All day I was neither here nor there; I felt other than, at once disconnected, and deeply connected. I mean when I wrote something, I was in that line; when I sat still, I was in that stillness. Something was either very off, I said to my brother when he called, or very on or something else entirely. Then in the evening, I received the news that it seemed the whole day was waiting to give: my friend Sas wrote to say, Lincy had passed. I met Lincy Nauka Sullivan just once, over a year ago. I was visiting Sas in Vermont. I was decimated from months of too much: too much movement, too much work, too much emotion, too much crisis…just too much. So - I was visiting Sas and it was a sharp sunny winter afternoon and I said, I'd love a hair cut and Sas said, let me call Lincy and turned out Lincy was free right then so I went right then and met Lincy for the first time. It was a hallowed afternoon. I remember the sun through the glass window, and how my brain and my heart just lit up as our conversation deepened and widened, how something in me unlocked and something else healed. Lincy left me better than she had found me. From our conversation, this poem emerged. I wish I'd had a chance to share it with her. But I came back to New Mexico, kept playing with it, a word here, sentence there, kept thinking wait, wait, the poem isn't ready yet. And just yesterday, I found her email address again and was going to send it. And then today… The poem comes too late but it is what I have and I offer it here to testify to the breadth and width and grace of my encounter with such a beautiful and generous spirit. Salon in New Guinea
by Shebana Coelho for Lincy A woman cuts my hair cuts heaviness away Pain - pulling at my scalp for months - ebbs the swish of scissors drowsy I am a dream waking, I listen I am short, stocky, strong- legged, she says, made for mountains forests thick with shade houses of earth and thatch ten to a room smoke black walls and seven day churches singing hymns to drown the calling - older than seven days - to root and burrow In these forests, she says – and trees rise from the swivel chair my hands touch black soil, in these forests are green spread valleys ripe with rain and root and song Who sings, I ask, why? A man walking, she says, carries his songs so they precede him into villages not of his line so those who hear know he is carrying peace so they let him pass in song Here, too - she points to men in khaki carried on shoulders of her kin wading through rivers bound for gold and cities called Hagen named for those who arrived first… …First contact, she laughs - as if we never existed before someone found us as if we were lost then as we are lost now. I left, she says, adopted away, the scissors snap into the present -the swivel chair -the thinning of hair The woman in the mirror sees the girl in the village bare feet, bare earth something in her is calling - kin to kin the tip of scissors – snip - my hair blackens the floor She sweeps it all into song into forest everything is green Rain
2 Comments
Michael Cutler
11/23/2014 07:32:12 am
I thank you enough for sharing this blog! It's truly amazing!
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Shebana
10/15/2015 05:59:13 pm
Thank you Michael
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