Friend, I'm sorry you feel you do not know me. Here I am. Know me.

How do I describe the poetry I see in everything? The way it is so careful in its recklessness Words simply cannot. They cannot even begin. (To describe, is to define a place and time. This is not my aim. Perspective is the currency of thought. I desire only to convey without vitiating what I know to be pure and whole, which is ultimately impossible when using the false constructs of the human tongue and pen. I prefer those things which come naturally.) Music perhaps. Color and line? A copy of a copy-- blurry at best. An impression only, maybe? How do I share what i see? What I know, or feel? To feel that difference of truth and translation in your deepest place. Where does that even begin? Beneath the soles of your feet-deep, perhaps. "Gravity?" pulls.

And yet it is so gentle.

I have a deep admiration for the things which evoke without the taste of the abrasive. Some call it "whimsy" but I see it as wit, to engage your mind the way you engage yourself. The sudden realization of something that never occurred to you before, when there is a separation between your awareness and your knowing, and it is done in the cursive of humor and curiosity. A dear example between whimsy and seriousness-- Paul's Penny Lane and John's Strawberry Fields. Both places that truly exist in Liverpool as well as the very different paintings of sound created by minds of equitable genius. Yet the point still stands, you can still provoke with gentleness. Gentleness is compassion. Abrasive expression only looks to provoke for the sake of, or to raise, outrage. But gentleness can do the same and often be as effective in communication.

The word provoke/provocative can be slandered at times, but that is the life of language. It itself is wrangling to be free. How do I tame such a fierce beast? (with gentleness I think best.) So finite in its vagueness, prose is to chase what has evaporated, to convey the essence of smoke in the very organic manner in which it does flow and drift and twist in its expansion outward dispersing itself until the whole is many. How does one capture the sea breeze in a bell jar? Why bother? Where does one see any lines in this

painting of life? Too vivid at times, striking in its candid, honest matter and manner. How to begin to describe? To approach all life, all energy with a deep humility and a desire to understand that is the beginning, and there is not one that has not humility. A humble beginning is potential in its most valid form and it is perfect in its simplicity. Only so much can go into a perfect beginning, but there is no single beginning. And there is no story but the collective one and no end is in sight. No point in either, no, any direction, and so it seems obvious that no one thing acts on its own free will, a force exists in this life and i call it magic. Not anything empty, I mean the work of shaman and sound.

My God! The magic of existence. No wonder out ancestors created such fanciful and poetic explanations for the very trip of life. There is a need for mythology, as there is a need for light in a library. And yet no faith or explanation is more valid than the other. A rose by any other name still smells as sweet-- perhaps differently though. But how plain this life would be if all roses were to smell the same! If all flowers were to bloom in unison? No faith is unreasonable in its explanation -- in context. Perhaps more true and good to believe wholly in something than to sell a concept that exits only on paper, and not in the spirit of the faithful. Religions which charge you for your faith are tools of oppression.

And so there is no need to put words to the things that exist beyond human understanding. What is the ocean to an ant? (Only you know you.) It is a challenge and a blessing to exist upon the boundary of thoughts and temple. Your body is your house, your boat. Your thoughts at worst a maze, at best a labyrinth. A stream which twists and turns unsure of its direction but developing with conviction. Your soul is fire, and your heart a magnet? With all these forces pulling and pushing where does one go for solitude? Meditation. Not dreams. There you can only be encountered by all facets of existence which lose their definitions and build holographic walls and solids to guide your mental energies. Emotions? It is then I desire something tangible. Smooth cut rock. Granite. The kind that is degraded by its use as kitchen countertops. To feel the cold cut surface of an ancient mineral. Only on your fingertips, or the back of your hand. Overwhelm your senses! Go on. It is only this once you are here. Until time becomes a detail that seems to obstruct the "good" experiences. Until you find a place that is unlike any other.

Like that place between sleep and waking. i hate that place with such deep love and understanding. i witness my poor primal brain stem sort through

the confusion of existence. my waking self accepts the absurd and sees it as habitual. my soul though screams in resistance, to cars and buildings. and god forsaken elevators. escalators. i prefer those things which are organic. it is what comes naturally to all creatures of this planet, the common understanding of rain or warmth. all things experience life at their most appropriate level. how do i discern validity between my understanding and that of a bee? or a tiger lily? inspiration is the breath of God. just a whisper can create all that ever could be.

no,

How often i am speechless! damn these turns of phrase, they lead to ends which have no beginning. the very ideas i would like to express exist not in the languages i am told that i know. how do i describe that which has no description? how do i paint light? in truth? and in seeking truth?

