The Shifting Sands of Earth and Other Random Messages

by Cara Fürst

March has come and gone without any comment from us. Although it’s been more or less the same routine here, the month’s disasters – among them the terrible effect of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan – had darkened my spirit and mood, making it difficult to write anything positive.

Maddy had something to contribute one day, but it passed with knitted brows. Cayden was busy with friends and Markus promised to post a series of thought-provoking photos but never got around to it. As for me I had no wisdom to impart, no consolations to offer, nothing so interesting to say. Some things sometimes, just stifle my voice.

Instead I’ve been idly doodling, drawing puerile pictures and listening to old, familiar music as if thirty years’ time had never passed. 

Here I go and I don’t know why
I spin so ceaselessly,
’til I lose my sense of gravity

Today it is April and for the first time in a long time I hear birds singing through the open window and there’s a thin but unmistakable hint of new foliage in the breeze. Sunlight between the clouds warms the facade of the building across the Hof, shading it on and off in a surprising Mediterranean yellow.

Things have certainly changed since I last made the effort to look but I’m conscious that it’s been a long rebirth this time.

I’m dancing barefoot
in mid air I spin
some strange music draws me in
makes me come on like some heroine

I spent the last few days fiddling with a drawing I want to call The Annunciation of Spring. I say “want” because although it began that way – as a positive thought –  I honestly think I must have gotten the iconography backward.

The (Tinkerbell-like) green fairy arrives to announce the onset of spring to the (Queen Mab-like) Mother Nature figure. It’s really more of a suggestion because it’s clear that Mab is not only indifferent but reminds us with her scepters that she wields the power of the sun and moon and will do whatever she likes in the end – fairies of spring be damned. Maybe The Renunciation of Spring would be a better title, but then I’d lose the Archangel-Gabriel-Virgin-Mary-Annunciation reference that was obviously lurking in the back of my mind. I don’t know what I meant to do with that actually, but can’t help wonder now how things would’ve turned out if Mary had just said “no”.

Which brings me to the music I’ve been listening to.

The plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face
the mystery of childbirth, of childhood itself
grave visitations
what is it that calls to us?…
the line of life, the limb of tree
the hands of he
and the promise that she is blessed,
among women.

I knew better back then what it meant, before I knew anything at all. Maybe these are positive messages but I don’t know it because I can no longer admit to seeing all ends.

© Della D. Marinis, 2009-2011

Dancing Barefoot by Patti Smith and Ivan Kral

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