Near Perigord*

Dordogne in Perigord

If you wait for me then I'll come for you
Although I've traveled far...

You take me to a church terrace perched atop a limestone valley. We watch the Dordogne far below, wending its way with inexorable and disquieting patience towards the sea.

“So tell me why you’ve brought me here.”

You shrug and give me a solemn smile. “I’m waiting.”

You would say no more after that.





“ I didn’t want to wait until my next visit to give you this.”

You hand me a slim volume bound in midnight blue silk fretted by a band of silver knotwork. I run my fingers over the cover. The book falls open in my hand.

The pages within are pure and perfect in their ivory blankness, untouched by pain.

“You’ve written stories for others,” you explain. “ I thought perhaps, this time… you might like to write your own.”

“Thank you.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.





It is an hour before evening. The rose-gold sky cast a pallid hue over our solitary figures.

I pick up my bags. “ I have to go.”

You come forward and slip me under the bridge of your arms. I am anchored there with quiet intensity, shielded from the world in the space of a heartbeat.

I look up, and you step back, your hands falling to your sides.

“Leave me quickly,” you say.





I sit near the window lost in thought, the silken material of the book pressed against my lips. I've tried to turn through the empty pages to the very end, but there doesn't seem to be one. There is always a clean page, waiting to be filled.


…write your own.


My own stories cannot exist in reserve. They require words. And words, like names, have the power to bind…to summon.


I’m waiting.


Though unbidden, it’s always the thought of you that stands at the edge of these words.


I'll find my way back to you
If you'll be waiting...






* title borrowed from the Ezra Pound poem
* The Promise by Tracy Chapman

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La T'nemele

La liseuse à la fenêtre, Jan Vermeer v. 1659. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie, Germany

Pour une femme à qui la vie a tout pris, le peu de temps que je passais avec lui était un petit miracle. Je voulu le lui dire, et bien d'autres choses encore, mais quand enfin je trouvai le courage de lui dire, je perdis la voix.

On parlait peu au final, lui et moi. Cette sécheresse dans la voix, qui se perdent sous des lignes torturées.

Il soupire. Une fois. Deux fois. Ça fait mal, un tréfonds qui remue! Mais ça va plus loin encore:

Sans lui je recule et regresse. Les nuits sont longues. Me laisse sans souffle.

Je n’en dirai pas plus. J’en ai déjà beaucoup trop dit.

Les choses qui ont la plus grande significance pour nous sont souvent les plus difficiles a exprimer. Elles restent dans les endroits les plus sombres et secrets de nos coeurs. Nous esperons qu'un jour quelqu'un sera assez comprehensif pour ecouter - et nous liberer.

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On the Road

Pacific Coast Highway, San Francisco, CA

Driving fast at sundown, past lights and brush with the windows rolled down. I don't feel the dry swelter of summer -- the air is cool and clear. Sometimes I get so high I feel almost drunk.

It's nights like these where I want to drive to that lonely hillside on the edge of town, climb over the wire fence, go up the steepest incline and scream and dance just because I'm so damn happy and all is right with the world.


On nights like these you wouldn't recognize me because I'm not myself.
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