What The Day Brings

A friend once told me, "There are only two things to do: the right thing, and the wrong thing.

"And the thing is? We ALWAYS know the difference."

"So what do I do?", I asked, slightly simplemindedly.

"The right thing," she answered, simply.

*************************************************

The Lilies of the Field Are Trying To Tell You Something

Valentine's Day Is Approaching. For God's Sake, Hide Me, Someone!

Or,

The Lilies Of The Field Are Trying To Tell You Something

Did you know that, on Valentine's Day,  if your dreamboat 

hands you a bouquet of purple irises, he or she is actually saying: "I  anxiously await your [sexual] favors"?*

                         ( *Author's Note: Well, with any luck.)

Or that, hidden in that lovely collection of fragrant pink dahlias, is a a subtext that actually warns of imminent betrayal and sexual degradation?** 

                                     (** Author's Note: Agatha Christie says this is what "Dahlia"  means,.Other sources say it's actually what "evergreens" mean, but I flatout refuse to believe all that about my Christmas tree.)

-Of course you didn't, because: a): You're not a big ol' crazypants, and, 2): It is no longer circa 1850-1890, which is when the "Language of Flowers" was an accepted way to communicate your secret feelings to your loved one in floral code. In Victorian England, every flower in a bouquet, had a very specific meaning: that tradition, though long forgotten, still resonates on some level. Case in point: we give red roses almost exclusively these days, to be on the safe side: red roses, in the Language of Flowers, mean "I am romantically in love with you, although this floral arrangement does not actually  constitute a legally binding agreement." And the reason you have never offered your fiancé/e a selection of  lobelias, lime blossom and houseleeks? -Is because you somehow knew you would be accusing her of, respectively, "fornication; malevolence; and poor domestic economy."(And frankly? You'd be right. Sorry you had to find out this way, man.)

So here is a selection of the Language of the Flowers, circa 1885, and then the Language of the Flowers, circa 2016.

Happy Valentine's Day! 

love, Peri 

Language Of The Flowers, 1885 version

1) Camellia: I live in gratitude of your perfected loveliness!

2) Chrysanthemum: I admire your cheerfulness through adversity.

3) Damask Rose: I worship your brilliant complexion.

4) Fuschia: The ambition of my love thus plagues myself. 

                                                 [Author's note: "Huh?"]

5) Peach/or Peach Blossom: Your qualities, like your charms, are unequalled.

6) White Rosebud: You are too young to understand love.

                                             [Author's Note:"I get this one a LOT."]

Okay. Moving right along:

 The Language of the Flowers, 2016 Version:

1) Dandelions: You're okay, considering. I guess.

2) Poppies: I love you, but not more than I love prescription medications.

3) Carnations:My God, you're beautiful. My God, I'm cheap.

4) Rare Orchids: Aren't these exquisite? I'm sleeping with your sister.

5) Daffodils: Your optimism is touching. If delusional.

6) Asters: These are asters. -No, that's it, that's the message. Sorry.

7) Peach colored sunset roses: Your skin is like a flower petal at sunrise, and I think i might be gay.

8) Red roses: I think you're swell, I think you're aces, and I think it's 1947.

To sum up? Flowers are a beautiful means of communication, wherein you can totally say stuff you mean, and not have to cop to it. The Victorians may have had their flaws, but they have a lot to teach us still. Especially in the area of being completely passive-aggressive and yet, still decorative as hell.

love,Peri

The Unicorn Is An Asshole, And Other RenFayre Tales!

The Inwood Renaissance Fayre is a hardy urban flower, that, once a year, grows near the orange-and-gray-striated cliffs, that enfold and protect the Cloisters. On this cheery weekend, even the most hardened New Yorker's heart is melted- or at least, very slightly defrosted- by the sight of a decidedly urban population that has suddenly morphed into a court of jewel-toned-velvet clad minstrels, swoony princesses with inverted ice cream cone hats, and rather naughtily-attired three hundred pound flower fairies in shimmering rainbow eyeshadow, fantastically botanical headpieces...and very little else.

God, I love this town.

Brightening a neighborhood that not so long ago was considered "dangerous", the Inwood RennFest has now accumulated thirty seven years worth of peculiarly New Yawk Wonderful. I love how so many different cultural identities meet and then shatter into a kaleidoscopic, and adorably Anglophilic, mosaic of shared, forced joy.
One especial favorite of mine is the Puerto Rican Bagpipe players band, called the "MacGordon Clovers". I walk by and watch three big guys staring worriedly at their pipes as they warm up, and then, apparently relieved to remember that horrible squeaking is the whole POINT of bagpipes, they relax and launch into a Socttish march. 

I hate bagpipes. But "Boricua Bagpipes"? fill me with delight.

