Ever in the current . . .

Revelations: this is the season of revelations, of understanding, of grand gestures, of endings.

Winter’s haunches like a chastity belt clutch my heart. And winter is kind to lend me this sanctuary. Because I am a criminal; unrepentant and unredeemable. So the unseasonable inch of snow on the deck and the neglected pumpkin on my porch on December 19th set travelers racing to greener and warmer and more timely abodes.

But, whatever you want, whatever you want. I don’t question you.

Everything is going away – everything must go away. Me too.

Sluff the detritus of your life to uncover the new life; scour the skin til it is as pink and fragrant as your origin. Leave no blemish, no historical relic. Start fresh. Scour the steps where you scarred your knee; scour the window where in reflection, you recognized betrayal; scour the voice that strangled in your own throat when the attack raged; scour (most importantly of all) the lyric voices of love – the sweet echoes of endearment. Scour. Toss it all.

Hey love – that’s the word we never use – Hey Love, abandon this ship. She founders. She needs not a storm or some blind jetty – she founders.

Drop her anchor deep; she knows where she’s wedded, in the deep. Uncork the plugs and let her fall. She wishes it. The deep is her home. Suitable for the criminal heart, ever in the current and never arriving.

The Night of the Shooting Stars

One would not tread lightly here -- but we are drawn so to where we do not tread lightly.

Reflections on watching the film are complex. Usually I reject any film outright wherein a child or a woman pregnant with child may die. I am constructing a pretty picture of life, and these events (actual or not) do not promote a happy scenario. I am no Pollyana - rather I construct (when able) a positive, constructive, happy, cooperative world.

I wish to stay in the slim hope I found in this film (albeit Italian and so given to extreme swings between emotions and events). Despite the demise of unborn children, brotherhoods betrayed, fallen loves, and a butchered child as the father suffered witnessing, despite that the movie is hopeful.

Near the end, an aging couple who would never be allowed access to one another does comfort, hold and enjoy the loving ring of each other's arms. And despite all the brutality, villainy, and loss, at the end, a girl, nine years old, raises her chin to the sky to catch the rain on her tongue.

I like to think that I am like her. Come what may, I will still want to taste the rain on my tongue (and also like her, I will recite things in my head when the world is too much with me - I will escape the ugliness in the cocoon of verse).

"The Night of the Shooting Stars" is not for the feint of heart and barely for the stalwart. I am glad I watched it. But I would not watch it again. I will, however, continue to catch rain and snowflakes on my tongue!