Home In The Heart

Echo

Rilke said you must go inside yourself.
You must change your life.
I went inside.
And found only ashes, dust, smoke
still clinging to the air, blocking out the sun.
The river was frozen. Apparently,
as nearly as I could tell,
there had been a great passion once, the fire.
And then, winter, a long, frozen winter.
Winter in the blood.

I found a part of the river near the shore, where
the ice had broken.
There was just enough light left in the sky.

In the mirror of the water,
I saw your face and your eyes.
It was then I knew
which direction to take.
I turned and walked toward you,
you who would become my home.

Oscar Houck

*

“ I regret that he (Gregory Bateson) never had the opportunity to encounter the Aboriginal elder Mussolini Harvey (better known as Musso). If Bateson’s travels and investigations had brought him to the Aboriginal Australia I came to know and love, he might…