H
e a r t S o n s & H e a r t D a u g h t e r s of A l l e n G i n s
b e r g
N
a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 4 : A r c h i
v e s E d i t i o n
SUZI KAPLAN OLMSTED
Both Named Marge
I.
Sick again, I watch news
features about sex slaves, child prostitutes right
here,
blocks from my arty urban loft home.
Drowning on dry land, my
lungs
are a factory for viscous slime, so thick and tough it blocks the flow
of
air, in or out, my darkest army green invader, blockading me from life. I
cough
until I am too tired to move, let alone cough again. Even before
breathing
became so variable, my brain was and is an enemy lying in wait –
bright
sun, the scent of an orange, not enough sleep, Arbor Day (whenever
that
is), all can be a metal lance into my head, migraine, familiar pain
never
better just because I’ve known it, my nauseous stomach demanding
that
I stay away from cars and food, except for coca cola. I can’t see
normally,
read or write.
I contemplate
volunteering, helping in the program they praise, using my
training,
education and broken heart to reach these little girls. But help
comes
better from the meditation cushion than the street, from me at least,
since
12 year old hookers were almost the death of me. I can’t help
anyone
if I’m confused in the bardo.
The first time I found
out that there were 12-year-old prostitutes right
next
to me, not in Bangkok, or Calcutta, or on MSNBC, I was trying so
hard
to save the world that I missed it when my exploding head came
within
a hair’s breadth of killing me, demanding painkillers until the
explosion
nearly killed my connection with the people that I loved most.
II.
Sick again, I croak
guilty apologies to beloved friend Marge.
Her real
name’s
Nancy. Living in side-by-side
trailers, in service to Buddha at the
Mediation Center, we
both became “Marge.” She has also been sick,
cancer,
and needs caretakers, since they
have scooped out her innards like
ice
cream, 1000 times more intense and serious than that which knocks me
on
my back so often..
Nancy and I, late
bloomers both, laughed together more than I recall at any
job
so difficult, both falling in love with (& marrying) late-blooming poets
while
cooking vast mountains of mediation food.
My close friend from
ageless
ages of karma, my Vedic sister, our birthdays a joint celebration
from
every life, her open dakini (female Buddha skydancer)
kind comic
wisdom
heart tempering my own sharp tongue, bringing her the dubious
honor
of later running everything at the Center with such ease and grace
they
won’t let her leave. Even while
working harder than 3 other people,
her
body full of cancer, I never heard a sound from her bemoaning her
condition,
at least not without a joke at its heart.
Marge/Nancy managed to
save me right at the end, though in the last gasp
of
a chance before it would have been beyond help or beyond hope. A
simple
thing, really, but everything, and 52 sober new moons are mine, 4
years
are mine, 52 dakini
days of the Tibetan lunar calendar that may be
heavy
with sickness, but not made worse by my own poor treatment. She
found
for me a refuge, a bardo where they relieved me of my
pills in
exchange
for regular deposits of my pain, the bardo called
Rehab.
Marge may be out of
abdominal content, and unable to do anything for
herself,
but I am the one wearing the same clothes all week, my hair in
tangled
dreadlock, my poet husband due home from an office that pays my
health
insurance, food dwindling in the house.
I speak of Buddha but
worship
t.v. instead. Marge, so cheerful, no matter how her
body feels,
lays
under the refuge tree, a thousand thousand buddhas cradling her.
I lay
with
the Tivo remote clutched in my hand, glad of the
massive content I
have
assembled. I am counting on Marge’s
prayers, or I will never get out
of
the human realm. Even so, she is
not so holy that right now, I can think
of
times with her and laugh out loud, one of the wittiest people on Earth,
laughter
bringing tears to my eyes and a tiny bit of urine to my pants.
And reminding me – I
really should change my clothes.
[Originally
published in NHS 2009, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs09/Suzi_Kaplan_Olmsted.htm.]