Page 14 - The NOISE December 2015

A StrAnger in thiS World
I am a stranger in this world; for I am married to the land and the vines are our daughters laughing in liquid delight within the glass in my hands;
a union of land and sky.
Meanwhile monsoon lightning flashes along the rim amidst fossil sand dunes at the shore of the ancient sea; bursts of insight in an ocean
of fear and trepidation and Hope.
I think of you, and your creosote-green eyes and hidden smile
beyond the mountain horizon. I pray you think of me, and have the same hope:
That we shall one day be together, like the wine in this glass,
and your taste upon my tongue. sweet as sagrantino at sunset.
I want us to be strangers in this world, together, standing tall against the sun.
| Vladamir erimou
riteS of PASSAge
It’s said these days that rites of passage are gone, but all one has to do is grow up naturally outdoors.
A small child outside of Sun Valley enters a corral of wild horses, walks into and becomes surrounded by them,
one thundering behind him and as he turns he gets kneed
in the chest and as he lays on his back the dark horse rears,
the quarter of its hooves dancing in air, but the killer is sideswiped so hard that both horses, the dark and the one who he fed carrots to
and named Star for his diamond, fly over them,
the boy now breathless and running as a blanched horse
watches all from a distance.
A small child wakes at night to stare at a man with a white painted face.
A teenager going to a mind-expanding ritual full of excitement
toward the earth crack, needles tapping on his spine, looks out of the truck and sees a man made of wood with antlers wishing him luck.
A young man climbs over giants’ stones, finds himself standing under an ancient tree in Flagstaff wishing for love, forgetting how many times he wished and the loves then to be lost.
A man in his late twenties drunkenly calls out yee naaldlooshii and later has to have a Navajo woman sing her blessings on him, covered in flour and smoke, fear ripping his heart,
flayed and red-assed from the reproach of gracelessness.
A man in his late thirties speaks to an elder among juniper berries and blue grass and honeysuckle, the elder telling him of the magic of focused thought, the power of prayers
and imaginings, the interdependence of each other
and then tells the man to tell of his dreams.
My male initiations were centered along trips to Oak Creek Canyon
with my brother’s real father, Dino, whose hair I loved so much.
For company friends and clients of the company that masked the Christian group that lived in the desert and thought the End Times was upon us came with us, all symbolized in giant peanut butter cans and long dresses.
Parents sent their adult, mentally challenged children to the Grapevine hoping for a reprieve from my friends. One guy had a hole in his neck, and then there was the Ninja Navajo with his gangster hat,
and in our band there were usually a couple droolers, a repeater,
a sense of escape, and love.
Decent and mindless affection for a quiet blond boy, and laughter — whether it was midnight fishing or Lucky Charms, somebody was smiling over nothing. And my silence was perfectly acceptable, there were no adults chanting speak up or shouting down for a look in the eyes.
So it was on a silent venture that I came to a bridge on a cool forested moment.
I remember we had just eaten fish and eggs for breakfast and I had the smell
of worm-dirt on my hands, which reached out ever so slowly to the bee
resting on the rail. Perhaps my knees trembled slightly, but my hands were brave, and with thumb and index finger I deliberately squeezed that yellow fear
in a lengthy ceremony.
It was the first time I knew futility and reason without a pulse,
and every once in a while I’ll find another memory buzzing about and I’ll leave
the oblivion of fun and love and thoughtlessly reach out, a man approaching
his childhood, and uselessly clench the boy in my fist, tighter and tighter,
until the breeze wakes me and I find I’m holding another unpolished memorial,
and the quivering has come up my legs to my chest and I’m folded over
this mausoleum covered in the dirt of my hands and the worms of dog breakfast peace, and then I can’t move at all, because I’ve become a monument to the past,
a shadow in a forest of friends, a symptom of blessed men and journeys toward safety.
Most people hold their bad secrets like frightened horse’s eyes, But it’s the good secrets, those rites of passage, that empower us, gently cooing the past into shape.
| Jason Casella
14 • december 2015 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us
thenoise.us • the NOISE arts & news • SEPTEMBER 2015 • 39
photo by callie luedeker
photo by cody burkett