Knights with Brooklyn accents you could hew with a broadsword, call to each other cheerfully across the asphalt glen, ringed with the booths of perspiring, magical purveyors of RennKitsch. Drooping elves caper heavily in the heat, and seem like they are about to doff their pointed caps  and invite you to try their wares...until you hear a muttered "ahh, to hell with it", and they stay where they capered.

You move forward, pushed by a sea of perspiring but determined celebrants.

And what is this? On a greensward, or a patch of grass that looks suspiciously like a ball field?

It's a TOURNAMENT!

Yes!There is a tournament, with real horses. Real, really BIG horses, with big, cheery, valiant sweaty guys on them. These noble knights are sweating profusely, because it's 92 in the shade and as humid as a bellydancer's armpit, and they are gallantly arrayed in velvet and wool with a rather cruel topping of genuinely heavy steel armor. One noble gent, in his early 60's, is possessed of the features and bearing one would expect to see in a Connecticut country club: the straight nose, slightly bleary blue eyes and Anglo Saxon chin wobble took him from WASP clubman to Noble Lord with no effort, although I am worried he'll keel over from heat induced thrombosis before he has a chance to be gored by the other knight's lance.

The horses are draped in heavy velvet baronial , um, drapings...you know, those horse drapings you see in children's books and tarot cards and never until you were writing about them thought to ask what the hell they're called. Anyway, since PETA is a no-show, the show goes on.
  The gorgeous young gender neutral person who is acting as the Blue Knights Page, brings a huge wooden lance to the Blue knight. The Blue Knight is the showman of the bunch..he makes his attractively piebald horse rear and whinny and do that "legs pawing the air' thing that I just realized i also don't know what it's called,. a flourish? Anyway, the horse does the Cool Horse Thing, and everybody cheers, wildly, and we're away!

-No, we stay here. THEY're away. 

The horses thunder towards each other, the lances are lowered, and then...The pages hold up yellow plastic rings, and the lances go through those.

I admit to being slightly disappointed. I secretly wanted bloodshed, and intestines spilling out, and King Henry to be crippled for life and take it out on Anne Boleyn, but I got yellow rings and I'm cool with that, I guess. I mean, I couldn't do that, so yellow rings are fine.

They also sword fight, and the swords are metal and every body gets all "oooh scary!" but they just knock the plumes off each other's helmets and then the knight makes his horse do the Cool Horse Rearing Up and Pawing The Air Thing. Google it. At this point, I'm too hot.

The Tournament Has Ended. It was certainly the best Tournament I have ever seen in a New York Park. Horses and everything. Awesome.

Many of the children in the makeshift metal stands have never seen a horse in the horseflesh before, so when the Black Knight, who is white, as opposed to the White Knight, who is African American, trots over, post joust, to let the groundlings pet the velvet muzzle of Sir Frederick The Steed, a lot of children surge forth...and then scamper back. Much like the French warriors at Agincourt. Then they bravely overcome their misgivings, and a hearteningly diverse sea of tiny hands, reaches towards the enormous beast. You hear "ooooh soft!!" -said with surprised joy..and "nice horse?" , said as a tremulous prayer. My New Yorkers heart grow stwo sizes in a moment. And then immediately shrinks back, but it was a nice thirty seconds.

Elisabetta and I are steering three children through the largest crowd I've ever seen at a public event, and that's saying something. Two six year old boys and a girl who is "free and a harf", as Yseult, E's daughter, grimly announces when strangers, so diverted by her strawberry blonde curls and aqua eyes, that they totally miss out on her permafrown, stop to chortle over her. Emilia has a way of dropping an invisible cement block on the cooing of kindly strangers. "Go WAY", she growls, as they back away slowly, realizing too late that the lap dog is actually a very tiny Rottweiler. As each of them are chased off sheepishly, explaining to each other that she seemed so adorable, Emilia grins like a Viking triumphant after a bloody raid. 

I worry about that girl.

We elbow our way up a mountain of people coming rapidly downhill, and I have a brief glimpse of what it might be like, to  be Hannibal escorting his elephants across the Alps. (Note: I had a great great grandfather named "Hannibal and the Elephants Robinson". -Not relevant: just always wanted to tell someone that. -As you were.) Then we finally attain Castle Clemence, The Grail of Heart's Desire: in less lofty terms, that means we got into the air conditioned Cloisters, and we all lean gratefully against the cool stone walls.

