“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”

― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“” Listen also to what is not said. It is a listening not just with your ears- though ears are a fine thing- but listening with your whole body, with your heart and the hairs on your arms and the small toes of your feet. Try doing it this way, when you read James Baldwin, one of our great American writers, out loud: “ (Old Friend from Far Away, pg. 27)

“On the 29th of July 1943, my father died…
(reading from Notes of a Native Son James Baldwin Full Audiobook mixed with old radio recordings from 1943 and other found sounds. mixed by Si Matta)

Listening to the sound of words in my brain tossing with the gusts of wind blowing south through the San Luis Valley, hitting the house in waves like a chorus for the sonnets rattling in my bones.

{Here alone, listening to what is not said in the daily search for clarity, divinity, or, just a padded cell far away from the prying eyes of gossip and social reproach.}

No matter the criteria for a forced hermitage, the silence can be deafening, a meditation to madness, and/or the peace that always seemed so elusive and out of reach-, like soft dust in the mesa wind, fleeting like fathers, and like Baldwin I understand that father wound. Fueling pen and therapy bills.

“I often wonder what I’d do if there weren’t any books in the world.”

— James Baldwin

A good book can grip you like that, old memories, kitchen sink, shadowboxing someone else’s story. A good book is a hustle, and a grift with reality, a dance with the matrix programmed by others vulnerabilities and tastes. Like a home, a good book can trap you.

{I listened with my organs,
straining through black
tar tobacco smoke
and words
shoved
down
throats,
spoken
in rooms
that didn’t
deserve
me.

“Don’t you know me dad,
I’m your native son”}

If it should happen you wake up and Armageddon has come, lie still.
― William Edgar Stafford

Last night I
saw the
moon
slip
in
and out
of golden light.

A flame burnt
ember of
gas
exploding
in my eyes.

Watching the end
of the world
no longer
feels
so
dramatic.

© Si Matta

doves whispering/ as they rest their wings/ in the rafters your silent sanctuary
― Kate Mullane Robertson

A song waning through old trees,
The length of eternity in her eyes,
Dreaming the world into existence.

We sat with broken wings,
Licking our wounds,
And watching the ancient sun rise.

We sat with mending hearts,
Finding strength in the wind,
And learning to fly again.

In dream-
The uterus of the universe
Unfolds its flower to us.

Nimble and scarred,
We drink from its nectar,
And place our hearts here.

Moments are where we hide,
Where we grow,
Where we die,
And where we learn to live.

The shadows of limbs,
Broken and dropping the leaves of fall
Drip on the peripheral landscapes of our inner worlds.

A sanctuary of rebirth.

© Si Matta

“behind the mask of ice that people wear, there beats a heart of fire.”
— Paulo Coelho

He peels the bark
slowly from around
the knots.

And dreams of the all
the eyes that will
peer through.

Shape shifted
and dreaming.

The dance continues.

© Si Matta

Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all.- Stephen King

The birds whispered my name,
As I fidgeted on a cold chair,
Learning of a god dressed in thorns.

As they talked in righteous dictation,
I would pull thorny brambles from dirty hands-
Finding god in the splinters.

I remember how the rain tasted-
Dry in safe beds made from synthetic fibers.

Yet I could hear the birds whisper my name,
Telling me stories,

We forgot to tell ourselves.

© Si Matta

Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can’t strike them all by ourselves― Laura Esquivel

I use to dream,
but my well
has ran dry.

Like cottonmouth.

I often cough
on words and
pass the torch.

A flame.

© Si Matta

Never lost/ Fading slowly to Silence/ By infinite degrees”
― Ashim Shanker

The sinew of
the moment led
us to this
leather of silence.

Sometimes I forget
your name, but remember
the taste.

A distant drum-

Your heart.

© Si Matta

“His eyes were that colour you can’t see in the rainbow. Indigo.”
― Rainbow Rowell

I remember turquoise,
it tasted blue
in my mouth

as he shoved
it down my
throat.

He gushed in
my hands, unaware
of the water

I held.

© Si Matta

“Sleep apnea is a plague in the western world.”
― Steven Magee

She passed out in
a cacophony of memories.
All the pretty dreams,
Dissected and worn.

She fell asleep to
the sound of old records.
All the pretty covers,
Creased and torn.

She curls her lips
to the worlds she dreams.
All the murmured words,
Bathed with scorn.

She walks unaware of
the stilts of gravity.
All the heavy faces,
Draped and creased.

A mask now covers
her mouth, as her
eyes attempt the
words
of sleep.

Sometimes death sinks uneasy
in the appetite of the lost,
A ritual with
no rite.

It has been since time
that plagues feel the
urge to breath,
eyes blink uneasy
behind
concealed ironies.

© Si Matta

Photo: Patricia Halleran

Pay attention to what the frogs have to say, they may have all the answers we need.

Be safe. Be kind. Be gentle.