origami
look! a shop crafted of tissue
paper. magenta, gold, orchid.
crumple it in your hands. a sensuous crush
as lush as the rush of warm ocean waves. to weave ourselves into water is a luxury
of which we can only dream.
but dreams taken to the extreme only destroy. why think
of suffering? let us lose ourselves in paper. (shh. can you hear the lost stories
of trees?) here, pleated sheets of purple. there
a fan of fresh saffron. ribbons of pink prisms. over here, a blue as high as the sky, as deep
as the sea—
oh, water once more. let us not think of the seamonsters surfacing
swallowing
thousands of villagers whole. no, no. let us only fold
our souls into these neat sheets of bronze crepe, melted teal, red so red
it bleeds. we shall make animals—cranes, of course. whales. dragons.
lots of fat fish. and after we create animals,
let us take a shot
at gods; buddhas, loads of them. goddesses. oh yes please!
ameterasu. the dazzling deity of the sun. she found her own beauty so breath
taking she vowed never to leave the earth
again. kannon. oh, her blessings are the bread
of life. the endlessly patient one, who waits
for us all. let us craft hindu heroines. saraswati. parvati. (oh! to fold oneself into the highest feminine vision!) asians argue amongst themselves of course but still there is something (a sensibility? a longing? an understanding?) uniquely asian westerners will never internalize; it shall always remain apart.
are we finished? crafting a splendorous army of kami?
good. we shall take them outside. the winds today
want to help us win. we throw the gods
away.
the wind wills them where it wills, to bless this worn-out earth,
its wilted inhabitants.
good-bye.
next, the whales.( the most secretive of creatures. living in a world only of water.
how can animals with whom we share this earth be so big? when we are so
small.) dragons.
oh yes. and cranes. a raining white rainbow
of cranes.
