Alix Scarborough Spring 2013

“She danced the dance of flames and fire,

and the dance of swords and spears;

she danced the dance of stars and the dance of space,

and then she danced the dance of flowers in the wind.”

- Khalil Gibran

Table of Contents

Self-Portrait…………………………………………….2

Sacred Ground……………………………………….3

Summer………………………………………………….4

Winter…………………………………………………….6

Chalk……………………………………………………...8

Roots

Rhythm Traveling Alone…………………………………...12

Snapshot: Family Dinner………………………13

Reflections on a Fast German Train………14

Mediterranean………………………………………16

Branches Footprints……………………………………………..20

Haiku……………………………………………………20

Fly………………………………………………………..21

Ode to Joy…………………………………………….22

Roots

On Love and Loss

Self-Portrait

The pieces of your face come apart one day,

moving and rotating like a Picasso.

That familiar countenance is disambiguated.

It’s like saying a word

for the millionth time,

finally hearing its component sounds

instead of just its association.

See that flecked blue ring

around expressionless pupil.

Pink lips responsive at the corner to every twitch.

Cheekbones giving way to chin.

A smattering of freckles across pale skin.

How do these body parts make me who I am?

This bright flush of life is nothing

but the beating of my heart.

On Sundays,

the soil outside the construction fence is moist

and smells of honey and chamomile tea.

Horns blare.

The light runs red at the intersection.

A memory glimmers in the air,

a thousand feet above.

She was in the South Tower,

on the 106th floor

at 9:03 am.

Weekends, just a few blocks away,

she would get tea

and he would get coffee.

Yes, this was the bench.

Yellow hard hats swim

around his pocket of silence.

There are no tears left.

The new tower will be 1,776 feet tall.

It is symbolic

and well-designed and strong.

There are architects and engineers

hired to fill the gap

with something meaningful.

Politicians endorse this.

But you can’t impress a city out of its sadness.

This site will always be rubble.

Sacred Ground

~ 3 ~ ~ 2 ~

Summer

The sounds of a record player

drift in on buttery breakfast wings.

I blink into soft sunshine

filtered through leaves and window panes.

Slowly lifting eyelashes are silhouetted

against tousled sheets.

Your pillow is empty

and my heart is full.

I want you to paint me like this,

smudged mascara and

our clothes all over the floor.

I find you flipping omelets

in your cutoff jeans,

follow the curve of your shoulder blade

with my fingertips,

tracing your tattoo.

It means something to you,

and it’s beautiful to me.

When you turn around you look at my lips,

not my eyes.

Coffee warms me like a hug

but it is nothing

when your bare chest meets mine

and there is a breath

and then I think

maybe we are IN the oven now,

the morning may be cool

but we’re hot

and I’m saying don’t burn the eggs,

don’t forget to turn off the stove

as you carry me back to bed

and our coffee gets cold.

~ 5 ~ ~ 4 ~

The most beautiful things today

are the bare-branched trees against the sky

and the memory of your lopsided smile-eyes.

I miss you like I’ve missed winter.

It seems but a dream in the long days of August,

late nights when even the air sweats. Sweet cool breezes—

I forgot how beautiful the earth is in hibernation.

When I lost you, Christmas songs started playing.

Some, a perfect soundtrack

I didn’t want to be reminded of.

Others, a sting of warmth and intimacy

that is an empty place in my life.

I refuse to believe in the holidays this year,

in all but an abstract way

that allows me to function and wrap gifts.

Who will I kiss at midnight?

I forgot what this was like.

Most days, the hole is well-hidden.

Everyone says I am dealing with this remarkably well.

Winter

I fool myself.

But those red and green songs, the ones that look

like mistletoe and taste like cheap chapstick…

they’re the tiny pinpricks you don’t notice

until someone tells you you’re bleeding.

The winter sky is stormy.

Branches are naked as the day they were formed,

vulnerable and exposed

and ultimately alone.

These ruddy cheeks burn tears and freeze hearts.

~ 7 ~ ~ 6 ~

I’m not fragile and ephemeral

like the women in your poems.

I’m not strung out on your bathroom floor,

or draped across your bed.

You stood there

reluctantly vomiting words

between swings from your flask.

You told me that these are

the only three poems

you haven’t burned yet.

I wonder why you have to throw everything away.

Every time I see you, you’re in limbo –

at home, you have a turntable

and no computer.

Nervous and drunk,

you develop an Irish accent.

You secretly hate it

when people laugh at you.

I’ve never met someone

so wholly inexplicable.

Chalk

All your girls are sultry anachronisms

or anorexic artists.

They wear combat boots with dresses,

or lacy see-through shirts.

I never thought I was one of them

until you scribbled those 17 syllables.

I was reduced to yellow sidewalk chalk

and you walked away with dust on your jeans,

already looking for your next fallen angel.

In all the wrong beds

to get out of her own head

but nowhere to rest

~ 9 ~ ~ 8 ~

Rhythm

On Travel and Freedom

No yesterdays on the road.

– William Least Heat Moon

When you’re ready to twist away, you move.

When you want to connect, you reach out.

No one knows your past. You are a breathing

blank slate.

