Ruffu

A regal face without crown or title, half-remembered. The absence of gold in your life; you make do with what's there. The golden light through eastern windows, the slanting light into the world, the human response a tilting of the head. Your brow, fresh, unlined, as when before the womb, when your simple soul was but a name with God...

Is the cross the way to you heart? The human heart, a cross, a path on which we fall. The splintered will.

Memory, reflection, require two points in time or, more precisely, one point that is not in time. The terrible fate of being oneself, directionless; the cramped existence of a black Romanian dog that shouts to God: "open up the universe a little bit more" (Bellow). For Christ's sake.

Ruffu:

A quick, rough and ready form of patchwork; a tying together of what is torn, even if only temporarily, even if with the cheapest of threads. In dark times, you take what is given...

The southern light that opens up something in you. Unties the knot, overlaps boundaries. Releases you into the familiar again. There you were, your face turned westward, extreme in your openness, your thoughts streaming out to sea. The silver of the old mirror still able to underwrite your image. Your face lacking clarity, but shining on nevertheless. After all these centuries things in the world still have the capaciousness of the first times, the old days. The silent star of your mind, the columns of deliberation, the calmness of your hand on my ruffled heart...

North by north-west. North, and I'm out of here. A metaphor is not of remembering. Life returns. An old trick. A gracious friend, a papaya. The jangling of nerves, the inertia of night, the jumbled up thoughts. Stitch them all up. Ah, it's a bleak skill.

The redwood in the heart. Your name, as dark as a forest. Your thin voice ]
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falling away.

inclinations and intimations. findings. endings.

she turned my way. and i broke. north, south-east...

she then undid
the knot of mirror and of tapestry

and I undid the ruffu of her dress...

(Quotes: Ken Irby)