bees seem to follow me lately. but i don't mind. i feel close to the things that are of lightness and air. i once found a bee struggling against the tide while swimming in the sea on the coast of haiti. i found a piece of leaf and tried to carry the confused creature to a branch but it kept trying to return to the water even when i used my hand to place it on the highest brach i could reach. in the end it fell back in. sometimes there is no place for explanation for the things which are subtle in their obvious expression. sometimes a secret does not reveal itself until there must be no other explanation. and so i assume the bees are my friends as i keep encountering their persistence. ( for every bee i escort from indoors one finds me while out in plain air. ) and tends to hum beside me until i say to it, "yes you are welcome here." and then it usually seems to float away.

my hope for this year is to perfectly paint a square of sidewalk. to replicated the perfect random order of the shapes, the rocks. i see the divine in the details. ( i see the devil as well.) and i see the spirit of chance in geometry. i see it! oh how i see it and how it is everywhere. it makes me want to cry, and bite my tongue at my unworthy attempts at description. it strikes the same cord in my being which causes tears to well. how could i even begin? to describe or convey the things my blindness alone has lead me to see. simplification does not attack truth. it only seeks to define in vagueness. as those humans who try to understand death seek to simplify its concept -- (it is an almost noble feat to attempt.) how else could we even begin to try and

understand the world we experience? the truth is that it is secret. the feeling of total unawareness and acceptance only occurs when you are dead and so it is a secret kept by the most noble, pursued by that which is noble, or true in all life, on the scale of the individual as well as the one. there is a collective made of us all. and so i ask of all things, "who are you? what are you? why are you?" it is the right of all to speak-- to listen. to ask-- "is there a reason i did not know you before?" there need not be a root of a question, and in truth the answer is often less important than what purpose it seeks to serve. explanations and answers do not deprive the world of magic, but they need not seek to be salient in their truths. the beauty of iridescence exists in peacock feathers, bubbles, and spilled gasoline. does that not make the colored shine that much more beautiful? meaningful? there is no difference but context and i seek only to know things as they are, regardless of purpose. just to have the slight chance, "to know" but to begin to know is to be compelled to share? and so again, where do i begin? tell me friend, i see no lines in the things i see. how do i draw them? how do i tell my hand what i know in my deepest place, what my eyes attempt to show me, and what my brain insist on filtering with previous experience until i am left with this cheap knock off jesus candle from the 99 cent store feel, and any reverence is lost in plainness and my utter failure to convey what is, and what is beautiful about its is-ness. magic cannot be translated, yet all things are magical. (thus there is no need for translation, and yet that is all i seek.) why waste what cannot be wasted or hastened?

this is why i have been having second thoughts about language and its place in my understanding. with some the stream flows, with others and often with you-- my stream seems tossed over awkward rocks which only seek to direct in their unimposing purpose. they too are being gently worn away and at a certain point the river rocks become little grains and pebbles that pave the way for smooth transitions.

Where is the home of this verse? i would prefer to sow it into the earth, or sew it into a blanket to offer it to any space that would receive it for its lack of bounds. only seeking to say hello. that is what i want to create. silent poetry. visual music. undiscovered harmony. graffiti which exists between your head and skull. gentle though. always gentle. to create what never was before. i want to create the things that only touch can bring out of you. create something, and ask nothing of it. and in the end it will give its bones to you because it will belong in no other place. the way to the heart is truth, and art is the truth that is embedded in a lie. we must be convinced before we understand, or is it the other way around? and so all of life is art and i am perpetually waiting to be reminded of this by

the universe and the world that i know. personalized art-- not ignorant fancies. i want to convince others of the beautiful moments which need not only exist in the past-- but eternally in their birth and death, their beginning and end. Like how the checkers on my pajamas remind a friend of dying thinkers and their dying thinking playing chess in a place unfurling with life. a garden is really just a humming smile on the face of my first mother. (so gentle, so gentle.) and it is for this sweetness of compassion that i yearn to achieve. as a feather is only fit for flight am i finding that i am only fit for gentleness. lightness.

i feel the weight of all my names and want to strip them from my knowledge of myself, i only seek to see all things with beginner's mind. i think that is why i mostly only know myself when i am in a green house. in that space i am not who i am or what i am. i am . simply present.

yours, claudia

ps. as i write this i sit upon the softest grass. i love the way the blades bend and find their way around obstacles. unfazed they stand in the place that occurs most naturally, and yet i feel immeasurable guilt. who am i to tread on this life which exists, but for the sun? if i could only convey my condolences to this small being, which makes of its many small contributions something unreal in its detail. each blade is as real as its neighbor, as in existence as i, and one day it will walk upon me, and i will gladly give myself to its roots.