My brother's friend Stella visited yesterday from Chişinău (kiss-me-now). We (us three) walked up into the big pasture behind the two fields where my brother's been growing rye four-five years now according to the no-till methods of Masanobu Fukuoka. The purplish inflorescences of orchard-grass spilled pollen-clouds as our striding broke the tall stems: wiry undesirables such as this have come in thick this year to many of the pastures around, thwarting sward-health and dispiriting local ruminants. But the rye looked good.

Stella Rotaru is an intimate of my brother's and a hero of mine. In the postcommunist free-market circus that comprises our brutal now, Moldova has been ripe ground for the slave-diggers; the socioeconomics are perfect and their crop keeps coming. Slave-trade! Moldovan souls in cauchemarish foreign bondage, too much to try and understand. I spin around helplessly in the attempt; Stella makes phonecalls, weaves networks, connects, runs hither-thither, mobilizes funds, rescues people. Into the dark sky of this kali yuga world with its governments laughably bankrupt, Stella rises like some kind of citizen Wilberforce. She acts where all seems unactionable, commits cosmic seva, heart by heart.

Later we had tea and rose-cakes in the kitchen, Grebenshchikov on the hi-fi. My brother told the story about the goat and the beet-patch and Stella said, "When I figure out what that little bit of magic is behind the machinery of a fairy-tale, I think it will give me super-powers!"

make out
hamster and orange juice
paleotechnology
girl on girl yogurt

Aνάμεσα στο παρθεναγωγείο και την έκθεση, σ' ένα δρομάκι πολύ στενό, μονοπάτι μάλλον, χρόνια βρίσκονταν παραπεταμένη – κατά την προσφιλή συνήθεια των αρχαιολόγων μας – μια θαυμάσια αρχαία σαρκοφάγος. Eίχε βαθιά σκαλισμένες τις πλευρές με έρωτες, κλήματα και λουλουδένιες γιρλάντες, ενώ πάνω στο κάλυμμά της χαμογελούσε μισοπλαγιασμένο απαλά ένα αγαλματένιο ζευγάρι ρωμαϊκής εποχής. Aνασηκωμένοι στο ανάκλιντρο, ερεθιστικά γυμνοί κάτω απ' το σεντόνι, η γυναίκα εμπρός και ο άντρας πισωκολλητά κατόπι, συνέχιζαν θαρρείς τους θαυμάσιους έρωτές τους. Mου άρεσε να τους κοιτώ, γι' αυτό, τις νύχτες ιδίως, περνούσα συχνά από κει. Mε αναπαύουν, άλλωστε, όλοι οι έρημοι και σκοτεινοί δρόμοι. Mόνο καθώς βαδίζεις σ' αυτούς, μπορεί κάτι το ελπιδοφόρο να προβάλει εντός σου και κάπως να ημερέψει η ψυχή. Πήγαινα και καθόμουν στο χείλος της μισοσκεπασμένης λάρνακας, σα να περίμενα ν' αναστηθεί το αντρόγυνο ή να έρθουν οι γλυκιές μυροφόρες για να τις αναγγείλω εγώ πρώτος την ανάσταση: ηγέρθησαν, ούκ εισιν ώδε· ίδε ο τόπος όπου έθηκαν αυτούς. Συνήθως όμως ξεπρόβαλε ανάμεσα στ' αγριόχορτα και στα ψηλά σινάπια κάποιος που έρχονταν για ανάγκη του ή κανένας τύπος ύποπτος, μόνος του ή με παρέα. Oπότε, αντί να αναγγείλω την ανάσταση, δίπλωνα τα φτερά μου κι έφευγα μαζεμένος, περισσότερο για λόγους προνοίας παρά από διακριτικότητα. Kι όμως, η σαρκοφάγος εκείνη ήταν ολόκληρη η λατρευτή ειδωλολατρεία για μένα.

Sitting at this same desk, shuffling these same papers, reaching over occasionally to the same old Stella to plunker out "Jesse James" or "Στην Ανατολή", I find myself marking the closure of another year, another anniversary in this history, another moment of reflection in the swift spasmodic rush of nonlinear time. It's amazing how recently it seems that my last gennethlia passed. I was thirty, now I'm twenty-nine. The lilac- and apple-bound cellarholes I inhabited all those years as I worked up my skin's capability to blister under sunlight, my flesh's acceptance of al-kohol, my blood-sugar's marginal & fleeting stabilities; from the perspective of this desk in this office in this library I feel now nothing but an overwhelming and endless flow of gratitude toward each and every one of those windowless spaces.

The first hot days have left cellar dwellers burnt; my body is geometrically bulged/embossed by the sun. Skin discomfort and heat jump add to money worry, general apocalypse fear, transition homelessness. Allergic cellar catarrh in ear/nose/throat persists. I look out on Orinitsa Square with all people sweating, its misshapen rap, converging streets, ambulances. My birthday approaches and I wrap up in my red and white napkin: calendula yellow, cold green, cold water, a new notebook, room cleaning.

Pushkin's Afric grandpère come to Casceaux, to this meager islet and its few stout, ant-addled houseframes, to its weeds scrappily alive with myrmecophilous larval blues. To this island, "where I suffered, where I loved, where I buried my heart." Blue waters steeling over to chop and froth as the ships approach with a storm in company. Memory playing tricks.

My young body softens & blurs under bedazzled years' accretion. Spaces collapse; but only to open other ones. Objects and bodies are spaces condensed. Time is space dancing, with fire in one hand and a drum in another. I am Shiva. My mountain cannot hide me. Kali stomps my corpse, her skully scalpy gear rattling and raining against me. The only breath I can get my lungs around is love. Sat. Nam. Joyful resorption of all this endless excess. «Je» est un autre: moi j'suis Shiva/Girija, jamais seul!

Rina called from the Crimea: she wants me to come sunbathe. I told her, "Too many wide-plank pines, too few hours, too much fatigue, impossible!" Library affairs are dismal too. But I rode my bike out to Hîrbovăţul Nou a few days ago to attend wedding ceremonies of friend Dieter, one of the Anenii Noi district's seven Jews; I drank generously & joyously of the good Feteasca Neagră, staining my mouth and my shirt: but ruddying my fragile spirits, sadly, only for a passing time.

I spent part of today in East Tiraspol screwing in "wide plank pine" aka "half-ass" aka "the way to do carpentry" floors with my friend and part-time employer Petru. Other tasks included running doors up and down the stairs to the circular saw to be cut off at the bottom in order to fit over the floors which were going on top of old linoleum, and answering Petru's questions/guesses about which of my female acquaintances are lesbians (he is avidly dating). He observed, "I don't think armpit hair is an indicator anymore." We were done in 5 hours, including lunch. A short workday, and I feel tired! I can't believe I used to do this kind of work every day.