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

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.” – Emily Dickinson

~
There are numbers zipped up in code that distinguish a place. A place where the mailman sometimes drives a mile or more to the next box; markers upon a black sea of asphalt, gravel and rain. Toivo lived here, amongst the mapleway and dirt trails- snags of trees swaying in the wind. A psithurism cathedral, with halls that echoed Finnish Polkas in a land of make believe. My Grandfather came from an old world, yet made a new one in the mossy twigs of 98648.

I am the oldest of 10 grandchildren, and arrived into a world filled with imagination and music. My grandfather played the accordion, spoke Finnish when drinking with his brothers and sisters, and loved to tell good stories. My oldest memories are set to the soundtrack of joy, laughter, and the Chicken Dance. Gramps had instruments in every corner and nook- amongst the dusty wisps of paper scrolled upon with poems, music, and blueprints for building. His hands were always inventing something new. When I was 9, he invented Toivo Land.

Toivo was an imaginary friend he made out of sawdust flesh, dressed in cover-alls, and who wore a face of permanent marker drawn upon a milk jug. Toivo always sat on an old Ford tractor that was rusty and splintered (unless he was out and about with the Toivo Land Band.) Toivo was a Magician, and like the Wizard of Oz, Toivo plowed a yellow brick road dotted with hand painted signs, and paved with the falling leaves of Maples, Oak, and Fir. A network of discovery that spanned 3 acres, and a lifetime. Toivo was always busy- this was Toivo’s land.

Toivo: 1) Finnish toivo = ‘hope’, ‘wish’, ‘desire’ 1 a) … with an older meaning ‘faith’, ‘trust’, ‘promise’

(Photo of Toivo Land Band @ Skamania County Fair Parade, Stevenson, WA. 98648 , cir. 1984)

~~

The faint sound of Polka seeping from old cassettes keeps time with the machines monitoring his breathing. His heart beats sporadic metronomes to his Covid-19 fever dreams. His fingers fold in on themselves- clutched and cold. It has been awhile since he has held the weight of billows and keys strapped upon his stern shoulders. He is quiet and ready- ready to make music again.

“Thank you,” I sob a hard sentence, stuck in my throat made of his flesh, “thank you Grandpa for always being there, and making our lives magic, and filled with love.”

“Thank you Grandpa for Toivo!”- I strain the words between tears that fall upon my pandemic shield made of plastic.

We lock a gaze of Finnish silence, the kind of silence filled with the solidarity of *Sisu. A stoic tear moves its way down his ageless face of wisdom, and with a side quiet smile, he says:

“It is all I could have hoped for!”

“It is all I could have hoped for.”
———————————————————————————————————————

* Sisu is a Finnish concept described as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness and is held by Finns themselves to express their national character. It is generally considered not to have a literal equivalent in English.

Myself, I’m one of the generations. My mother is one of the generations, wandering out there in alcoholism, and death, and murder, and domestic violence, and thinking there’s no way out. Well, there is a way out… Like I tell my children, my grandchildren, ‘You don’t have to walk that road of alcoholism and drug addiction. I walked that road. I took all those beatings for you guys. You don’t have to walk that road.’

- Verna Bartlett, Ph.D., Native American elder and sexual abuse survivor

My sweet Grandmother and myself in 2009.

I recorded this from my Grandmother while she was waiting to go home for Hospice and pass on to her Creator.