
The basilica has a high, high ceiling, covered in intricately painted and carved gold stars, a few comets across a brilliant blue background. There's a towering monument directly behind the altar, depicting the Ascension. Each figure portrayed is at least a foot tall, and along the walls, there are bas-reliefs of former popes and Polish bishops looking on. The candle holders are gold, the chandeliers are brass and crystal, there are alabaster statues and votives between the pews. Velvet seats beside the tabernacle. The entire place seems to suggest that through this decadence of tribute, one might hope to find salvation, or at least some favor from this God, having gone to the trouble of offering up all this stuff. It is unapologetic in its opulence, much as the worshippers it contains are unapologetic in their fervency of belief. And it is this I envy:
Observing these worshippers, I feelt what I have always felt. As a former professed Catholic, I spent hours doing exactly as they are, to no avail. Sitting or kneeling, or lying in bed, reaching out for what I had been to was so certainly there. Sometimes I was convinced the Archangel Michael was responding somehow, leaning down over me from whereever he lived. In time it was clear: I was talking to myself. Or to thin air, or to no one. But, today, since I am here already, and it seems as good time as any to try all over again, I sit in the very last pew, staring first at the giant statues, at the candelabras, at the tourists taking pictures of it all. I can see why people are drawn here, nevertheless, because it is beautiful. Candle light glints off of everything. It all shines, giving the impression of what its architects must have though that their heaven, that salvation and redemption and ressurection were all about-having a place in all this, amongst the riches, up in the sky.
A sky unclouded and full of stars which are eternally bright. A sky forever blue.
Yes, I envy them this, these devout people, waiting to hear that which I've decided will never be uttered, will never come, because they appear never to waver, that they can sit or kneel here without looking up for hours, convinced in their eventual right to be heard, convinced they'll be saved. And so I sit with them, the believers, and I ask for strength to continue my travels. I ask for courage, and I ask what it is that they know, what it is that I don't. What inexplicable drive is it that keeps them coming here, to talk to no one, to talk to themselves? I ask for that same ability.
I ask these things of myself, and of something larger. But I don't genuflect for it, or avert my eyes from it. I don't know how to invoke it, but I'll try, sitting on these pews worn smooth from years of the same kind of trying. I continue to despair that I'll never truly know what it means 'to believe'.
And I stay there, under the blue painted sky, staring into the faces of the statues and likenesses, and I cannot say what or whom it is that comes to me. I don't know how to say it, what I'm asking for. I don't give it a name.
It's a Thursday afternoon in Krakow and it's pissing rain, as it has been since the day I arrived here from Warsaw. I've made it to Stare Miasto (the old city) and paid 6 zloty (roughly the equivalent of $2 US) to duck into this massive old church, preferring this reverent kind of sightseeing to being wet and cold, although it's no less cold inside than out.
A well-dressed young Polish guy, seeing my camera slung over my back, informs me that it will cost another 5 zloty to be allowed to take pictures. So I don't. Somehow, to interrupt all the prayer and worships around me with a camera flash or its insistent clicking seems intrusive and full of the kind of mouth-open-finger-pointing-posing for snapshots tourism I hate.
Because you are, in fact, still allowed to worship here. Certain areas, lined with smooth, old-wood pews and flanked by plaques and dedications in chiseled stone or bronze are cordoned off, and behind those cordons, in the pews, sit elderly women, heads bowed. Or sometimes a couple, the man in a black peacoat, the woman in her long gloves, leaning against each other quietly. Still fewer are the people seated alone, listening for something. Their pleas are so strong I can feel them, can feel the kinetics of forcible thought. I know what they're asking for, having once spent every waking minute of my life doing so myself.
They are asking the ornate golden figures of Jesus and Mary. They are asking the priest who's just snuck into the sacristy, through its heavy carved door. They are asking God to hear their prayers, but not only that: they are asking someone to answer. Not the prayers themselves, but to answer back. To prove that that amorphous divine entity exists. They're all asking for answers, but more than that, they expect to hear only themselves.
