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