Cha Lectures 18 - My Ancient Friends

Justin Pickering

My Ancient Friends

My ancient friends live in the dark, plodding recesses of memory
and are lit alive by the life torch,
bursting anew in my mind's eye.
Anciano, viejo, compadre.
Heartstrings tied together
by the silk of time's rough passage.
And brightness yet, unsullied still
by their true selves, unmasked,
after a thousand years
beneath the mire and muck
of yesterday.
Y en la oscuridad de la mente,
hadas de gas y de luz juegan en los rincones negros de la infinitud.
Y yo, encegado por las llamas de la lintera de mi propio pasado,
un viajero
entre la nada y el todo...
vacilando... como las manos de un reloj,
entre las doce y las cinco de la tarde.

My ancient friends are the seedling of time-space.
The are the matrix-runners and the void-sifters.
They find the intersticios entre their familias
and their softball games
where the ball
grows as round as the sun
y tan brillante como él.
Their song is from the belly of the earth
e sua musica danza numa brisa de sonho y de fogo
and of beer foam and other things that are green.

Mis amigos ancianos
MY ancient friends
strech their arms from the earth and sing towards
the echoing vault of heaven
with life and death
on their breath
y los respiros murmullan en mi alma
while their leaf-hands scour the sky

My ancient friends have skin like armor
made from the bark of a million somber oak trees
and they have the patience of a million bone yards
all tipped upside down and draining of rain
on Mardi Gras day.
Their arms are steel and wood and all other good things
that help to hold the world together.

My ancient friends wet the inner chamber of my heart
and their song dampens the organs
with a New Englander's jack-hammer grin
on a Tuesday lost to the wet leaves and slick black
raincoat of Wildwood Street.

My ancient friends are my trees.
Son mis arboles! Y su grito barbarico alcanza los techos
del mundo entero y circuloso
as a tiny dragonfly lands in me
and sits down
to rest.