I leave them and go to the ladies room, where the line is so long that a bored precocious 12 year old boy and I have a Mime-Off. He'd been sitting on the bench, obviously waiting for his mother and sister, and was amusing himself by pretending to be in a glass both, outlining the invisible walls with the flat of his hands. Mime 101!-I took that class! So I look over at him and slowly pull myself up, making myself much much taller using- an Invisble Rope. 
He lit up like a Christmas tree. Soon he was next to me in line, and we were trading off Sorry Mime tropes like there was no tomorrow. Was at the point of giving up ever getting to pee and instead giving in and buying a black beret and stripped boatneck chemise (such as mimes wear) and possibly taking the kid to Central Park to infuriate passersby, when suddenly the Secret Handicapped Stall in the side wall opened and I darted in, completely unethically. The kid was gone when I got out, but I consoled myself by singing "I'm Hennery The Eight I Am" with a young gentleman who was crooning it quietly to his new bride, possibly as a warning, as we walk up the chill gray stairs. He looks surprised, and a little chagrined, but we finish the song whether he wanted to or not, and I stride off victorious towards my tribe.

Then I see the Unicorn.

Not the delectable yet melancholy tapestries, no: but a Furry, Six Foot Unicorn. I guess it was a man in costume, but I was so grateful that other people seemed to be able to see him too, that really, I didn't care. It was Not the Dreaded Acid Flashback my high school driving instructor had warned us about. It was an actual fake Unicorn, a fluffy and oddly disdainful Unicorn at that, and he had his own PR guy with him. A man whose professional title was "Unicorn Handler". The PR guy seemed unctuous and smarmy, and kept holding a little blinking box up to the Unicorn's face. A light meter? A Geiger counter? It was weird.

Also...'

The Unicorn was regally disdainful of the children swarming up to see him, as he posed for the photographs his handler/flunky was taking fawningly... Although he was IN THE ACTUAL UNICORN ROOM at the Cloisters, DRESSED AS AN ACTUAL UNICORN, the Unicorn was pretending he didn't see the kids, and as he swanned gracefully about, posing for pics, I realized with blinding clarity that:

This Unicorn was an asshole.

Maybe all Unicorns are stuck-up...I don't know, it's been a long time since I was in the state rumored to be most attractive to unicorns, and haven't been truly pally with one since, so who knows. But really, dude: chill on the attitude. Being mythical doesn't make you Beyonce.

We had a spartan lunch of sandwiches , water and chips in the cafe garden...imagine my surprise, when, graciously offering to pay for everyone!, (how much can two sandwiches be?), I hear the girl at the till cheerily sang out, "That'll be sixty one dollars, please!" There was a long line; Yseult is threatening to turn into the combination of Shirley Temple and Vesuvius that she has since patented, and I don't  want to look like a cheapskate in front of toddlers who well might be my future demographic, so I tip her ten bucks with a flourish, mentally strap on my empty wooden barrel, and prance away.

I eat every bite the kids left behind. Hey. money isn't cheap.

As the day gets less hot and more crowded, Elisabetta goes to get the stroller...which she has left a mile away. In a New York park. Miraculously, it is untouched: Apparently, there is an honor code among stroller owners: if you park your buggy in the agreed upon Impromptu Stroller Corral, you can also leave your bag, your bottle, and any stray emeralds you've been meaning to put in the vault, without fear of degradation.  Kind of amazing.
As we are waiting for her to come back, we see A Marvelous Magic Show Is Commncinge, Sic, and we trot over to sit in a ring of hay bales, to watch the late middle aged, slightly bitter hippie, Bill-Maher-lookalike-with-sixty-pounds-extra, magician. There is a classic New York Yenta standing behind us (when her son urged her to take a seat on a hay bale, she visibly recoils, and says "on STRAW? You want me to sit on STRAWWWW?") and she keeps up a critical commentary during the entire show. As the magician keeps moving the children in front back, and back, and backer, she says, "What? What is he going to do, that needs the children so back? What? Juggle fire?" (pronounced "fiyuh") Tame elephants? What? He needs so much space? Why?"

We watch-me warily, the kids with sheer trust and joy- as the guy winds up his spiel and does...Card tricks. In an outdoor show with three hundred kids, in an open arena..Card tricks. He makes the cards smaller- not that we could see them to begin with- and he does slight of hand, and the six year old Luca next to me says "he has cards in his other hand", in a a "hey, I'm smarter than a grown up" surprised and pleased tone of voice. Luckily, Elisabetta comes back just as the guy was pulling what he SAYS is a jack of hearts from his bodkin, and we trundle off towards safety and the blessedly magician-free car.

As we drive home, towards brooklyn, and bedtime, and for me, a beer, god willing, the kids start to get sleepy. Adorable Yseult falls asleep cradling her brother's blue dragon scooter helmet, and her snores mingle with the previously slightly aloof Luca's voice saying what are, to me the sweetest of all words, to his Mom:

"Mom, can we have Peri over to stay? Please can we please?"

