Mari L’Esperance – Ⅲ
White Hydrangeas as a Way Back to the Self
To enter the mind is a dangerous act—
*
In the mind there are rooms
we dare not inhabit,
passageways
we refuse to follow—
This is about a kind of intelligence.
This is about making a way
to live in the world.
*
To enter the story
means
going back to the beginning.
To enter the story
feels
like drowning
and drowning is the only way
to get there—
—white hydrangeas
*
To begin is a dangerous act.
To enter is to risk disaster,
mind infinitely skilled at deflecting
what it cannot bear—
circling and circling the perimeter,
black surface sheened like onyx
(to protect me, I think—must think)
and no perceptible point of entry—
*
The self is a house
that is closed to me.
It stands on the other side
of mind—
a stalemate.
It is not the entering
that paralyzes
but the fear of it
and what I imagine
I might then
discover—
—in a dream, white hydrangeas
*
—what I might then discover.
My mother disappeared without a trace.
How else to say it?
No explanation. Nothing remaining.
Only echoes
and their endless wake of sorrow.
Only echoes
and their unanswerable questions—
*
When the news arrived—
in that instant of crossing over
from innocence to knowing—
I felt something otherworldly,
something akin to
the planets tilting on their axes,
perhaps, only inside me—or
the entire world as I knew it
thrown entirely off kilter—
off kilter being the best way
to describe it, as if
best can somehow stand in for
there are simply no words—
None. No other way to say it.
—white, with palest green
*
This is what it is like to stand alone
at the gate of the unbearable,
gate of fear and the long nights dissolving
one into the next, no light
to see by, the soul’s restless turning
my only compass—the self
violently intercepted, and no notion
of another way to live
or if living is something that is possible.
*
For a long time
wanting
and not wanting
to enter it,
to move through
and down
into what lay beneath—
For a long time
impossible,
the soul
seemingly gone off
her course
and the mind
relentlessly refusing—
confusion
my constant companion
and my stunned heart.
—white hydrangeas, like a dream
*
I dream of white hydrangeas
floating in a shallow bowl, enormous
and tinged with palest green.
How deeply themselves they are—
how lushly quiet and free of the darkness
that will ultimately claim them.
They live in the whole of it, light
and shadow and all that lies between
as one holy existence.
I hold them close. I hold them close
like something I could live by.
Love and music, be my keepers a while longer—
White hydrangeas, invite me to stay.
To enter the mind is a dangerous act—
*
In the mind there are rooms
we dare not inhabit,
passageways
we refuse to follow—
This is about a kind of intelligence.
This is about making a way
to live in the world.
*
To enter the story
means
going back to the beginning.
To enter the story
feels
like drowning
and drowning is the only way
to get there—
—white hydrangeas
*
To begin is a dangerous act.
To enter is to risk disaster,
mind infinitely skilled at deflecting
what it cannot bear—
circling and circling the perimeter,
black surface sheened like onyx
(to protect me, I think—must think)
and no perceptible point of entry—
*
The self is a house
that is closed to me.
It stands on the other side
of mind—
a stalemate.
It is not the entering
that paralyzes
but the fear of it
and what I imagine
I might then
discover—
—in a dream, white hydrangeas
*
—what I might then discover.
My mother disappeared without a trace.
How else to say it?
No explanation. Nothing remaining.
Only echoes
and their endless wake of sorrow.
Only echoes
and their unanswerable questions—
*
When the news arrived—
in that instant of crossing over
from innocence to knowing—
I felt something otherworldly,
something akin to
the planets tilting on their axes,
perhaps, only inside me—or
the entire world as I knew it
thrown entirely off kilter—
off kilter being the best way
to describe it, as if
best can somehow stand in for
there are simply no words—
None. No other way to say it.
—white, with palest green
*
This is what it is like to stand alone
at the gate of the unbearable,
gate of fear and the long nights dissolving
one into the next, no light
to see by, the soul’s restless turning
my only compass—the self
violently intercepted, and no notion
of another way to live
or if living is something that is possible.
*
For a long time
wanting
and not wanting
to enter it,
to move through
and down
into what lay beneath—
For a long time
impossible,
the soul
seemingly gone off
her course
and the mind
relentlessly refusing—
confusion
my constant companion
and my stunned heart.
—white hydrangeas, like a dream
*
I dream of white hydrangeas
floating in a shallow bowl, enormous
and tinged with palest green.
How deeply themselves they are—
how lushly quiet and free of the darkness
that will ultimately claim them.
They live in the whole of it, light
and shadow and all that lies between
as one holy existence.
I hold them close. I hold them close
like something I could live by.
Love and music, be my keepers a while longer—
White hydrangeas, invite me to stay.