REMEMBRANCE

Passport to freedom, remembrance of Him.
Left in my desk under documents for men,
I, laden with baggage of anguish and rage,
Scramble to the corridor to the Curer's Store.

The burdens will not fit through the door.
I sit delirious among shrapnel, low jargon,
Bits of gossip and bungled memories--
My treasured bygones--these wounds
That make me feel human and alone.

Like a sleuth, I search through the mounds
Layered in the desk: the self-portrait with a twisted lip,
Chipped fetishes of adolescent adventures,
Lost chess pieces, fragments of fragrant letters,
Records of unpaid debts, the envelope that contains
Foreign stamps and a beaded necklace.

Under this I see the book of mystery
With cover worn and pages stained,
That conceals the elusive key.

Humbled and abashed,
I slowly turn the page
    and find His Remembrance.

                --  CS Cholas undated

 

 

 

 By the Sea of Galilee

Father, son, and daughter
Sit by water; the Sea of Galilee.
She strains her father's string of thought
With talk of agorot.

And though the dad gives him
His last shekel,
The son still wants to heckle.

Palms by the sea
Calm the sight with tranquility
As shadows cross the Golan heights.

Gulls escort the boat to shore.
For mere morsels
They show off for
Tourists who gladly give them more.

                        C.S. Cholas, March 17, 1996

 

 

 

Swimming in Streams of (Un)Consciousness

"Don't be dead or asleep or awake.
Don't be anything.
What you most want,
What you travel around wishing to find,
Lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
And you'll be that." – Attar

 

 

We follow words down daydreams’ rivers
Laud the scope of their meaning
Yet remain aliens banned from their realms.

We track their sounds
Laughing at our insignificance.
Our persistent howls, unchaste and crude,
Echo through the halls of their castles
Of winding clauses, verbs of dance,
Nouns of steel, pauses with commas,
The Landlord tends to pots of speech yet to be spoken.
By chance, outsiders that we are, we beg
The Landlord, if we can, to borrow a dipper and sip
A few words to lure Undines* to change water into life.

-          C. S. Cholas, Sept 20, 2020 Arizona

 

*Undines:  Elemental beings associated with water, first named in the alchemical writings of Paracelsus. Spirits of the water world

 

 

Death in Grenada

                       -- from a street corner in
                          Castries, St. Lucia, Oct. 20, 1983

Today everything stopped.
The ground thumped
followed by a hard knot
on every street corner.

We crowded around our radios
for news of blood
unsettled confusion,
uncertain downfall
a touch
of every command being tested.

Man creates vacuums in paradise.
He divides all the trees
into splinters
and lets the fruit rot.

And death filled Grenada,
red scare,
on the day we remembered
the Birth of the Primal Point
in rarefied air
in prayer for the living
and for the dead.

                -- C.S. Cholas 

 

 

The Tumble

 

He replayed the descent repeatedly:

   the footpath that gave way under foot,

   the tumble upon the rocks.

   the gashes they left in his heart.

 

                              C. S. Cholas
                                     Edinburg, TX 1996

 

Reflection

He had (every) reason to be angry
And yet no reason at all;
Betrayed by love, by friends,
By superiors, yet
Befriended by the poor and lowly
Of the town.

Told to take a Hard look at himself,
He went to a nearby pond
Stared at his face in the subtle ripples
The distorted bending of his features,
‘til he threw not a pebble,
But a sizeable rock in the middle
Of his watery reflection and watched
His face explode into numberless bits
Of light, color and shadows on the surface.

It felt good to see his own form eventually
Come back together on the pond,
Gently wavering, slowly simmering
Into a clearer picture of who he was.

        C. S. Cholas, undated

 

                                ZARAGOSA VILLAGERS

                                    These flowers, when touched,

                                    Close up, and only slowly

                                    Show themselves again.

 

                                    How dry the roads here!

                                    Vendors plod home with their carts.