That was, to this hardened New York broad who is also a godmother to two kids she loves more than PBR, sweeter even than the music of the MacGordon Clover Pipes.

Of course, pretty much anything is. But still.

Blessed Be!

The Unicorn Is An Asshole, And Other RenFayre Tales!

The Inwood Renaissance Fayre is a hardy urban flower, that once a year, grows out of the orange-and-gray-striated cliffs, that enfold and protect the Cloisters. On this cheery weekend, even the most hardened New Yorker's heart is melted- or at least, very slightly defrosted- by the sight of a decidedly urban population ,that has suddenly morphed into a mob of jewel-toned-velvet clad minstrels, swoony princesses with inverted ice cream cone hats, and rather naughtily-attired three hundred pound flower fairies in shimmering rainbow eyeshadow, fantastically botanical hats...and very little else.

God, I love this town.

In a neighborhood that I wasn't allowed to go into when I was growing up here, the Inwood RennFest has now accumulated thirty seven years worth of peculiarly New Yawk Wonderful. Puerto Rican Bagpipe players, called the "MacGordon Clovers", stare worriedly at their pipes as they warm up, and then, relieved to remember that horrible squeaking is the whole POINT of bagpipes, relax and launch into a march. 

I hate bagpipes. But Boricua Bagpipes fill me with delight.

Knights with Brooklyn accents you could hew with a broadsword, call to each other cheerfully across the asphalt glen, ringed with perspiring, magical purveyors of RennKitsch. Drooping elves caper heavily in the heat, and seem like they are about to doff their pointed caps  and invite you to try their wares...until you hear a muttered "ahh, to hell with it", and they stay where they capered.

You move forward, pushed by a sea of perspiring but determined celebrants.

And what is this? On a greensward, or a patch of grass that looks suspiciously like a ball field?

It's a TOURNAMENT!

Yes!There is a tournament, with real horses. Real, really BIG horses, with big, cheery, valiant sweaty guys on them. These noble knights are sweating profusely, because it's 92 in the shade and as humid as a bellydancer's armpit, and they are gallantly arrayed in velvet and wool with a rather cruel topping of genuinely heavy steel armor. One noble gent, in his early 60's, is possessed of the features and bearing one would expect to see in a Connecticut country club: the straight nose, slightly bleary blue eyes and Anglo Saxon chin wobble took him from WASP clubman to Noble Lord with no effort, although I am worried he'll keel over from heat induced thrombosis before he has a chance to be gored by the other knight's lance.

The horses are draped in heavy velvet baronial , um, drawings...you know, those horse drawings you see in children's bools and tarot cards and never until you were writing about them thought to ask what the hell they're called. Anyway, PETA is a no-show, and the gorgeous young gender neutral person who is acting as the Blue Knights Page, brings a really cool wooden lance to the Blue knight. The Blue Knight is the showman of the bunch..he makes his attractively piebald horse rear and whinny and do that "legs pawing the air' thing that I just realized i also don't know what it's called,. a flourish? Anyway, the horse does a Cool Horse Thing, and everybody cheers, wildly, and we're away!

No, we stay here. THEY're away. 

The horses thunder towards each other, the lances are lowered, and then...The pages hold up yellow plastic rings, and the lances go through those.

I admit to being slightly disappointed. I secretly wanted bloodshed, and intestines spilling out, and King Henry to be crippled for life and take it out on Anne Boleyn, but I got yellow rings and I'm cool with that, I guess. I mean, I couldn't do that, so yellow rings are fine.

They also sword fight, and the swords are metal and every body gets all "oooh scary!" but they just knock the plumes off each other's helmets and then the knight makes his horse do the Cool Horse Rearing Up and Pawing The Air Thing. Google it. At this point, I'm too hot.

The Tournament Has Ended. It was certainly the best Tournament I have ever seen in a New York Park. Horses and everything. Awesome.

Many of the children in the makeshift metal stands had never seen a horse in the horseflesh before, so when the Black Knight, who was white, as opposed to the White Knight, who was African American, trotted over post joust to let the groundlings pet the velvet muzzle of Sir Frederick The Steed, a lot of children surged forth...and then scampered back. Much like the French warriors at Agincourt. Then they bravely overcame their misgivings, and a hearteningly diverse sea of tiny hands, reached towards the enormous beast. You heard "ooooh soft!!" -said with surprised joy..and "nice horse?" , said as a tremulous prayer. My New Yorkers heart grew two sizes in a moment. And then immediately shrank back, but it was a nice thirty seconds.

