And so this story is about to end - my Stories for Childwoman, a play in three acts, about a Childwoman who writes well, but cannot speak, about a Grandmother, her Grandchildren and about a gazillion creatures of dream.
I wrote this in a few months, way back around the year of 2000, at the turn of the millennium, when many of us celebrated the incredible, near unimaginable impossible feast (or feat) of living that long!
I did not change a word from the original text, and had great fun adding my current photography and drawings because it makes sense to do so now. Today, I decided to tweak the very end of the play, deleting a few sentences of hopeful romantic judgments about the characters and leaving them to be…
I am still very curious about all these people in the Stories for Childwoman. In my last posting, she regains her voice, bit by bit, with sound advice from the Sea Monsters and a bunch of other creatures from the Imaginaries. Here she meets:
Mary, the Go Go Dancer and Salome of the Seven Veils,
(GRANDMOTHER ) And so it was then, that once again, Childwoman knew in her heart, she knew full circle it was time, and all the people and all the gods were ready to talk about the seven sins and to meet and dance with Mary, in the story of lovely sister Mary, the Go Go dancer and her dance of many veils, her dance of seven sins. Mary and all her states of affairs, an affair of the heart, a strange state of affairs, an affair to remember in this land of private affairs?
(A DUAL DANCE OF VEILS)
Salome and seven veils, her dance of dreams, she who was just seen,
no more invisible, she cannot hide,
one more time changing all these god-made rules,
and yet she sins all seven sins, all at once she sins,
in wet t shirt she sinks underneath your skin
and she sins all sins she sins,
against the rule of man, against the wish of woman she sins
no cloth no clothes and naked to the bone,
and while she sins she swirls, oh joy,
as Mary sins and swirls…
Ah, this music, this dance of dreams!
Then, in comes the Keeper of the Seven Sins
(GRANDMOTHER) Childwoman meets the keeper of the seven sins, the stand behind the rope man, the man with his hair parted in the middle. In his madness, he keeps reciting his litany:
(KEEPER OF the SEVEN SINS )
Gluttony, pride, sloth, happiness, no, no!
Gluttony pride, sloth, I remember the forgotten one, wrath;
that makes four out of seven.
Try again:
gluttony, pride, sloth, wrath, envy as covetousness,
of course, dismissed lust
and again,
(GRANDMOTHER) Childwoman takes the rope from the man and sings, for the first time in her life, she joyfully jumps rope, as she sings her song of the seven sins.
(CHILDWOMAN)
"Material wealth without work,
love without consciousness,
lust without lots of minding love,
gluttony without good food,
pride without the fall,
wrath without explanation,
sloth without clean up,
covetousness leading to frustration,
love without love,
war."
(GRANDCHILDREN AND GRANDMOTHER TALK)
BORN FROM A PUFF OF WIND INSIDE A CLOUD
"Grandma, you tell us all about Childwoman. But we wanna know, well, where was she born, where did she come from? Was she a gypsy? Was she like, in the fairy tales, born from a puff of wind inside a cloud?"
"Children, I know so little about her. But I do remember some things, yes I do remember them.
She was born in the "Rua do Bonfim", the Street of the Good Death, across from the cemetery of the same name.
For some reason, when she was one and a half, she had to stay across the street for a while. She was so small she fitted neatly there, under the sun bleaching table, outside in the narrow space between the house, the sidewalk and the street. The sun bleaching table was a frame built around four short poles, covered on top with chicken wire. Soapy clothes washed in the sink were laid on the bleaching table, out front, sometimes for days on end. She fitted under there, safely, and watched the older children play with crystal balls. "Bolinha de gude", the little magic balls that had magic sticky glue attached, they always fell into the hole. "Clink".
Still today, she is drawn to dime stores, or rather to dollar stores, where she searches for these shiny color balls, the powerful multi-lighted textures of these shiny stones.
(TALL NANNY DRESSED IN WHITE ROBES PLAYS MARBLES WITH THE CHILDREN)
When hungry, she remembers a vague tall black woman wrapped in many layers of white cloth. Her milk mother. Her other mother was never quite there. Her nourishment came to her in the shape of many layers of soft and rough black and white textures of cotton cloth.