Hey you, who are you in my city?

I’m ready to flip-flop down your cold river,

brushing against people

like slick rocks.

Tumble me like sea glass

in an erosion of cultural confusion.

My language is incomprehensible.

Jibber-jabber pardon?

When you look at me

(like that)

I see no words. Your eyes,

your feelings my feelings a humanity we try to deny.

In the grass with the nudists

and the locals

and the dogs -

I bask alone. Sunshine anywhere is golden.

Keep moving, baby,

keep going for the sake of going.

Never know if you’re running to or away.

Traveling Alone

When you dine in Greece, you must watch your drink.

Hands and words go flying, you use your whole arm to

speak, reaching and shaking and pointing. You must

have an opinion, especially on politics, and movies, and

wine. The meal starts with raki, homemade Greek liquor.

The table is spread with meat, bread, salad, goat cheese.

People lean over you to snatch morsels of this dish and

that. There are at least five conversations going on and

they shout over each other to be heard. You can be very

quiet or very loud. If you don’t take food some will

appear on your plate. The talking continues, and

laughter. Now coffee. Now dessert. Someone falls out of

his chair because he is cackling and gesturing and drunk.

More wine. Some people will leave – the baby is crying,

and anyway, there is work tomorrow. Those who remain

produce a guitar, a baglamas, drums. The music starts

fast and then slow. This is the rhythm of my Greece. A

song of the island, of a girl, of liberation. Ancient themes.

They sing with eyes closed, swaying. A woman stands

and begins to dance. Snap, snap, slow spin. And up.

Down. Snap, snap. Eye contact across the table. Papou is

crying. You don’t know the words, but you know the

feelings. Clap. Sway. Listen.

Snapshot: Family Dinner

~ 13 ~ ~ 12 ~

We rushed by secret places,

peering into backyards and gardens

and dinner parties.

In every town is a church,

a wall of graffiti,

and a little girl falling off a bicycle.

Occasionally, someone pauses

to watch the train pass -

in their stillness

they are already speeding away from my stillness.

A tunnel brings sudden darkness

and I am only looking at myself.

Reflection is the least appreciated function of a window.

The German countryside is a child’s drawing.

Gently rounded hills, symmetrical trees, wide

wandering rivers. Villages are a cluster of

red peaked roofs.

I’m making faces at myself again

in the black window.

Reflections on a Fast German Train

Solar panels line up

in a march to the sun,

unblinking.

Fields and fields.

The moment you realize you’re pretty,

your face so familiar and unwavering

as you recognize it again and again.

~ 15 ~ ~ 14 ~

I am a grain of salt dissolving

Submerged, I think deep watery thoughts

Angels and mermaids are made of the same stuff

Seaweed tendrils lick at my toes,

phosphorescent legs under crystal waters

I radiate. I taste salt.

Open water meets the horizon

in a shimmering dance of blues and greens and greys

Cradled in the womb of the sea, I

Float

Belly up

Open life-giving unafraid

I am the ancient witness

Buoyed by the sun and drifting into vastness

I forget –

depth is deceptive

Mediterranean

~ 16 ~ ~ 17 ~

Branches

On Nature and Solitude

Footprints

Today I put my shoes on

and I went.

I walked until my water bottle was empty

and my notebook was full,

until my feet hurt and my heart ached.

I walked until the trees starting seeing me

the way I see them, until the wind

was more embrace than resistance.

The walking became knowing.

I left my footprints all over the city.

When the sun broke through the clouds,

I did a photosynthesis dance,

shimmied the habits away

and let them run off my roots,

an overwatered succulent.

I wanted to jump off a building.

I thought I would fly.

Can the story go on without me?

Is this where the story ends?

Something in the air solidifying around me –

maybe just the satisfying stretch

of muscles I didn’t even know I had.

There are those times, you know,

those times that force you to adapt to survive,

those times that let you discover

something new about yourself.

There are those times when wings sprout

out of necessity. You lean on no one else.

This is you,

your competencies and weaknesses,

your stretch and retract,

your wild dreaming that reaches over the rooftops –

I jump in desperation

and in hope.

Flying is only letting go of the ground.

Fly

Haiku

A person alone

Park benches and poetry

Recording the world

~ 21 ~ ~ 20 ~

Ode to Joy

Friday morning alarm

and the open window.

Over the rooftops the sky is brightening,

the clouds are lighting up from beneath,

the peach color of hope.

Trees sway

to the sudden sound of strings.

By opening my eyes,

I have caused the orchestra

to begin to play.

Beethoven is here,

next to me on the bed.

He is conducting –

I am conducting –

birds in flight and dewdrops and

the divine music of stillness.

The deep lows of hidden roots,

the lilting highs of ladybugs,

creeks meandering

through morning scenes:

coffee-brewing

lover-cuddling

sleepy-sunshine.

We only harmonize at dawn,

before the cacophony of full daylight.

We can only hear the symphony

at dawn.

And for a moment –

The crescendo

is simple,

just colors changing in the sky,

sunrise searing across

a universe in song.

~ 23 ~ ~ 22 ~

Copyright Alix Scarborough, 2013

All images belong to original artists