Inka and Katerina and I were steering three children through the largest crowd I've ever seen at a public event, and that's saying something. Two six year old boys and a girl who is "free and a harf", as Emilia grimly announced when strangers, so diverted by her strawberry blonde curls and aqua eyes, that they totally missed on her permafrown, stopped to chortle over her. Emilia has a way of dropping an invisible cement block on the cooing of kindly strangers. "Go WAY", she growls, as they back away slowly, realizing too late that the lap dog is actually a very tiny Rottweiler. As each f them were chased off sheepishly, explaining to each other she seemed so adorable, Emilia grinned like a Viking triumphant after a bloody raid. 

I worry about that girl.

We elbowed our way up a mountain of people coming rapidly downhill, and I ha d a brief glimpse of what it might be like, to  be Hannibal escorting his elephants across the Alps. (Note: I had a great great grandfather named "Hannibal and the Elephants Robinson". -Not relevant: just always wanted to tell someone that. As you were.) Then we finally attained Castle Clemece, The Grail of Heart's Desire: in less lofty terms, we got into the air conditioned Cloisters, and leaned gratefully against the cool stone walls.

I went to the ladies room, and the line was so long that a bored precious 12 year old boy and I had a Mime-Off. He'd been sitting on the bench, obviously waiting for his mother and sister, and was amusing himself by pretending to be in a glass both, outlining the pretend walls with the flu of his hands. Mime 101. I took that class. So I looked over at him and slowly pulled myself off much much taller using- an Invisble Rope. He lit up like a Christmas tree. Soon he was next to me in line, and we were trading off Sorry Mime tropes like there was no tomorrow. Was at the point of giving up ever getting to pee and instead giving in and buying a black beret and stripped boatneck chemise (such as mimes wear) when suddenly the Secret Handicapped Stall opened and I darted in, completely unethically. The kid was gone when I got out, but I consoled myself by singing "I'm Hennery The Eight I Am" with a gentleman who was crooning it to his bride, possibly as a warning, as we walked up the chill gray stairs. He looked surprised, and a little chagrined, but we finished the song whether he wanted to or not, and I strode off victorious towards my tribe.

Then I saw the Unicorn.

Not the delectable yet melancholy tapestries, no: but a Furry, Six Foot Unicorn. I guess it was a man in costume, but I was so grateful that other people seemed to be able to see him too, that really, I didn't care. It was Not the Dreaded Acid Flashback my high school driving instructor had warned us about. It was an actual fake Unicorn, a fluffy and oddly disdainful Unicorn at that, and he had his own PR guy with him. A man whose professional title was "Unicorn Handler". The PR guy seemed unctuous and smarmy, and kept holding a little blinking box up to the Unicorn's face. A light meter? A Geiger counter? It was weird.

Also...'

The Unicorn was regally disdainful of the children swarming up to see him, as he posed for the photographs his handler/flunky was taking fawningly... Although he was IN THE ACTUAL UNICORN ROOM at the Cloisters, DRESSED AS AN ACTUAL UNICORN, the Unicorn was pretending he didn't see the kids, and as he swanned gracefully about, posing for pics, I realized with blinding clarity that:

This Unicorn was an asshole.

Maybe all Unicorns are stuck-up...I don't know, it's been a long time since I was in the state rumored to be most attractive to unicorns, and haven't been truly pally with one since, so who knows. But really, dude: chill on the attitude. Being mythical doesn't make you Beyonce.

We had a spartan lunch of sandwiches , water and chips in the cafe garden...imagine my surprise, when, graciously offering to pay for everyone!, (how much can two sandwiches be?), the girl at the till cheerily sang out, "That'll be sixty one dollars, please!" There was a long line; Yseult was threatening to turn into the combination of Shirley Temple and Vesuvius that she has since patented, and I didn't want to look like a cheapskate in front of toddlers who well might be my future demographic, so I tipped her ten bucks with a flourish, mentally strapped on my empty wooden barrel, and pranced away.

I ate every bite the kids left behind. Hey. money isn't cheap.

As the day got less hot and more crowded, Elisabetta went to get the stroller. Apparently, there is an honor code among stroller owners: if you park your stroller in the agreed upon Impromptu Stroller Corral, you can also leave your bag, your bottle, and any stray emeralds you've been meaning to put in the vault, without fear of depradation. As we were waiting for her to come back, we saw A Marvelous Magic Show Was Commncinge, Sic, and we trotted over to sit in a ring of hay bales, to watch the late middle aged, slightly bitter hippie, Bill Maher with sixty pounds extra magician. There was a classic new York Yenta standing behind us (when her son urged her to take a seat on a hay bale, she visibly recoiled, and said "on STRAW? You want me to sit on STRAWWWW?") and she kept up a critical commentary during the entire show. As the magician kept moving the children in front back, and back, and backer, she said, "What? What is he going to do, that needs the children so back? What? Juggle fire?" (pronounced "fiyuh") Tame elephants/ What? He needs so much space?"