From that time, the milk and the bleaching table time, she also remembers the ghosts. They came at night from the cemetery, and they danced around the mahogany table, in the small dining room.
Very early then, her small life was inhabited by visions -- when she closed her eyes, trying to sleep, there were the large oranges that appeared from nowhere. Rolling down on her, scaring her to hell.
She learned very early that being scared was of no use. There was no one there to hold her. Milk lady gone, her other mother not there.
(SCREEN PROJECTIONS OF "FAUSTAO" AND "SILVIO SANTOS" GAME SHOWS, OUT OF SUNDAY BRAZILIAN TV)
Much later, she found a funny television program, where the contestants had to dress in funny suits, bind their feet and fight these large rolling oranges descending on them from up the hill. This was when she lived in Brasil, or maybe it was when she was watching popular Italian nightmare television.
By then, she laughed at the oranges. By then, though, some patterns and some habits of cave living had already been formed."
(GRANDCHILDREN)
Grandma! Can you slow down or something... We know it is impolite, but we have been talking while you're telling the story. Ah, we do not understand half of what you're saying. Can't you slow down? What do you mean? Rolling oranges? Were they real? Can we watch that program? NOW?
(GENIE AND GRANDMOTHER disregard the GRANDCHILDREN and TELL instead THE TALE OF THE LEOPARD AND THE ANTELOPE)
There was, buried deep inside the stories of old,
an old tale revisited that told of the leopard and of the antelope.
The people of this place felt that dream was a ride.
Inside their journey they would gaze,
eyes liquid wide and fluid open into the blind stare of the storm.
A stare so blind, so blue, so powerful, it could gobble you down whole,
or it could digest you in jest and in gesture you bit by bit.
Allow you thus and though to ride along and to exchange fates.
And if you wished and the time was ripe, you could then go on
a prowl mounted on the back of a leopard.
Moonlit spots of luna, yellow light, black night the rest.
That is how the tale of the leopard, and the antelope goes.
Then of course there was the rest. The space of verse,
an impression, a slight imprint, the spur of antelope
on a prowl of her own.
In a quest of a different nature and of flight.
A travel pattern uncommon to the leopard, more like a bird then antelope,
akin to air, a chameleon, a dandelion, a fighter,
this creature leapt at change and at this chance for the ride.
And so they rode across the traveling fields.
in spiral dances down swirls of escape and of joy.
In dream like life, they traveled, transversed territories, landscapes in journey.
They galloped across rivers, dirt roads, forests and brooks.
I see it all, inside the clearances, inside the woods.
Daylight filtered in a sparing moment or light not there at all.
A moonlit space.
Flooded roads surrounding ascending waters from the rains. Bare passages.
Bridges built across dams near overflowing - memories of other spaces, territories revisited from above, the tundra.
Red dirt of flooded water.
They traveled far this leopard and this antelope.
What the reader nor the riders know is that a leopard of another spotted color
would attack and jump and that an antelope of another feathered kind would leap in flight.
And so the story goes that this leopard and this antelope were old, they were both old stuff, old soul.
Made out of air and dirt and fire, fused elemental tales of some childhood,
fused tales of some other future, elemental synthesis
in search of water.
Except in dream, or for a fault in fate or in time, these two, these people said,
will never meet, this leopard and this antelope.
Except in dream,
they said,
where they love each other,
as fiercely as they can,
given their leopard and antelope within
and without their natural and not so natural skins.
Take a ticket to ride, a destination,
take a ticket, they said, these people
and just go, just ride the dream.
And better still, you know the dream
the dream is you!
You are the ride.
(CHILDWOMAN WONDERS)
Building
What stream of innocence demands of me this being?
This constant search for this impossible building
inside a dream?
What block, what brick, what strain of thought, what castle in the sand, what memory?
What going back, what future demands of me
this dance?
This dance in sparks, this fogo fatuo, this ghost, this chiaro scuro?
Is love in the beginning needed, so necessary for the soul to go and build
and to demand?
What is about this stream built out of innocence?
This building made out of air, brick after brick wall, stone after stone,
ends open to meet the breeze on peaches and on pears,
sunflowers, grasses, dandelions and chicory, watercress in green.
