in Kenya.
Today I still speak of the fourteen that are dead in Kenya from earlier in the week, some by their own choice and some by the choices of others, as I speak of the parrots.
And as I speak of the parrots I speak of the day’s weather here, the slight breeze and the blanket I pull over myself this morning in the subtropics and then I speak also of East Africa, those detained for questioning, porous borders, the easy availability of fraudulent passports.
I speak of long coastlines and Alexandre Dumas’s body covered in blue cloth with the words “all for one, one for all.”
I speak of grandsons of black Haitian slaves and what it means to be French.
I speak of global jihad, radical clerics, giant planets, Jupiter, stars’ gas and dust, gravitational accretion, fluid dynamics, protoplanetary evolution, the unstoppable global spread of AIDS.
When I speak of the parrots I speak of the pair of pet conures released sometime in 1986 or 1987 that now number at least thirty.
I speak of how they begin their day at sunrise and fly at treetop height southward to rest in the trees near our bed, beloveds, where they rest for about an hour to feed, preen, and socialize before moving on to search for fruits and seeds of wild plum, Christmas berry, papaya, strawberry guava, and other shrubs and trees that were, like them, like us, brought here from somewhere else.
I speak of our morning to come, mundane with the news of it all, with its hour of feeding, preening, and restrained socializing before turning to our separate computers and the wideness of their connections and the probable hourly changes of temperature between 79 and 80 degrees that will happen all day long with winds that begin the day at 12 mph and end it at 8 mph.
When I speak of the green of the parrots I speak of yous and me, beloveds, and our roosts at the bottom of the crater once called L’ahi, now called Diamond Head, and I speak of those who encourage us to think of them as roosting with us, Mariah Carey, Jermaine Dupri, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Jay-Z, Cam’ron, Justin Timberlake, Nick Carter, Rod Stewart, and Shania Twain.
And I speak of the flapping of parrots’ wings as they come over the tree that reaches over the bed and the helpless flapping of our wings in our mind, our wings flapping as we are on our backs in our bed at night unable to turn over or away from this, the three-legged stool of political piece, military piece, and development piece, that has entered into our bed at night holding us down sleepless as the parrots have entered into this habitat far away from their origin because someone set them free, someone set them free, and they fly from one place to another, loudly, to remind us of our morning and we welcome this even, stuck on our backs in bed, wings flapping, welcome any diversion from the pieces of the three-legged stool.
December 1, 2002
Beloveds, yours skins is a boundary separating yous from the rest of yous.
When I speak of skin I speak of the largest organ.
I speak of the separations that define this world and the separations that define us, beloveds, even as we like to press our skins against one another in the night.
When I speak of skin I speak of lighting candles to remember AIDS and the history of attacks in Kenya.
I speak of toxic fumes given off by plastic flooring in a burning nightclub in Caracas.
I speak of the forty-seven dead in Caracas.
And I speak of the four dead in Palestine.
And of the three dead in Israel.
I speak of those dead in other parts of the world who go unreported.
I speak of boundaries and connections, locals and globals, butterfly wings and hurricanes.
I speak of one hundred and fifty people sheltering at the Catholic Mission in the city of Man.
I speak of a diverted Ethiopian airliner, US attacks on Iraqi air defense sites, and warnings not to visit Yemen.
Here, where we are with our separate skins polished by sweet-smelling soaps and the warm, clean water of our
Today I still speak of the fourteen that are dead in Kenya from earlier in the week, some by their own choice and some by the choices of others, as I speak of the parrots.
And as I speak of the parrots I speak of the day’s weather here, the slight breeze and the blanket I pull over myself this morning in the subtropics and then I speak also of East Africa, those detained for questioning, porous borders, the easy availability of fraudulent passports.
I speak of long coastlines and Alexandre Dumas’s body covered in blue cloth with the words “all for one, one for all.”
I speak of grandsons of black Haitian slaves and what it means to be French.
I speak of global jihad, radical clerics, giant planets, Jupiter, stars’ gas and dust, gravitational accretion, fluid dynamics, protoplanetary evolution, the unstoppable global spread of AIDS.
When I speak of the parrots I speak of the pair of pet conures released sometime in 1986 or 1987 that now number at least thirty.
I speak of how they begin their day at sunrise and fly at treetop height southward to rest in the trees near our bed, beloveds, where they rest for about an hour to feed, preen, and socialize before moving on to search for fruits and seeds of wild plum, Christmas berry, papaya, strawberry guava, and other shrubs and trees that were, like them, like us, brought here from somewhere else.
I speak of our morning to come, mundane with the news of it all, with its hour of feeding, preening, and restrained socializing before turning to our separate computers and the wideness of their connections and the probable hourly changes of temperature between 79 and 80 degrees that will happen all day long with winds that begin the day at 12 mph and end it at 8 mph.
When I speak of the green of the parrots I speak of yous and me, beloveds, and our roosts at the bottom of the crater once called L’ahi, now called Diamond Head, and I speak of those who encourage us to think of them as roosting with us, Mariah Carey, Jermaine Dupri, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Jay-Z, Cam’ron, Justin Timberlake, Nick Carter, Rod Stewart, and Shania Twain.
And I speak of the flapping of parrots’ wings as they come over the tree that reaches over the bed and the helpless flapping of our wings in our mind, our wings flapping as we are on our backs in our bed at night unable to turn over or away from this, the three-legged stool of political piece, military piece, and development piece, that has entered into our bed at night holding us down sleepless as the parrots have entered into this habitat far away from their origin because someone set them free, someone set them free, and they fly from one place to another, loudly, to remind us of our morning and we welcome this even, stuck on our backs in bed, wings flapping, welcome any diversion from the pieces of the three-legged stool.
December 1, 2002
Beloveds, yours skins is a boundary separating yous from the rest of yous.
When I speak of skin I speak of the largest organ.
I speak of the separations that define this world and the separations that define us, beloveds, even as we like to press our skins against one another in the night.
When I speak of skin I speak of lighting candles to remember AIDS and the history of attacks in Kenya.
I speak of toxic fumes given off by plastic flooring in a burning nightclub in Caracas.
I speak of the forty-seven dead in Caracas.
And I speak of the four dead in Palestine.
And of the three dead in Israel.
I speak of those dead in other parts of the world who go unreported.
I speak of boundaries and connections, locals and globals, butterfly wings and hurricanes.
I speak of one hundred and fifty people sheltering at the Catholic Mission in the city of Man.
I speak of a diverted Ethiopian airliner, US attacks on Iraqi air defense sites, and warnings not to visit Yemen.
Here, where we are with our separate skins polished by sweet-smelling soaps and the warm, clean water of our
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