Sweet Potato Haircut

Wind wants to come in. Today with masculine presence wind pounds and presses in toward me, rattling the window in its frame and making my heart beat loudly with each new wave of effort. Wind wants me– I imagine the surrender, saying Okay, yes wind. You can have me. Stepping into the darkly glowing day of stunted dawn, doomed never to transcend the turbulent morning. But I understand. I too have days of dark, wicked dark that seeps from me as apathy and my belly is full and my chest is soundless, sensationless. So when I step into the wind’s hungry hands he ravages me greedily, my clothes whipping tightly around me and the breath squeezed from my crumbling lungs, my eyes wet with mechanical tears of the body’s natural defense. I see myself go loose in the low light, a dancer who can do no wrong, make no false step as she twirls and tumbles in the ceaseless sway of science, the throes of momentum and elemental manipulation making her a vessel of the purest reality–there is nothing to say or do, no questions to ask, nor answer. There is no extent of illusion to construct or message to convey, the I in me gives way to the hugeness of mystery and silence. In the sure hold of wind I might hear Rumi say, What a relief to be empty! Then God can live your life. And I might hear his laughter raging warmly from within. I might hear the hum of the universe’s laughter swelling from my empty belly and filling me with unbearable, uncontainable light. Watching the scene unfold from behind the window, I feel the ghost of a crick prickle through my neck.