Some of the hardest physical work in recent memory is 72 hours on the Improv dance floor.

Also, the most rewarding. I haven’t built a house, or surveyed for a map, or planted a garden. But by listening listening listening I’ve followed the sprite of movement, and on her scent traced the outline of home; through repetition memorized (in the body’s threads and cords) the navigation lines I might follow to get there; and inadvertently collected in these outstretched arms so many wild foods along the way – fruit of this adventure – that I am fed.

And somehow through the unforced grace of it all (tangible or ethereal, permanent or ephemeral), rather than finding myself arriving at that home, the recognition that I have always been there.

As my tired body sorted itself out for sleep last night, the echo of a poem I wrote some years ago fluttered in with the darkness: at the time, I was on a similar yet distinct trajectory, through the interior of the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Having recently descended from the snowy, intellectual North to the lush, exuberant “let’s not overthink this” South, I was dizzy and happy and not a little lost. A friend of my adopted family was heading out on a regional tour to promote a book of his — both book and tour doggedly followed the arc of his ego — and I wagged along on a claustrophobic experience of his world-in-a-bookcase, offset by the expansive experience of southern Brazil’s endless green horizon. One did not mar the other: they were fraternal twins and the same journey.

The best night was spent away from the small city lights, in the pasturage he had first called home. There was a circle of farmers and childhood friends, and a big gourd of the rough-cut tea they drink in that part of the world, refilled with hot water and passed around from one to the next, inviting companionable pause in the conversation, a quaff of caffeine to startle one awake (if one had been nodding), and a quiet communication of few words that underscored the louder laughter, the amiable nonsense of the circle:

– (cuya in hand) Quer mais?
– Pô. Tou verde, cara.

When you’ve drained your cup, you carefully fill the gourd to the brim, lifting it from the teapot on your right to whomever sat to your left, crossing the line of vision of your heart as it moves. There, animated by some story or memory, in the middle of some grand gesture, arms spread wide like rooster wings, or pointing like a spear of lightning to the punch line that waited like tinder in the center of the ring of faces (ha! hahahaha the sound flies upward hands clap together like small explosions of glee, the story that everyone already knew, knew how it would end, were just waiting for the spark to strike, to light them all up, give them the cue that the night was fine, and would be fine, while the cuya made its round) the companion seated to your left as his laughter flutters down to roost, descends gently to the earth as he notices you have been touching his arm, the cuya is full and steaming, oh, the tea has come back to me? oba! then your hand is empty and his hand is full, and he takes a long sip from that silver straw, watering his voice for the next story.

How does the physical exhaustion of a weekend of dance wind up in São Sepe? I guess, because the roads all run together, and the dust we collect doesn’t leave us, no matter how many times we wash, or how many sights we see, or how many hands we hold, or how many pairs of eyes we explore.

Cosmology of Ones – Mark Schultz

Cosmology of Ones

I will have traveled so much in my life
I’d rather miss that travel when I’m gone
and heaven, I think, is much too far
it’s the station at the other end of town
and the time already well past midnight

no, I belong here; I remember too much
a flower opens: the scythe weighs my hand
how she whispered: dust blows on the road
which understood the passage of my heart
the loves I gathered like wind-fall fruit

they were the sweetest, and they were enough
if I have wandered, it was earth to earth.

E, para meus companheiros de viagem, que por serem amantes, liberaram o meu amor – em versos rústicos da minha língua adotada:

Cosmosofia Solitária

Terei viajado tanto nesta vida
que prefiro quando morto parar quieto
e o Céu, acho eu, esta longe demais
é a estação lado de lá da cidade
e há horas dobramos a meia-noite

não, aqui é meu lugar; me lembro demais
uma flor se desabrocha: a foice pesa nas mãos
como ela sussurrava: poeira soprada pelas ruas
que apoiavam a passagem do coração
os amores colheitos, frutas caídas no chão

eram os mais doces, e foi o suficiente
se vagei na vida, foi de terra à terra.

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