ett vilt tålamod

 

Påbörjat “inuti stämmandet” inför lördagens rituella dans baserad på den inuitiska berättelsen om Skelettkvinnan. Hon som uppfiskad ur havets djup bara är en tilltrasslad hög av ben.

Läser i Clarissa Pinkola Estées tolkning av berättelsen:" 'A wild patience', as poet Adrienne Rich puts it, is required in order to untangle the bones, to learn the meaning of Lady Death, to have the tenacity to stay with her. It would be a mistake to think that it takes a muscle-bound hero to accomplish this. It does not. It takes a heart that is willing to die and be born and die and be born again and again.” 

Ett vilt tålamod …

Åh, favorit raderna:

A wild patience has taken me this far 

as if I had to bring to shore 

a boat with a spasmodic outboard motor 

old sweaters, nets, spray-mottled books 

tossed in the prow 

some kind of sun burning my shoulder-blades. 

Splashing the oarlocks. Burning through. 

Your fore-arms can get scalded, licked with pain 

in a sun blotted like unspoken anger 

behind a casual mist.

…

but really I have nothing but myself 

to go by; nothing 

stands in the realm of pure necessity 

except what my hands can hold. 

Nothing but myself?... My selves. 

After so long, this answer. 

As if I had always known 

I steer the boat in, simply. 

The motor dying on the pebbles 

cicadas taking up the hum 

dropped in the silence. 

Anger and tenderness: my selves. 

And now I can believe they breathe in me 

as angels, not polarities. 

Anger and tenderness: the spider's genius 

to spin and weave in the same action 

from her own body, anywhere -

even from a broken web. 

Adrienne Rich at age 22, 1951. Photograph by Peter Solmssen