My Brother and I were cooking together last night, bitter-greens/brined-cheese
placinta and a simple lamb paprika. In the quiet space between two bottles of such cheap
cava as is called "soviet" when sold in Brooklyn he proposed, predictably, a tisane of kava kava (
Piper methysticum) before our second cork's expulsion in order to mellow us more deeply while the flesh simmered and the
yufka rested. I conceded. We took our seats and, after a steeping carefully time-managed by my brother, contentedly commenced to sipping of the root. He talks well at tea, always, and here with the champagne already in him and the good cook-smells around I found him to be even more than usually on top of his game. He set in to narrating dreams.
"You and I were in Bratislava composing a low brick wall around a rye-field; it was distinctly Bratislava, but the boys who came one after another bringing our materials cracked their jokes in Greek, and the café where we presently found ourselves drinking lemonade &
himbeergeist with your friend Mioritza was the one we used to like next to the train station in Alexandroupoli. I said something to you about the rye, I can't remember what, something botanical; and in response Mioritza leaned in close to both of us and said, 'That phrase is looking to be surrounded by verse!'"
We both laughed and I got up to roll out the dough and assemble our
placinta. My brother worked gently at the cork of our second bottle & resumed, his phrasing punctuated elegantly after the word "dreamed" by the pretty pop which initiated the cork's flight out through the open window.
"And then I dreamed (!) I was in Nashville Tennessee, needing urgently to print up twelve copies of a short book – like a Blake prophecy – the plates for which I was carrying in a shoulderbag. How was I to find the means to do this in Nashville Tennessee? I was at wit's end; but was suddenly talking with someone about local butterflies, about how the Cloudless Sulphurs all parade endlessly southward along the bank of old brick buildings on 1st Avenue fronting the river; and somehow in between the lines of everything she said I started to discern and decipher a code by which I came to understand that if I were to walk ten miles out of town toward Murfreesboro I would come to a settlement of Chineses (
cf. Milton,
Paradise Lost, III.438) who were managing a magic portal through which one might step directly into Manahatta New Jork. I set myself at once upon this course. Presently my heart became a small tumbled cullet of rose quartz and slipped out of my chest. I carried it a while in my left-hand pocket while I walked and then somehow lost it – though I could feel it thumping still somewhere, expanding invisibly into the dirty world around, loving all."
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.