The basilica has a high, high ceiling, covered in intricately painted and carved gold stars, a few comets across a brilliant blue background. There's a towering monument directly behind the altar, depicting the Ascension. Each figure portrayed is at least a foot tall, and along the walls, there are bas-reliefs of former popes and Polish bishops looking on. The candle holders are gold, the chandeliers are brass and crystal, there are alabaster statues and votives between the pews. Velvet seats beside the tabernacle. The entire place seems to suggest that through this decadence of tribute, one might hope to find salvation, or at least some favor from this God, having gone to the trouble of offering up all this stuff. It is unapologetic in its opulence, much as the worshippers it contains are unapologetic in their fervency of belief. And it is this I envy:
Observing these worshippers, I feelt what I have always felt. As a former professed Catholic, I spent hours doing exactly as they are, to no avail. Sitting or kneeling, or lying in bed, reaching out for what I had been to was so certainly there. Sometimes I was convinced the Archangel Michael was responding somehow, leaning down over me from whereever he lived. In time it was clear: I was talking to myself. Or to thin air, or to no one. But, today, since I am here already, and it seems as good time as any to try all over again, I sit in the very last pew, staring first at the giant statues, at the candelabras, at the tourists taking pictures of it all. I can see why people are drawn here, nevertheless, because it is beautiful. Candle light glints off of everything. It all shines, giving the impression of what its architects must have though that their heaven, that salvation and redemption and ressurection were all about-having a place in all this, amongst the riches, up in the sky.
A sky unclouded and full of stars which are eternally bright. A sky forever blue.
Yes, I envy them this, these devout people, waiting to hear that which I've decided will never be uttered, will never come, because they appear never to waver, that they can sit or kneel here without looking up for hours, convinced in their eventual right to be heard, convinced they'll be saved. And so I sit with them, the believers, and I ask for strength to continue my travels. I ask for courage, and I ask what it is that they know, what it is that I don't. What inexplicable drive is it that keeps them coming here, to talk to no one, to talk to themselves? I ask for that same ability.
I ask these things of myself, and of something larger. But I don't genuflect for it, or avert my eyes from it. I don't know how to invoke it, but I'll try, sitting on these pews worn smooth from years of the same kind of trying. I continue to despair that I'll never truly know what it means 'to believe'.
And I stay there, under the blue painted sky, staring into the faces of the statues and likenesses, and I cannot say what or whom it is that comes to me. I don't know how to say it, what I'm asking for. I don't give it a name.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Four Part Harmony: Poland, 2009
I. Stare Miasto in the evening, Warsaw, Poland
Karol says it's all been rebuilt
and it looks it, the colors blown out,
reds & blues too bright,
souvenirs for the eyes, for the cameras.
Off-season, the square seems quiet.
A flock of pigeons,
an old man with his cart full of whistles & postcards,
an artist selling paintings
whose tints are faded
in comparison with the buildings they represent.
And now Karol is saying
this is where the pictures were taken;
you know the ones,
Warsaw in a rubble,
triptychs in black & white & gray
of nothing but dust on stone on bare,
hard ground,
and sometimes a face in one corner
or the next. Yet here we are now,
discussing the finer points of Polish beer,
and a group of girls
goes before us, laughing.
It was raining before, but it's not now, and they're shedding
hats, scarves, gloves, hands full.
and one of them drops
her green scarf, oblivious, leaving a bright
banner, sodden, on the still-wet ground.
II. Day of the Dead, Lodz, Poland
Reconstruction is, here, incessant.
Today's a day for the dead-as last night was for the living,
all of us costumed, dressed to the nines-and there
are a million candles lining the walkways,
ornate gold & red, sunset-variegated roses on headstones,
huge wreaths around the necks of the statues:
Mother Mary, St. Christopher, and Arthur Henkel, whomever
he is (father, beloved son?).
Behind Arthur's gravestone they're rebuilding a church,
old bricks & ironwork obscured on one side
by construction, platforms & rebar crawling up the walls.
It's not done yet, but it will be.
They'll install plaques to tell us how it was built,
& by whom, & when, yet for now it's off-limits,
so instead I watch a Polish woman showing her small grandson
how to dust the yellow leaves
from his grandfather's grave, how to replace an old bouquet
with fresh white chrysanthemums,
& the old church blocks their uncovered faces
from the wind, & all of it is here tonight, in this cemetary:
the past, the present,
and the dead are here too,
with us, with the scaffolds we build
to hold it all together,
to hold ourselves up.
III. Central Park, Stare Miasto, Krakow, Poland
They're always feeding pigeons here
and this park is no exception.
There's an elderly man with a whole bag of bread,
throwing the crumbs out into the path,
dozens of pigeons crowded around.
On the corner there are groups of students,
waiting for a tram; across the street, old women
vending pretzels and pierogi and flowers.
Someone is playing the accordion; unseen,
his voice echoes out into the center of this park.
The sun has just come out
from behind its cover of cloud for the first time
in two days. Behind me, the open-air market,
bins of russet apples, the smell of ripe tomatoes, brewing coffee.