We watched-me warily, the kids with sheer trust and joy- as the guy wound up his spiel and did...Card tricks. In an outdoor show with three hundred kids, in an open arena..Card tricks. He made the cards smaller- not that we could see them to begin with- and he did slight of hand, and the six year old Luca next to me said "he has cards in his other hand", in a a "hey, I'm smarter than a grown up" surprised and pleased tone of voice. Luckily, Elisabetta came back just as the guy was pulling what he said was a jack of hearts from his bodkin, and we trundled off towards safety and the blessedly magician free car.

As we drove home, towards brooklyn, and bedtime, and for me, a beer, god willing, the kids started to get sleepy. Adorable Yseult fell asleep cradling her brother's blue dragon scooter helmet, and her snores mingled with the previously slightly aloof Luca's voice saying to me the sweetest of all words to his Mom:

"Mom, can we have Peri over to stay? Please can we please?"

That was, to this hardened New York broad who is also a godmother to two kids she loves more than PBR, sweeter than the music of the MacGordon Clover Pipes.

Of course, pretty much anything is. But still.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

          The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

Couples living out truthless mimes

Making comfort in ruthless times;

Your raging heart, your gentle eyes-

You learned so early to temporize:

Irrational passion may not seem wise-

-But it's true.

No matter how rueful the renunciation;

No matter the guilt by association;

No matter the undisclosed location...

It's true

And some real part of you always knows

That: Even when all of the doors seem closed:

I am the one for you

Whatever that thing that happened, was? 

Started out as a "why" and the answer's: "because"

It stayed in my blood as a physical buzz

It stays in my heart as a pink cloud of fuzz

You'll make the choice of a sensible stay-

And I'll make the choice to be truly away.

But baby, i will always remember today

As it was

There's truth behind bullshit, there's courage with fear

If you come and find me, might let you back near

And that is the closest this woman, my dear,

Can come to telling you I will be here.

9/1/2016

"Last Letter From Stalingrad, 1943"

Last Letter From Stalingrad, February 5 1943
by Peri Lyons, c 2016 all rights reserved

(Author's note: In 1976, a mailbag came to light in the archives of the US Army. It was filled with letters.
These letters were written by German soldiers. In 1943, the German army abandoned the soldiers it had left in Stalingrad, leaving them to die of exposure and starvation.. These letters were written by the men, when they knew no one was coming back for them. The ltters were never mailed.
I found these letters in a book, and, although of Austrian Jewish descent, I was moved by the words of men I grew up thinking of as enemies.
.This is a reimagining of one of those letters.Who this man was, and why was he was "avoided by men", I will never know.-PL))
***************************************

Last Letter From Stalingrad

Dear Monica
There are four of us here
For the first time I have friends
other than my friends, the stars.
(I couldn't look up from my telescope, Monica.
Not then. You know why. I was avoided by men.
So I looked at the sky.)

This letter will take two weeks to reach you
It will all be over by then
Do not believe what you read in the papers
of what they say has happened here:
What are the judgments of others, to you and me?
Monica, the time is too serious now to joke:
You were always my best friend.

I have always thought in lightyears
But I felt in seconds.
On this beautiful night
Andromeda and Pegasus are right above my head
I have looked at them for a long time
I shall be very close to them soon
My peace I owe to the stars, Monica
Of which you are the most beautiful to me.

Around me everything is collapsing
An army is dying
Day and night are on fire
And four men busy themselves with their job
We measure temperatures
And report on cloud ceilings
Here too. I have much to do with the weather.

No one, no one will come for us, Monica
There is no one to come
The clouds are rather low this evening
They make a pattern I have not seen before

I want you to know my secret, Monica
No human being has ever died by my hand
I have never loaded my pistol
With live ammunition.
I should like to have counted stars
For another few decades
But I suppose nothing will come of that now.

I have always thought in lightyears
But I felt in seconds
On this beautiful night
Andromeda and Pegasus are right above my head
I have looked at them for a long time
I shall be very close to them soon
My peace I owe to the stars, Monica
Of which you are the most beautiful to me.

rapturemath

so this should be a hint: God

Must want us to love and be loved
just this way: 

Stupid beautiful sleepy

Unaware

To let me be this way with you, permission slip:

(he gets to see me because he's this way too)

Hell, cheerleading for
 This (accidental) heaven
That might be:
 True..

Wrong, rightly:
Loving completely,

 despite/ because of

This, ugly/ beautiful:

You

Family Pictures

“Good heavens, she’s got a face like a catcher’s mitt,” said my father. 

He was peering unhelpfully over my shoulder, as I sat at the dining room table with a fraying cardboard box full of yellowing photographs spread out in front of me. 

