Liturgy

A boy and a girl, very little
sat down on the steps
of the kiot
amidst the marshmallow innocence
of pink chrysanthemums
at the footsteps of a Golgotha
made of painted wood
where every turn of the carved ornament
is a new adventure and a new island
and the carpet on the floor rises
in the brilliance of dazzlingly beautiful
flowers and trees
with the dulcet music falling from the skies
in the soft even light of the golden candles
the oak floors melt into the ocean
and above their heads
rises like a sail
The Holy Mother with the eternal Child
smiling gently,
tenderly,
a devastating, heart-stopping smile

Low Tide

Somber cinereal disconsolate skies breathe wet heavy breezes
Over the slick leaden mirror of salty waters, trembling in cold and fever
The tide carries away the last whispers and long-broken promises
Adorning the sandy strips in shiny necklaces of broken shells and dead crabs,
The concentric circles of life and death, ephemeral and eternal.
Acacia trees on the dunes and crabgrass spread hungry nets of roots,
Among the sharp pungent odors of decomposing seaweed
Round pieces of polished glass, the green tears of the ocean,
Sparkle in longing for the by-gone waves,
And by the piers the boats crowded, narrow, nervous, like a flock of seagulls,
Like young girls in white dresses, in the wind, their hair undone and flowing
Their long slender arms lifted in a gesture of prayer and hope for the wind
And freedom, their hearts unevenly beating in presentiment of a new dawn.

Birthdays, Cowboys, Indians, and Goiko Mitic

Well, I have officially finished my 53 round trip around the Sun. We celebrated this meaningful event in the most childish manner possible - I threw a Cowboys and Indians party! It is precious though to watch young and not so young people turn into children again... Please, do not tell me you have never built a teepee or shot arrows or walked the path of war!
I certainly did. Together with my best friend Alv we researched Native footwear, clothing, art and mythology... We chose to be the Blackfeet... I cannot believe I now live so close to the actual Blackfeet tribe! Now, why Blackfeet? The answer is James Willard Schultz, a wildly popular author in the USSR in the days of my childhood, a virtual unknown in the USA - even though he lived here in the end of the 19 century, wrote here, has become a Blackfoot himself and wrote a painfully truthful and poignant memoir "My life among the Indians".
Most of the Soviet children (and, by the way, German children) of my generation see Indians as martyrs and heroes, and the face that they see is that of... a Yugoslavian actor Goiko Mitic, he was our Chingachguk, and Vinnetu son of Inchuchun...