What breathing moment in innocence demands of me this building?
Impossible building built out from inside a dream?
(JESTERS AND CHILDWOMAN TALK ABOUT THE HUNTERS AND THE GATHERERS)
Rain finally falls, soft gentle rain,
light water inside of soul, pitty patter of sound on roof,
inside the flower, the fruit, the seed,
we gather up the pieces once again.
No more the hunter, the meat is in, the feast and orgy just satisfied.
And one more time in grace we graze, nibbles and bits of affection we graze.
You and I and us we chew and ponder and graze in peace.
But what to make of all the thunder, the rage of lightning?
Where are, my friend, the signs, the flags, the minefields?
Where is my ammunition, and the grenades?
Where can I go to be prepared? Where can I meditate on this?
How then can I become? How can I change?
When I was born a death wish so strong it took my breath away
when I was born the certainty then I was already dead.
I do not become, do not evolve. I am a child and this is me.
I am quite old and this is me.
In silence I see the green of fields, a mist of water the moon half size.
I am that's all, in rage.
I do not become a light.
I am that's all, and for now I graze.
(JESTERS STRIP OFF BUSINESS SUITS TO REVEAL PAINTED BODIES, PLUMES AND FEATHERS)
BODY PAINT
Shaving all hair from my body
I wash away saxon anglo peasant tradition
guilt of sparrow who eats bluebirds
predatory anger of eagles
rationed measured emotion
Wanna go dance!
splash ankle deep in clear water
embrace adornment
perfumed lacquered blue yellow
enameled green feast of feathers
Riverine madness
nakedness
body paint
of the hairless cultures of my south
CHILDWOMAN and GRANDMOTHER, announced gracefully, by the JESTERS)
THE GATHERING
I miss all of my women, all of them!
My lovers, my friends, my mother, my women,
all of them,
I miss them!
My people of kin, my feel of skin, my missteps, the woman in me.
What else do I need from you? What else do you need from me?
But my women, all of them, inside of me, all of them!
(JESTERS and GRANDCHILDREN)
THIS IS THE END for this story, we are just told...
(GRANDMOTHER MEDITATES, CHILDWOMAN RECITES, GRANDCHILDREN MIMIC )
SKY HOOKS
In the wee hours of my soul
you wake me up from dream
to tell me
nothing at all has happened
just now.
For a second the universe stops gyrating.
You bring me endings and I watch them end,
in spite of me, you,
they end.
Yet
sky hooks still give me climbing privileges
to the stars.
Spider webs still float freely,
silver threads in seasonal certainty.
Seed pods still pop open in the crisp cool breezes
to maybe germinate elsewhere.
Herons stand tall above the grasses
and plunge to devour little fish.
No memories attached to my womb,
no beads left around my neck,
all color pearls of self unraveled.
I imagine an oyster in by-valve passion encountering my tongue,
clam closing shelf slightly
to my keen hungry lusty touch
in picking approaches.
Well on my way to reclaim my soul,
I rejoice toward this less humanity
less selfish love
more universe
this nature.
You cannot possibly say
nothing happened at all just now.
(STAGE COMES ALIVE.
EVERYONE COMES ON STAGE TO PLAY WITH WORDS OF PREGNANCY AND with SILENCE.)
The pregnancy of the poet
Be silent, please.
Be silent and listen to the noise
the noise in expectation projected into word.
Fill in the space, the gold in caves,
Black rotten hole of silence you do not wish to hear,
the gold of quiet.
Be quiet, please.
Become and play with poetry.
Be pregnant with pause.
Say no more.
and ANOTHER END OF PLAY
The thrill of singing Frere Jacques in a choir, where you learn to stay within your own voice and are surrounded by beginnings and endings, in other voices. Then there is a high musical silence, like when popcorn stops popping...or a bell stops ringing...
The gods and goddesses, ah, they still are all at play!!
Surrealistic poetry, almost like remembering a dream. And the photos are gorgeous, the spider web, all of them. Sunday afternoon treat to be taken away with. Magical realism
Surrealistic poetry, almost like remembering a dream. And the photos are gorgeous, the spider web, all of them. Sunday afternoon treat to be taken away with. Magical realism
Marvelous Erica!