Tuesday, January 02, 2007

"Lucky Bamboo" (for the new year)

I bought a nice new notebook during the holi-daze, but I haven't been writing, much. Some poems that are too symbolic, perhaps shapeless even, while I long for the best words to describe a sunset mountain silhoutte in places I long to get back to, like Guatemala, Jamaica or the Western United States.

Right now I am writing to post, the blog calls. On occasion it comes up in conversation too, so I think it's still serving it's purpose.

This New Year's Eve I replaced the traditonal sounds of gunshots with live music at the Old Miami,(I'm not a shooter just a listener). I dreamed there would be no interruptions in my evening, just a good time, but the whole thing was a test of will or patience maybe, and in reality I never could fully get into the evenings performers. A combination of amplifed sound issues and distractions led to a series of ups and downs for me, like a year and like so many bullets fired into the air. I felt like my energy for celebrating had been disarmed.

I'm not complaing though, one year I almost got hit. I was on the porch at the Trumbullplex and a ricochet went of the brick right by my ear, which happens to be connected to my head and I'm pretty sure is better off without any more holes in it. I wonder if I'll ever forget that sound.

This December 31st was not a spectacular drunken last hurrah for me, but almost a suggestion to keep my priorities straight and count on more New Year's celebrations to come. Maybe the theme of this year then is simply 'keep it cool, there's time'.

Today, New Years Day we found ourselves at the Belle Isle Conservatory listening to birds, pointing out tiny orchids and breathing in something better than our local air. I intentionally came to see the bamboo, in my book there's nothing else like it. I kept my cool, but I noticed since it's usually the first thing I see when I enter that it seemed to be absent from all the other visibly thick flora and fauna present. I've come to rely on these visits like a shot of what I like, but no bamboo, that's like the worst sign for the coming year I could come up with. Fuck.

Before we left, the one I most wanted to spend the last and first day of the year with pointed it out. There it was. It had been cut back, a lot, but it was not gone. Small new shoots were popping up, resilient as ever, refusing to be destroyed. Still running or clumping together and send up its powerful stalks (called culms when they're cut). Maybe 07 will be a lucky year afterall, and we'll grow something here as unique as bamboo is in the grass family as Detroit is to other cities.

It's kinda like today. Everyone was trying to start off on a good foot and make the best of the first day of the year, but no matter it was cloudy and not so easy to call it a beautiful, or even pleasant day. Just at the end of it though it became a beautiful solid black night with more stars visible than I can recall in a long time. Stepping back into my warm room (yes I said warm)in the upsidedownhouse, that felt pretty hopefull to me, and that is the way to start a new year, so be patient with your struggle, have at it and have a fucking awesome 2007!

1 Comments:

At 10:32 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Glad that you still got your ear attached. damn thats a crazy story. But not surprising. stupid tradition. At first I felt guilty about spending NYE in A2 and not the D, but then everyone was telling me about people shooting right on my block. Hell no. Anyways, there's a lot to look forward to in the new year.

Lets make it happen in 07.

 

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