One man sells mulled beer, & I'm surprised
when it's good, permeating everything with orange & barley & clove.
It's the noon hour.
It's not too early here for this beer
or these people, for their lives,
for living.
IV.
Imagine all of this.
Now blow it all up.
Karol says it's all been rebuilt
and it looks it, the colors blown out,
reds & blues too bright,
souvenirs for the eyes, for the cameras.
Off-season, the square seems quiet.
A flock of pigeons,
an old man with his cart full of whistles & postcards,
an artist selling paintings
whose tints are faded
in comparison with the buildings they represent.
And now Karol is saying
this is where the pictures were taken;
you know the ones,
Warsaw in a rubble,
triptychs in black & white & gray
of nothing but dust on stone on bare,
hard ground,
and sometimes a face in one corner
or the next. Yet here we are now,
discussing the finer points of Polish beer,
and a group of girls
goes before us, laughing.
It was raining before, but it's not now, and they're shedding
hats, scarves, gloves, hands full.
and one of them drops
her green scarf, oblivious, leaving a bright
banner, sodden, on the still-wet ground.
II. Day of the Dead, Lodz, Poland
Reconstruction is, here, incessant.
Today's a day for the dead-as last night was for the living,
all of us costumed, dressed to the nines-and there
are a million candles lining the walkways,
ornate gold & red, sunset-variegated roses on headstones,
huge wreaths around the necks of the statues:
Mother Mary, St. Christopher, and Arthur Henkel, whomever
he is (father, beloved son?).
Behind Arthur's gravestone they're rebuilding a church,
old bricks & ironwork obscured on one side
by construction, platforms & rebar crawling up the walls.
It's not done yet, but it will be.
They'll install plaques to tell us how it was built,
& by whom, & when, yet for now it's off-limits,
so instead I watch a Polish woman showing her small grandson
how to dust the yellow leaves
from his grandfather's grave, how to replace an old bouquet
with fresh white chrysanthemums,
& the old church blocks their uncovered faces
from the wind, & all of it is here tonight, in this cemetary:
the past, the present,
and the dead are here too,
with us, with the scaffolds we build
to hold it all together,
to hold ourselves up.
III. Central Park, Stare Miasto, Krakow, Poland
They're always feeding pigeons here
and this park is no exception.
There's an elderly man with a whole bag of bread,
throwing the crumbs out into the path,
dozens of pigeons crowded around.
On the corner there are groups of students,
waiting for a tram; across the street, old women
vending pretzels and pierogi and flowers.
Someone is playing the accordion; unseen,
his voice echoes out into the center of this park.
The sun has just come out
from behind its cover of cloud for the first time
in two days. Behind me, the open-air market,
bins of russet apples, the smell of ripe tomatoes, brewing coffee.
One man sells mulled beer, & I'm surprised
when it's good, permeating everything with orange & barley & clove.
It's the noon hour.
It's not too early here for this beer
or these people, for their lives,
for living.
IV.
Imagine all of this.
Now blow it all up.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Campismo Grande de Lisboa, Outrela Portugal
We've been here three days. Everything is soaked, in the fragrant, repressive way of temperate forests. Eucalyptus trees surround us but they're a poor cover against the torrential rain and driving wind. It stops and starts; none of us are brave enough to race downhill and check out what's been affectionately been dubbed "Expat Pirate Camp." Instead, we're huddled around a small fire, started with Kleenex and twigs, under the campsite's picnic shelter. It is black and liquid and not yet 8 p.m.
I should explain 'us'. After days of delays and mix-ups, and with the unexpected and unprecedented help of several Couch Surfers, I've finally met up with Brandon. Here at the campismo, we've accumulated others: Tommy, Glastonbury's finest, big and blonde and somewhat clueless, who's been working for room and board and fresh veg on a farm in Porto; Paul & Jacky, young Australians who've been at this for weeks and are headed to Greece next. By virtue of the English language, we've found each other. Tommy, beer in hand at 3 in the afternoon, comes out of his slow meander as soon as he hears Brandon and I speak. Paul and Jacky are tented up behind us, heads perked up when Tommy laughs out loud, exclaiming "Fuckin' Hell, man." Soon, we're all crowded around a picnic table, sharing two liter bottles of Super Bock (Portugal's favorite beer), a large bottle of tart, cheap white wine, chips, plastic containers of bacalhau com batatas.
