Our Present:
Chapter 8: Protect the Pulse of Life
Reignite & shield the pilot lIght--for our compassionate ambition,
and concurrently, our collective charity.
I grew closer to TuKayo;
our humming resynced, deeply.
Humming now gave me comfort,
Yet, our songs buttressed my resolve
‘n lifted my soul to act ‘n to help ‘n to protect,
though I had nothing with which to work.
To begin to change, you must
not be afraid to take the first step.
We will fail when we fail to try.
–Rosa Parks. 1913-2005.
Our lives begin to end the day we become
silent about things that mater.
–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1929-1968. (A)
Wait, is that who we …
Is my other half …
Dispirited flesh,
Am I …
Disembodied spirit?
Here we remain, our potential halved,
the spirits of justice but no means of enaction.
Torn in two.
Physical Human torn
from Civil ‘n Sacred Rights;
a shadow divorced from form,
sentenced to sleepwalk, crooked neck,
straining to gawk back as distance overtakes,
yearning for my severed form.
America did not invent human rights.
In a very real sense, human rights
invented America.
–Jimmy Carter. Born 1924.
Noworry,
a union without constriction is infinite.
Gentleness can be a great strength, and quiet
action can sometimes speak as powerfully
amid the noise as the loudest voice.
–Sarah Corbett
A gentle touch from behind.
This time, I turned into Tukayo.
Henceforth, we will know
this will be our true way;
we hugged ‘n mended.
‘n at last, inverted shame.
Our exchange of experience
expunges old losses,
encourages new hopes and dreams.
I contributed the only things I possessed:
My hurt, my anger ‘n my fear.
My surrender
–their expulsion–
transformed my awareness.
Here, with Tukayo,
I could breathe, humm, ‘n laugh.
Yeah, they are funny folk.
Who love to tell corny jokes,
like the one Tukayo asked me,
As I walked out the door toward the gate
that would lead to my freedom,
I knew if I didn’t leave my
bitterness and hatred behind,
I’d still be in prison.
–Nelson Mandella. 1918-2013.
May this marriage be full of laughter,
our everyday in paradise.
–Rumi. 1207-1273.
“What do you call shoes made from bananas?”
“Slip-pers.”
I looked down … Yup …
Even if I wasn’t an actress or a comedian,
I would be spreading love
and laughter whatever I did.
–Kim Coles. Born 1962.
Do it! What are you waiting on? Do it!
Stand up for what you believe in.
The word needs your voice.
Whoever you are, you have something to say.
Say it!
–Kerry Washinton. Born 1977.
Wow, Tukayo put a spell on me.
Fell hard for Tukayo’s risible laughter.
I nearly fell over in laughter hearing her laugh.
We laughed at the preposterous illusion
that the infinite abundance of love
could ever be broken in us
as its source of authority
exists eternally within
the Creator of All
that is Good.
Yet, as we subsided,
I realized I am tomorrow’s harbinger
I have the strength to fight for the future.
I now realize scarcity is the contrived illusion
of the cruel and oppressive social order
organized ‘n compelled by avarice,
enforced by fear ‘n force.
Yet, in our corporeal world,
if we are to achieve our full potential
the pulse of life must be protected.
For, the contrary is a delusion designed
to draw us into the darkness.
Its pull is palpable.
If you want love and abundance in your life,
give it away.
–Mark Twain. 1835-1910.
If a free society cannot help the many
who are poor,
it cannot save the few who are rich.
–John F. Kennedy. 1917-1963. (A)
I was presented with the sixth gift:
Protect the pulse of life
you hold in your hands
Protect the Sacred!
The human race has one
really effective weapon,
and that is laughter.
–Mark Twain. 1835-1910.
Something strange was happening …
Stars were coming out: Night time.
The silent, star-filled violet sky
had a disquieting quality.
As I stared out,
I wondered,
Who is out there,
looking back here?
Looking for, or better, out for us?
Rumbling; subtextual humming
Emanated from the Seerz’ Elders.
Never felt it before. Cannot duplicate it.
It was like the Tibetan Monk’s Joy-Kay,
the multiphonic chanting from the throat.
Tukayo whispered,
I feel very lucky to have grown up
having interaction with adults who
were making change but who were far
from perfect beings. That feeling of not being paralyzed
by your incredible inadequacy as a human being,
which I feel every day, is part of the legacy
that I’ve gotten from so many of the adult elders.
–Marian Wright Elderman. Born 1939.
They are in Consideration.
Considering what?
Every thousand years,
when the stars come out
and the purple moon rises overhead
one of us may go back–
but only if that one possesses
the true spirit to ACT.
Wow, that makes you really old.
So, I’m dating an older woman
Wow, did that earn a WACK.
I looked up:
A full purple moon!
Before my eyes,
the ol’ man in the moon
transformed into a rabbit;
switched back ‘n forth,
then merged to coexist,
stronger than when alone
Otsukimi is the Mid-Autumn Festival
celebrating when the Man in the Moon
honored the Rabbit’s kindness and
carried the Rabbit back to the moon to live with him.
On nights of the full moon, you can see the Rabbit
pounding mochi on the moon.
–How the Rabbit Reached the Moon.
Love is composed of a single soul
inhabiting two bodies.
–Aristotle. 384-322BC
We stood, holding each other,
purple lit, casting one shadow.
We said, Two together, we are cast as one.
Within, an ambition awakened
in my heart that compelled me to protect.
We drank from each other’s hands.
Approached ‘n leaned into the other.
Foreheads touched, rested upon the other,
as light from our ovals grew in intensity.
#*&@^!*&#^&@#?<*>@!${~}*&%#^@!%[*]!!!
Vibrations, good-feeling, deep-down vibrations,
Resonated and moved us inside as we glowed.
Indivisiable. Inexplicable. Inescapable. Incorrigible.
‘N a whole lot of fabulous fluttering in the starry night’s winds.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I do not know any other way
of loving but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep, your eyes close.
–Pablo Neruda. 1904-1973.
In love, one and one are one.
–Jean-Paul Satre. 1905-1980
We hold the pulse in our hands
Protect it like the hatchling …
Tukayo poked at me.
Activism is my rent for living on the planet.
–Alice Walker. Born 1944.
Or fledgling … who fell from hiz nest.
She knows … something.