“Sit up straight, you’ll wind up bent into a bow. Nobody wants a woman who can double as an archery tool.-Good HEAVENS, she’s ugly,” he said, picking up the thick, yellowed cardboard rectangle from where it lay in front of me. “Plain to see all the good looks came from your mother’s side of the family.” 

He held the picture up close and frowned at it. “This is your great grandmother, so don’t get too smug. You only dodged this bullet by a chromosome or two.”

“What was her name?” I asked. 

 He’d handed me back the picture, and I frowned at it myself, trying to make her face- broad, wide, and with an expression that could politely be described as “disagreeable”- connect to anyone I knew. It was tough. It wasn’t doable.

Dad was now reaching over my left shoulder to pick some pretzels out of the smooth oval wooden bowl in front of me. “Watch out for these”, he said, waving an admonitory pretzel at me. “They look harmless, but at 100 calories apiece, they’re lethal. Of course, by the time you gain the weight , the salt will have bloated you anyway. Win-win situation, really.” He chewed thoughtfully. “But they are good. Just watch yourself.”

I was impatient. “What was her NAME, please? And stop scolding me. I’m 123 pounds, for God’s sake. ” 

“Good thing you’re tall. That could be a deadly number if you were my mother’s height.” He looked off into the middle distance. “Did I ever tell you that she got so fat that she would fall off her feet? She would just be standing there, and boom. She was very vain about her feet. They were a size 2. Like bound feet, really. And SHE was 123 pounds, once.. And look what happened to her.” He leaned over me to grab some pretzels again. “And don’t be shrill, young lady. You’re one of nature’s contraltos. Shrill doesn’t suit you.. And  the catcher’s mitt's name..hmph..what was her name? Binah!", he said triumphantly. "Binah. I think. I remember it having "beans" in it. Not good for a name.”

“Bean-ah? I have a great grandmother named Beanah?? Who is really unattractive? 

This is not good.” I looked at the photo, and tried to match his tone.  "She can’t afford a bad name. Wow, she really DOES look like a catcher’s mitt. But ..wait, is this the one, the grandmother-"

-"GREAT grandmother."- said my father-

"-who was such was such a great baker that everyone came from neighboring shtetls for miles around to buy her stuff?” I asked.

“I think so. Yeah, yeah. Although God knows how they paid for anything. Nobody HAD anything. “I’ll give you two dusty rocks and a potato for that brownie.”Shtetl life was no month in the country. -Well,  it was, really. Just not a country you’d ever want to live in. “

I smiled. “Throw in a kidney and my first born son for the carrot cake.”, I said.

“BLASPHEMY!” My Dad recoiled in mock horror. “NEVER sell your first born child for health food! Carrot cake. You are not my child. Sachertorte, sure. Those pastry pig ears, of course. All butter and sugar.  But… Root vegetables with frosting on em? No. And not for you, if you don't want to take chances with those fat genes."

“Dad. Your mother was four ten and one twenty three. I’m FIVE ten and 123. AND I have really big feet.”

“You know, I never noticed that. But you do. “I Love You Honey But Your Feets Too Big,””, he warbled. “Is that Fats Waller?”

“Dad!!! What does “Binah” mean?”

He was already bored, walking away. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s Hebrew for “flatulence”. How would I know? I married the least Jewish girl on the planet. Your mother is truly the Shiksa’s Shiksa.” 

He was on his way out the door. “I think I’ll drive to the Stop and Shop and get some Haagen Daazs."

It was ten pm, but we were used to his odd peregrinations. He was a a city boy, never got used to the suburbs.  He stopped in the doorway and turned around and looked at me, his eyes actually focussing on me, rather than doing what I thought of as his usual “periphery check”.

“That’s interesting. You know what?”

“What, Dad?”, I sighed, in that teenage way.

“I think you are my only Jewish child. “ He looked at me quizzically, and then, unexpectedly, came back and kissed the top of my head.

I was thrilled but was successful at hiding my happiness. Boy, break out the Taittinger, I thought. But I made sure not to let him see that.

“Remember dog food.”, I said, frowning at Binah’s photo, still.

“Your mother and her damned dogs. Now THAT’S a WASP thing. Don't understand that."

 He stood behind me, his hand still absentmindedly on my shoulder. I hardly dared breathe, lest I draw attention to his attention and break the magic. He stood completely still for a moment, and then chuckled.

“What? What?” I had to ask.The moment trembled in the air, half broken between us, but still present, before it would, as always, fall and shatter.

He shook himself, and removed his hand from the vicinity of my shoulder. “I was just thinking about how  your brother and his exquisite Irish Catholic socialite “Nancy Reagan was my Mom’s best friend” wife would react if they saw THAT face peering out from the bassinet."
"Wait, whose face? You mean, in December?"I asked.

