Bodhairim

The Unnamed Unicorn Project finally has a name. Bodhairim, the Gaelic word for “I deafen” is where I landed when doing a little etymological digging for something that could encompass what I was trying to convey in writing and images about experiences that amazed¹⁰, that defy explanation, that changed my perception of how my universe is strung together.

The naming of things is a difficult matter (it isn’t just one of your holiday games). You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter, but each time I go down to the well of vocabulary, the ground around me ends up littered with discarded words and phrases; too trite, too pretentious, too new-agey, done to death- until I finally find the glass slipper that simply fits (metaphors in a blender). I’m a little hesitant about lifting from other cultures without specific cause, but I have enough Celts running around in my ancestry to justify my choice here.

Here are the first five images of the project. If you are familiar with this blog, you’ll have noticed that the idea of toned printing introduced in the original post on this project has been ditched. I found the process too limiting and went instead with a more conventional process and what I’m thinking of as a “minimally toned” look. And where are the words? I really wanted to have finished poems to post with these, but they still range from mostly finished to the roughest of rough draft stage. I’ve included a couple of those nearly finished, but for now, just imagine some amazing, explanation defying, perception changing poetry here (these ain’t it).

 

 

Prayer is Better than Sleep

Morning is broken,
dissolves even with eyes closed.

It is a yellow bald sun that leaks in,
that moves like a tongue through shutters,
moving with the smell of sandalwood.

Somewhere there is tea brewing
in quiet, like a secret, mint and oranges.

And it is the secret part of the day,
when my hair spills uncovered,
my shoulders exposed and arms naked,
cool white sheets and browned skin.

In the dimness of the room
I might have shape, breath, a body.

In the dimness of the room
comes the cry of morning time
with light and bread, reaching fingers

comes the adhan, come be holy
in this place, come see god,
the call of strange birds to ken,

a terrible fog wending high, stabbing
and low, spills into the fish, the spices,

The air is made heavy with god.
The air is given a tongue and throat,
settling on the butcher and the iron seller,
the tanner and thief, stop and hear,

love beside you, like pieces of yourself,
a song of honey, pain in the leafing,

How bare the night and desert,
how rich the day and breath,
long threads of word and echo
and word and mirror.

Come see god in the world and the red dust.

Prayer is better than sleep
and we begin the day.

 

Road Songs

Pack up all my cares and woes
There I go, singing low
Bye bye blackbird.

He drives making miles in sleepy devotion
to a somewhere, to the east tunneling
through the night, the flat of Colorado
with the chill smell of dry night,
of new summer shoes and green weeds.

And she is the map keeper,
sure that we stay on the road
and watches him for signs of wear,
for cracks, and wishes for
clean sheets on a clean bed.

There is no light to read, I cannot sleep;
a child never believes that she can be tired,
so I hold Mr. Rabbit and stare out
thinking a green philosophy
watch cars streak by like comets,

watch lightning strikes out there
on the horizon far away and I am
unmoved, curious, unable to not look,
thickly and quietly restless
for things are and will be different.

She will sing and we join
songs sung to the road, all our roads.
I am learning the songbook while
fire punctuates the spilled ink distance
and our movement through space.

It is our song of loneliness
love lost, found, love of old ways,
campfires and Jesus in the garden;
valleys where men are killed,
where girls’ hearts are broken.

No one here can love or understand me
O what hard luck stories they all hand me.

And we are made safe.
And we are made warm.
And America is a bittersweet place,
lost out in the day and interstate,
found by night and wilderness

I drift in a harmony between these
bodies that make us and
the long miles of the highway
consumed like a rich mouthful of food;
we are the song of the infinite.

Make my bed and light the light,
I’ll be home late tonight,
Blackbird, bye bye.