Tag: past

Two thousand and five

Moments long past
come forth, afresh
as if they arose
incorruptible, from the crypt
oblivious to the passage of time
each year since no more than
a mild nuisance

the bell rings on the dot
clear as dappled dew in the shade
8:30, first period geometry
on top of the hill, seven staircases up
the first day of the rest of my lfie
on an August day, unsure if school
means that summer weather is now
somehow improper

a continent, an ocean, a decade apart
yet no more distant than
the tips of my fingers

You can’t unspill blood

Bill Weinberg writes today about the incredibly tight security in and around Tiananmen Square, along with preemptive arrests of the types of Chinese citizens that might think about doing a public vigil for the massacre’s 25th anniversary.

As he points out, such over-the-top security is in itself self-defeating. He writes:

The absurd security measures speak to the ultimate futility of trying to suppress the truth this way. The virtual shutting down of the square was itself a perverse and paradoxical commemoration of the massacre on the part of the authorities. Presumably, it caused some children to ask their parents what all the police patrols were about, ironically facilitating the passage of historical memory on to the next generation—even if those children received only veiled and guarded answers. If they were hushed by their parents, this would only serve to heighten their curiosity, and plant seeds of doubt about the morality of the system.

The Tiananmen, 2005
The Tiananmen, 2005

The Los Angeles Times has a feature about what the Square was like – police everywhere, aggressive interrogations, complete blockades for any journalists who looked curious.

This whole scenario shows to me how difficult it is to destroy any memory of 1989. Even if Chinese citizens in Beijing do not know the details of the reform movement and its fate, they know that the government remembers something. One does not radically increase security around a certain date each year by chance. Even if this whole round of arrests and intimidation keep what’s in the black box inside, no one can deny that there is a black box. And it holds something. Some of us have the luxury of knowing a few of the details, but for a foreigner this isn’t part of my national history. It’s one component of 20th century protest, and fits in alongside Poland, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, and all those other democratic surges of the late 1980’s and early 90’s. I don’t walk past the Square every morning. My June 4th wasn’t like the tourists from other parts of China who showed up and didn’t know why security was so intrusive. The black box sits in the middle of one of the largest plazas on Earth. No matter what the Chinese state does, it will insist upon itself.

You can’t unspill blood.

Tiananmen on June 4th, 1989 happened. Huge numbers of Chinese participated and survived. Some of the most riveting news photography was taken and published all over the world. People remember. Mother Jones reminds us how young and jubilant these protesters were. Overall all of China there were all segments of society, but the lifeblood in Beijing were kids. Many of whom were younger than I am now, turning 24.

You can’t unspill blood.

Tiananmen Square is the site of a tragedy, even without a single protester reminding, or informing passersby. The government is fighting reform and pro-democratic movements, both within mainland China, in Hong Kong, and all over the world. But it’s also fighting a war against the past. Though economic vitality has been used as a salve for political tension, it cannot work forever. One day the catch-up will end, and China will have the same problems all developed countries have with their pasts.

Shadow seller

Custom-tailored, flexible
a quality fit for every soul-
joyous, tormented, stuck
dazed, as the sun bids good morrow
then slides towards a perfunctory goodbye

Durable, versatile,
solar-powered
low-maintenance
fashion-forward
black is always
the new black!

Ample storage for all
past memories
mortal fears
easy, instant playback for
long walks alone

Loyal to a fault,
a lone companion
until, in the dark
it finds many friends

it’s a deal you can’t refuse.

In the instant, it’s real to me

Is it madness
when in moments of unrivaled clarity
the cosmos drops its shy façade
to speak, candidly
to me and
me alone?

Is it madness
when the thoughts of every soul
living and dead turn to aether
and diffuse into my conscious, now
so sensitive that each time the Earth
breathes
it tingles, a billion pinpricks
against the skull?

Is it madness
when before a great tree
in an instant I relive its thousand-year past
learn its pain and cherish its triumph
knowing that those that came first
gave it a name
long lost
except to me?
I know it, I know all.
I know it, I know.

Sometime soon all this knowledge will
dissolve into pieces so fine
that no hands could put them back in
their rightful place, in glory.

Is it madness?
Is it joy, beauty?

It isn’t real
except in the moment
it is to me.

I don’t hate my English teacher.

A few days ago, I read an internet discussion that talked about how English is taught in schools. Several people felt the curriculum stifled them, the teacher didn’t recognize their intelligence, and that the stress contributed to their unhappiness.

I’m sympathetic to this line of thinking about the past. If it’s not English it’s physical education. Or history. Or math. Despite a great deal of intelligence, teachers seemed to get in the way. The bad grades weren’t my fault, it was a stupid set of requirements and rules that didn’t make sense. Disappointing grades caused conflict with my parents. Why would you do this to me? I could teach this class.

Although I’m sympathetic to that reading of my academic past, it’s not true. And I don’t hate my English teacher. The assignments I didn’t do may have not been the most engaging and the books I didn’t read may have not been the most important. Digging deeper into my younger self, it becomes clear.

I didn’t hate my English teacher. I hated my adolescence.

Adolescence is both a traumatic process and one every single person has to go through. The perpetrator isn’t someone I trusted or a playground enemy I despised. Biology- it was biology. There’s no good way to get mad as adolescence. It’s incorporeal. I vented at other people. My parents, my teachers, my peers, random strangers on the internet. I vented it at walls, pinecones on the street. The exception was myself, I didn’t hurt myself, I knew too many who did. Even today, when a friend wears short sleeves,  the tell-tale scars on her arms are there…their way of fighting something that didn’t come out and stand solid to attack.

Living in my mid 20s, crisis takes a different form. A friend’s mother dies suddenly. Another has to go homeless for a few weeks to scrounge up rent money.  Yet another struggles with domestic abuse and develops a drug problem. It all is real, serious, and terrible to them and those that they love. It happens sporadically, though. Someone falls then gets back up again. Then another takes their place. Overall, most are doing okay. When I was thirteen the crisis was now, and everyone I knew was in the same situation. Maybe a bit better, maybe a bit worse. Maybe finishing the crisis, maybe just starting it. It was a warzone.

I don’t hate my English teacher. I hated everyone.

My English teacher gets an ex post facto amnesty. For all imagined crimes committed against me. For allegedly not recognizing my talents. For getting me in the kind of trouble I needed to get into and get through.

I don’t hate my English teacher. I hate thinking about my past.

Sorry, you’re a part of that past. I can’t take back my past anger- the things I said and the much larger, darker bank of things I thought. The most I can do is rehabilitate you and your reputation. Over time I’ve come to think that the worst jobs are those where you have to see people on the worst day of their lives. Bailiffs, abortion clinic workers, homicide detectives. Though you may not be in that tier, you’re close. Every day you walk in to the classroom. At least half of the class is bullied. Some have been sexually assaulted. A couple think about killing themselves at least some of the time. Maybe a few are starting to develop a substance addiction that will stick around for a long time. Nevertheless, you showed up several times a week and tried to make us all give a shit about the English language. A Herculean effort if there was ever one.

I don’t hate my English teacher. I’m just glad that they didn’t hate me.

They didn’t hate me.

Still-wet clay

If there was a better way
a better time, place, mood,
world- I did not know about it.

For what is each new second but
an opportunity to learn of past failures
the river card reveals that you would have won
a poker hand long since folded.

The dike breaks, say,
and all the past flows
takes us all in its current

If all that came before was still-wet clay
to be moulded by our present selves
would we ever stop tinkering?

A masterpiece exists because the painter
stepped back and refused to add
one more brushstroke.

What I could have said
done, differently.

Sometimes
it’s best to let statues stand as they are.