The rain is blowing into the fire. We can't get the lights to work, so we've rigged a flashlight to hang over the table, and cut apart water bottles so their bottoms can serve as candleholders. Before the rain started, Paul, Jacky, Brandon and I set out across the highway to a local market. There are pork cutlets, chicken breasts, cloves of garlic. A bag of huge black grapes. More Super Bock. A slab of beef. Butter, a huge, round loaf of pao mistura (bread, its crust still dusted with flour). For days we've been scrounging the campsite's tiny store and over-priced cafeteria for things that aren't too pricey, unsatisfied, and no less wet nor cold for it. Tonight, we are going to make a feast. Brandon and I pick over the groomed ground and find enough small logs and fallen branches to get the fire roaring. Over it, we gingerly place the grill grate left behind by some other campers. Paul and Jacky cut vegetables and open bags of chips. Somewhere in the night we lost Tommy; he resurfaces the next day, having sensibly taken the bus into town to stay the night, high, dry and warm in a hostel.
The total blackness requires Paul & I to alternate roles, one of us holding the flashlight, the other using dirty hands, a plastic fork or our single knife to turn chunks of meat that have been slathered in butter, salted from a twist of paper, and sprinkled with chopped fresh garlic. The smell is killing us. Hunger is a constant but not unbearable thing, has been for a week or so, since none of us can eat more than we can carry or afford, and the two are not mutually exclusive any longer. From somewhere, there's music: Coltrane, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan. (Brandon has his laptop, an incongruously lush accessory in this place that smells of eucalyptus and wet clay, that's slowly filling up with woodsmoke. At least here, between the four of us, there exists a companionable silence about what this entails. Although there are hot showers, none of us has worn a completely-clean or dry outfit for days. Our shoes are caked in clay and mud. Everything we own, collectively, exudes a bit of dampness at all times, and most of this time, we are indescribably but triumphantly weary. On the tram or bus or on foot, we're set apart by our heavy packs, by the half-purposeful, half-wayward way we walk. In the campsite, we have anonymity-no one here is concerned with much but protecting their belongings from the rain, or finding a hot drink or meal, as are we. In the campsite, we have each other.
It takes 20 minutes for the pork to finish, and we rip it apart with our fingers, sharing out pieces blackened by the fire, seasoned with the rusted grill grate. In another 25, the chicken too is done, though by that time we've made our way through half the bag of grapes, two rounds of a sharp sheep's cheese, a bottle of Super Bock, yellow peppers, an onion, some tomatoes. Jacky and I stand quietly around the fire, watching the beef cook, listening to Paul and Brandon delve into politics-they're discussing Obama and his healthcare reform and the recently-awarded Nobel Peace Prize. The fire's smoldered down further, the light from the candles blocked by our bodies, and instead of joining in, Jacky and I stay silent, the warmth and presence of other people a deterrent rather than an encouragement to conversation. To point out the differences between our cultures, our countries and ourselves might spoil it, might force us to remember that, rather than a patchwork and somewhat soggy solidarity, what we have is a strange combination of disparate politics, of nations who do not get along, whose expats, even, may never see eye to eye.
By the time the beef is done, we're all too full and exhausted to handle it. Brandon produces a single round Tupperware container. Everything-chunks of chicken, pieces of bread, large strips of steak, garlic-is swept into the container, since we are loathe to waste anything. It will become breakfast. The rain has let up just slightly, so we don't bother throwing garbage bags over our heads or shrugging into raincoats. Jacky is the first to say goodnight, then myself, and we leave Paul and Brandon to finish the last of the Super Bock. Back in my trusty REI tent, I find everything as dry as I had left it, although the two lea sides of the tent are wet through, the rainfly plastered to the tent walls, rivulets draining down between them. I don't brush my teeth. I climb into my sleeping bag with my winter jacket on, using a folded sweater as a pillow. I have no sleeping pad, so my body must adjust to the hard, flat ground, and yet, within minutes, I am asleep.
I sleep without dreaming, and must sleep well. When I wake up, everyone else is gone. Brandon tells me later I have slept until noon. As I crawl out of the tent, the sun is out, and the leaves of the fum tree above me are starting to dry.
I should explain 'us'. After days of delays and mix-ups, and with the unexpected and unprecedented help of several Couch Surfers, I've finally met up with Brandon. Here at the campismo, we've accumulated others: Tommy, Glastonbury's finest, big and blonde and somewhat clueless, who's been working for room and board and fresh veg on a farm in Porto; Paul & Jacky, young Australians who've been at this for weeks and are headed to Greece next. By virtue of the English language, we've found each other. Tommy, beer in hand at 3 in the afternoon, comes out of his slow meander as soon as he hears Brandon and I speak. Paul and Jacky are tented up behind us, heads perked up when Tommy laughs out loud, exclaiming "Fuckin' Hell, man." Soon, we're all crowded around a picnic table, sharing two liter bottles of Super Bock (Portugal's favorite beer), a large bottle of tart, cheap white wine, chips, plastic containers of bacalhau com batatas.