" The catcher’s mitt. That face. Ha!” he said happily,”The Shtetl’s Revenge. Binah’s Back. --Alright, Miss Feet’s Too Big , do you want anything else? Dog food, ice cream…” 

He shuddered theatrically. “I refuse to BUY anything else. That’s a GHASTLY combination.”

He looked down at the photo in my hand.

“I will tell you this much, though. Ol’ Binah  would have had to have been a DAMNED good cook.”

“Um…Well, Dad, if you’re going to get ice cream, I guess I want-"

But it was too late, by seconds.

The screen door had already swung behind him then.  My handsome father, was gone.

Ugly beautiful

At no time do we want to be loved more

Then when we're in this ugly rapture

Naked , stupid/beautiful.

so this should be a hint: God

Wants us to love and be loved

Stupid beautiful sleepy

Unawares

Wrong 

To let me be this way with you, permission slip:

he gets to see me because he's this way too

And understands. 

Hell, cheerleading for this (accidental) heaven
that might be: True

Loving completely despite because of

This, ugly beautiful:

You

"Goddess" is such an overused word.

¨Goddess" is an overused word.

Look over here.

Yes
I am that girl 
The first and the middle and the last and the always girl.
Yes! -THAT one. 
The girl you had the crush on in kindergarten, your eyes sliding over to see
if I'd be
Your secret Valentine. 
I am the joy in that five year old's smile, always, for you, and,
I am her joy, she is me.

Today I cried, though. I  feel no goddess at all.
When I was away gathering wood for our hearth, she whispered to you
And you frowned and nodded and said " Yes that must be true"
And you both said "Go. We don't want you."

And now I feel small. 

I take out the bright mirror and the dark mirror,
The dark mirror sings
 "You are ugly, old one. You are wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong."
The dark mirror has a song like a lullaby buzzsaw. It sings
"Oh what I say is true,
The gifts you give are tainted. No one loves ,or could love, or WILL love, or HAS loved
 such a one as you."
I can feel my strength rain away. 
 I reach for the bright mirror too
The bright mirror says nothing, for the bright mirror is busy doing her own makeup
The bright mirror says "Am I as pretty as her? What can I do?"

Throw those mirrors away, sister . The only mirror here is you.

So? You gonna cry or you gonna play ball here or what?

We say together:
YES no YES!
I will not let anyone steal my fire
You will not be my Prometheus
And if you do steal my fire, so what?
Stolen fire goes out and leaves you in the dark
My fire keeps replenishing. You cannot handle my real fire
For then you'd have to know that you have your own.

Yes
I am the singer in the storm.
I am my own medicine. I make this from all poisons . 

I love my own grace, wit and style  enough that you don't have to...but you will.
I promise
Ohhh you will.

I have the interdependence
 that is the true independence,
A bird entwined with the wind,
I have unlimited riches that are also yours
I am like a queen so entwined with her people
I am proud of the love of making songs
 that flows through me like I am the trout and the river too

So:
I will be vulnerable ...but not foolish with it
Generous.. but not foolish with it
Foolish but not fucking stupid
If I am foolish we will laugh together
I laugh with you at the joke of our own being.

I am proud of the tender heart that nestles in my breast like a bird.
I am happy to be happy. Sad to be sad. 
But my emotions are my own.

My life? is is my own. Yes, I bend towards those I love, like a reed,
but then
I sway back to stand tall again
against the river
I am truth. Simple and in bloom.

I call in the spirits of my ancestors to surround me with family love.
AOnce they arrive, we open the door to friends:

I call in Hare Spirit, who always sees the joke
Who guides the seer in her tent and brings food and water
To the oracle in her cave
And jumps away fast, white tail mocking your slowness

 I call in Ant Spirit for working when I don't want to work particularly
Thank you and fuck you Ant Spirit.-No, really.

I call in Beautiful Oshun for love and abundance, 
I call in Wise Minerva for intelligence, 
and Probably Lesbian Artemis to protect me 
with her bow and slightly ironic arrows
I burn sugar for the Hungry Ghosts and they don't notice me in their greed for sweeties
Rush past me out  the side door, unbiting, full;
I am that Valentine filled with moonblood, 
I am the healer, skin against skin, breath combined to make me part of you
There has never been a such as I
I am the only one like this, made of mud and snot and orgasm and fireflies
Of mirrors light and dark, the spider and the spiderweb, 
I am the only one like this!

Throw back your head and let your throat reverberate with your yell
that you are the only you

And I will see you again at sunrise
And we will do this dance again
Daily, the same.. only?

we
are

Different.