Lee Herrick

I have no idea what priests dream of on Christmas Eve, what prayer a crippled dog might whine before the shotgun. I have no more sense of what is sacred than a monk might have, sweeping the temple floor, slow gestures of honor to the left, the right. Maybe the leaf of grass tells us what is worthwhile. Maybe it tells us nothing. Perhaps a sacred moment is a photograph you look at over and over again, the one of you and her, hands lightly clasped like you did before prayer became necessary, the one with the sinking cathedral in Mexico City rising up behind you and a limping man frozen in time to the right of you, the moment when she touched your bare arm for the first time, her fingers like cool flashes of heaven.

1. This one happens in morning as a nearby crow wakes me, calling God,God,look at this: I am on the steps of a church, wrapped in Monday's Korea Times telling of the drought in Pusan. You can live by the water and still die of thirst, and I, there on the cold brick steps, am dying. But dying means the presence of breath. This one happens on Hangul Day, Independence Day in Seoul, where girls in purple satin hanboks parade through downtown streets. In this dream I make eye contact with every single one of them. Another boy, a few years older than I, rides a tricycle in the parade, trailing the girls. He sees me. He winks, as if he knows how everything will end. 2. This one happens in the evening just as daylight surrenders to the moon, and the flute of dusk arrives. It is cool. I am wrapped in a sky blue blanket, so whoever finds me thinks kindly of whoever left me. The one who finds me is a nun. She opens the door, looking beyond me into the tired night, then looks down. She gasps softly. She says,ahneyong, you sweet beautiful child. She bends down like an angel and takes me into her arms. 3. This one happens in the cruelest moment of the day, as heat curls flowers into dirt. A man, drunk with despair, screams at the sun. His sorrow is a collage of moths and ants, crawling from his face to his chest. I watch from the steps. It is the year of the dog and I am a part of it : unable to speak but an expert at listening : to the old man from Laos who sits on the steps two buildings down : he is telling another man how Hmong children become human on the third day of life, after the soul calling ceremony and the burning of animal flesh. He smokes from a pipe and closes his eyes as he inhales. I can hear all of this. I can hear a woman rustling inside the church. She is a dancer, so she speaks with her hands. I hear her rise, sweetly from her knees to her feet. This means she believes in dreams. I hear her slide her hand, sweetly along her hair. This means she believes in the sun. I hear her move towards me and place her open palm on the door. This means she welcomes me. This means she believes in the miracle of possibility.

Here, an olive votive keeps the sunset lit, the Korean twenty-somethings talk about hyphens, graduate school and good pot. A group of four at a window table in Carpinteria discuss the quality of wines in Napa Valley versus Lodi. Here, in my California, the streets remember the Chicano poet whose songs still bank off Fresno's beer soaked gutters and almond trees in partial blossom. Here, in my California we fish out long noodles from the pho with such accuracy you'd know we'd done this before. In Fresno, the bullets tire of themselves and begin to pray five times a day. In Fresno, we hope for less of the police state and more of a state of grace. In my California, you can watch the sun go down like in your California, on the ledge of the pregnant twenty-second century, the one with a bounty of peaches and grapes, red onions and the good salsa, wine and chapchae. Here, in my California, paperbacks are free, farmer's markets are twenty four hours a day and always packed, the trees and water have no nails in them, the priests eat well, the homeless eat well. Here, in my California, everywhere is Chinatown, everywhere is K-Town, everywhere is Armeniatown, everywhere a Little Italy. Less confederacy. No internment in the Valley. Better history texts for the juniors. In my California, free sounds and free touch. Free questions, free answers. Free songs from parents and poets, those hopeful bodies of light.

How much delight before we collapse How much earth in the lungs How much wine When we want more When the weeds sprawl It is not what you think Think how fast some landscapes change the lover, the gardener's grand idea, the failing Maple the boat about to capsize the correction the hand's reflection the impossible replication of weight versus time how it will never mean what you want

Light a match. Watch the blue part flare like a shocked piñata from the beating into the sky, watch how fast thin wood burns & turns toward the skin, the olive-orange skin of your thumb & let it burn, too. Light a fire. Drown out the singing cats. Let the drunken mariachis blaze their way, streaking like crazed hyenas over a brown hill, just underneath a perfect birthday moon.