Icy Sestina

Even in the winter, there are waves.

The movement of water is difficult to stop.

Even when the lake is covered with large scales of ice--

seemingly static and unmoving, listening carefully, you can hear

the relentless movement of water, pushing, shoving,

thrusting forward, slamming up against the frozen waterline.

I’ve always loved it, when a man kisses me at my hairline.

He’s really brushing against the waves

of my burdens--shoving

aside my insecurities with his lips--stop

ing my incessant self-criticism mid-thought, forcing me to hear

the beat of my own heart.  The ice

underneath the surface is fragile. Ice

is like that.  There’s no telling what’s actually below the waterline.

--all the mixed messages; desire...to crush, to melt, to conquer, to be conquered ...you hear

it underneath the silence of ice; the constant conversation of waves

which, so far as I know, never stop--

always continue their jockeying and shoving...

Buddhists attempt to stop all the shoving.

Better to be still like ice.

Accept whatever state you are in.  Stop

the wheel of desire.  Step to the waterline

and drink.  Ride waves.

But most importantly,listen.  Because you might hear

the precise moment when the ice fissures and the heart opens.  I hear

great tectonic plates of ice shoving

through, creating a path, dragging the detritus, along with everything good, on waves

of love.  Remember that ice

is merely another form of water.  And the coastline

is where the water finally comes to a stop;

a rest.  This is where the pitch of the song is stopped

and the change can be heard.

The truth of things comes out at the coastal line--

the fact that I don’t want to shove

or jockey for position.  I’d like to lay, not like the iceberg, formidable and foreboding, but like the ice

that’s melting and in the process of becoming something softer, to eventually ride the waves

travelling to the edge of the waterline.  Getting rest at that stop

to ride the waves again and again. Listening to that music you can hear

underneath the shoving and desire.  And finally, for a while anyway, put the fear on ice.

© 2011 Germania Solórzano

The Love Poetry of Aikido

Two hours of aikido tonight and my mood has drastically changed for the better.  I've been moody.  Crying.  Sad and silly.  Tonight I was tossed about and maybe that knocked some sense into me.  Or got my endorphins going.

Watching Sato Sensei demonstrate, I started to feel myself turn all poetical.  I thought, tai sabaki is practicing the same pattern over and over again...like love...

You reach for someone, they deflect, they block, they turn you around, spin you on your axis then toss you.

You get up.  Go at it again.  Maybe believing that the more you fall, the more tenderized your heart will be.  Or perhaps because your body is dumb.  Or is it your heart, that learns so slow...?

Then, the tables turn.  Someone reaches for you.  You deflect them, you block, you turn them around, spin them on their axis then toss them away.

Over and over, until the technique changes.  Some fancy switch-o-change-o of hands behind your back. Some jazzy snazzy magic thing.  You do it over and over just because you like the feeling that you can.

Hmmm....

Then another change.  Not so easy.  Everything changes when there's a weapon in someone's hand.  Or does it?  The stakes seem to change.  Life is more serious.  Life is precious.  Take things slower now. Pay more attention.

How silly that a wooden sword or staff should seem so scary.  A heart is vastly more frightening, either way.