The rain is blowing into the fire. We can't get the lights to work, so we've rigged a flashlight to hang over the table, and cut apart water bottles so their bottoms can serve as candleholders. Before the rain started, Paul, Jacky, Brandon and I set out across the highway to a local market. There are pork cutlets, chicken breasts, cloves of garlic. A bag of huge black grapes. More Super Bock. A slab of beef. Butter, a huge, round loaf of pao mistura (bread, its crust still dusted with flour). For days we've been scrounging the campsite's tiny store and over-priced cafeteria for things that aren't too pricey, unsatisfied, and no less wet nor cold for it. Tonight, we are going to make a feast. Brandon and I pick over the groomed ground and find enough small logs and fallen branches to get the fire roaring. Over it, we gingerly place the grill grate left behind by some other campers. Paul and Jacky cut vegetables and open bags of chips. Somewhere in the night we lost Tommy; he resurfaces the next day, having sensibly taken the bus into town to stay the night, high, dry and warm in a hostel.
The total blackness requires Paul & I to alternate roles, one of us holding the flashlight, the other using dirty hands, a plastic fork or our single knife to turn chunks of meat that have been slathered in butter, salted from a twist of paper, and sprinkled with chopped fresh garlic. The smell is killing us. Hunger is a constant but not unbearable thing, has been for a week or so, since none of us can eat more than we can carry or afford, and the two are not mutually exclusive any longer. From somewhere, there's music: Coltrane, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan. (Brandon has his laptop, an incongruously lush accessory in this place that smells of eucalyptus and wet clay, that's slowly filling up with woodsmoke. At least here, between the four of us, there exists a companionable silence about what this entails. Although there are hot showers, none of us has worn a completely-clean or dry outfit for days. Our shoes are caked in clay and mud. Everything we own, collectively, exudes a bit of dampness at all times, and most of this time, we are indescribably but triumphantly weary. On the tram or bus or on foot, we're set apart by our heavy packs, by the half-purposeful, half-wayward way we walk. In the campsite, we have anonymity-no one here is concerned with much but protecting their belongings from the rain, or finding a hot drink or meal, as are we. In the campsite, we have each other.
It takes 20 minutes for the pork to finish, and we rip it apart with our fingers, sharing out pieces blackened by the fire, seasoned with the rusted grill grate. In another 25, the chicken too is done, though by that time we've made our way through half the bag of grapes, two rounds of a sharp sheep's cheese, a bottle of Super Bock, yellow peppers, an onion, some tomatoes. Jacky and I stand quietly around the fire, watching the beef cook, listening to Paul and Brandon delve into politics-they're discussing Obama and his healthcare reform and the recently-awarded Nobel Peace Prize. The fire's smoldered down further, the light from the candles blocked by our bodies, and instead of joining in, Jacky and I stay silent, the warmth and presence of other people a deterrent rather than an encouragement to conversation. To point out the differences between our cultures, our countries and ourselves might spoil it, might force us to remember that, rather than a patchwork and somewhat soggy solidarity, what we have is a strange combination of disparate politics, of nations who do not get along, whose expats, even, may never see eye to eye.
By the time the beef is done, we're all too full and exhausted to handle it. Brandon produces a single round Tupperware container. Everything-chunks of chicken, pieces of bread, large strips of steak, garlic-is swept into the container, since we are loathe to waste anything. It will become breakfast. The rain has let up just slightly, so we don't bother throwing garbage bags over our heads or shrugging into raincoats. Jacky is the first to say goodnight, then myself, and we leave Paul and Brandon to finish the last of the Super Bock. Back in my trusty REI tent, I find everything as dry as I had left it, although the two lea sides of the tent are wet through, the rainfly plastered to the tent walls, rivulets draining down between them. I don't brush my teeth. I climb into my sleeping bag with my winter jacket on, using a folded sweater as a pillow. I have no sleeping pad, so my body must adjust to the hard, flat ground, and yet, within minutes, I am asleep.
I sleep without dreaming, and must sleep well. When I wake up, everyone else is gone. Brandon tells me later I have slept until noon. As I crawl out of the tent, the sun is out, and the leaves of the fum tree above me are starting to dry.
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