THIS MISSISSIPPI MISS HAS FOUR EYES
AND CAN'T SEEM TO SEE

D-PRESS
ELLENSBURG 1991




THIS MISSISSIPPI MISS HAS FOUR EYES AND CAN'T SEEM TO SEE

Even this alchemy, converting each instant into the next, fashions locks on my heart. I'm so confused. I don't know what to do. I'm low on money. Everything is happening so fast.

My first choice is to move to Ellensburg and go to grad school at Central and work with the Fouts in the new chimp facility. And Richard offers to share his lovely, new house, my own room with Gustav Klimt prints. I could work in his bookstore this winter and plant trees in the spring. But I'm not sure.

He's bright and sexy and intense. He's older and wise with penetrating blue eyes. I'm young and expenctant, and I feel as though I'm on the brink of a precipice at the top of the world. I know where I came from, but I don't know where I should go. Now, I'm in Tempe, near Phoenix, afraid of stagnation, covered in my own ashes. I feel naked on the path and vulnerable.

Richard says this is what it is when you experience reality. He says the tarot reveals my mottos: Waters of Life Freely and Gifts of the Spirit. Inward-turning, I pick up new vibes. Perhaps a total awakening is possible. There is something like a breathing within me, which are like the gracious gifts of an artist. Færy gifts.

I must be brave. Walk on the basilisk, wrestle the dragon. I will go where I want to go, do what I want to do. Fuck the money.



BOX


I'm in a room
with a door
you can go through
but I can't

You're in a room
with a door
I can go through
but you can't

Now, I see your face
in another place
and hold the echo
of your voice

I'm trying to say
just how I feel
but a mist
surrounds my song



GIFTS


Here's a sprig of pungent artemista
I would also give a sun dog
and the moon, low and round

the green shade of Manastash cliffs
the almost voice of Taneum creek

I send sage from my desert to yours



To Volume 2, Book 10