dancing with the sun and sky
earth heart smiling
I wrote some poems at my cousin's concert at the Alberta Bair Theater in Billings, Montana. (Yes, I am still in Montana, where my dad is recovering from his third surgery.) (Third? you ask, quizzically, thinking--correctly--that he has but 2 carotid arteries. More on that later...) Meanwhile, back at the poem. My cousin Korine Fujiwara is a founding member of the Carpe Diem String Quartet, & omigosh, a concert with them is a day well seized. Korine has composed "Montana," which is so amazing. (Check them out on youtube. Anyway, here is a poem I wrote near the beginning of the concert. (The concert (& the newly-renamed Grandmaster Karlo Fujiwara Memorial Taekwondo Tournament) were dedicated to her father (my uncle) who died last summer.)
I Swear
I will get my cello strung & tuned
& learn to play at least one song
I will hug my father extra tight
when next I see him
(avoiding his neck, which is sore)
I will perform the music of my heart
which is peace & love & joy incarnate
I will go home
right now
a one-inch journey
to the center of my heart
I will melt into the music
of this moment
So, how do you have 3 surgeries when you only have 2 carotid arteries? Swell up like crazy one day & confuse the doctors & (after 4 days of not getting better quickly or consistently enough) have them reopen the incision to discover a big old hematoma that would have dissolved in 8 or 9 months on its own but in the meantime was painful & causing a deviated trachea & ear pain & such. He seems to be doing better & should be out of the hospital soon. About time--at the cafeteria today the cashier asked if I worked there since she'd seen me so often for so long. Dad & my cousin Aeron beat Mom & I twice in a row at 4-handed cribbage. We told the doctors he really didn't need extra blood flow to his brain...
I did a really good job of packing for this trip, which means I have worn everything I brought--even 2 long dresses, blue & green, which I wear as a reversible other-color-peeking-out-from-under duo--numerous times & I'm not sick of any of my clothes yet. I did get some hand-me-down jeans from my mom, & a shiny ruffly teal shirt & a pair of black sweatpants from my (R.I.P.) Great-aunt Lila, & 3 undershirts from (R.I.P.) Grandma Arla. Wardrobed!
Blog alternative:
199. Swear. &--after you're done with the profanity--swear to (fill-in-the-blank). Above poem may be used for exampling.