                                    Coins clink as they walk.

 

                                    Paths have long shadows.

                                    Fishermen wet with their catch;

                                    Youth dressed up for town.

 

                                    I know by your eyes

                                    That you've seen whales in the bay--

                                    So filled with wonder!

 

                                            -- C.S. Cholas   March 31, 1984 
                                            Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico

 

Freelance Dancer at the Plaza Bar in Veracruz

Dressed in gaiety, eyes ecstatic and face aflame
in sullied pants and the shine of black skin,
a sun bleached playera and sandals with torn straps,
you seek a brief escape from a melancholy heart.

Here in the festive plaza filled with movement and music
tempered by the sporadic round of church bells
on the far side of the fountain where the faithful sit
on stone benches amongst lovers and the homeless.

You dance alone, your hips and arms move,
twirling a red pañuela above your head.  Alone,
your body mimics the Latin beat and marimba groove,
as patrons sit sipping fermented spirits in sedentary peace.

You dance alone, half man, half ghost, between the band
and the end of the universe beyond the outdoor bar.

This is your uninvited chance to fit in
for a passing song on a makeshift stage
to tell the loved and self-assured that you are here;
your loneliness disguised in the sway of marimba and drums.

Do you hope that the band will play forever
dreadful of the empty night that will lurk
later in the dark street waiting to rob you once again?

The Caribbean melody nears it final refrain.                                                                                        As church bells remind the fearful                                                                                                            not to forget that hell is near,                                                                                                                you, the solitary dancer, lose yourself, even as a clown,
in the syncopated rhythm of the tropical night,                                                                              your pañuela whirls to celebrate a moment of mad freedom                                                          as the patrons of the bar applaud the band.

      -- C.S. Cholas                                                                                                                                                               Veracruz, Mexico, 18 June, 1995

 

Presidio–Ojinaga International Bridge, February 1984 

I came from the southwest by bus
I came from Chihuahua in the winter cold,
I came to Ojinaga to look around
I carried a list of friends to find. I did not know them.
The list was from someone else I knew who tried to live here once.
I found no one on the list and headed for the bridge to Presidio.

The narrow lane between fences crosses the river.
On this side the river is called Rio Bravo.
Once across it becomes the Rio Grande.

On this border only cold winds or hot sun greet the crosser.
This is the rule here. Today it is cold winds.
In a few months it will be hot sun.
I stand for a moment in freedom
At the midpoint on the bridge.
I am in the neutral zone that the river is allowed to own.

The river below, which seems neither great nor brave,
Long ago wearied of such childishness.
It has its own life to live: a course it has to follow
With its own limits and secret places.

Strange, that without its consent,
This thin, ugly thread of brown water
Should be used to divide so many lives
And test them in ways capricious and unfair.

         C. S. Cholas, February 1984

Meeting Monita Ben Jorkan by Chris Cholas

In the spring of 2018 a notice from the National Baha’i Center came to the Baha’is on the Big Island that a believer from the Marshall Islands had moved to the island and wanted to connect with Baha’is. We had her name, but unfortunately, the contact information that she had given to the National Baha’i Center didn’t work. We had little idea of where she might be on the Big Island. One option left was to search for her on Facebook, and there we found her Facebook page where we sent her a welcoming message. There was no reply for a while and then, suddently, a message showed up saying that she was sorry not to contact us earlier, but she very seldom was able to go where she could use the Internet. Via Facebook, Monita told us where she lived and that she had little contact by phone or the internet. She was living basically off the grid with family members in Oceanview. We arranged a date to visit her in Oceanview. My wife and I picked Kerry Pitcher up in Pahala and off we went to finally meet Monita. The directions to her home were vague and we ended up stopping at a realtor's office and asked where Marshallese families lived. Through the realtor we found a small settlement where a Marshallese family lived, but they didn’t seem to know her. One of the men directed us to another address where we found some of Monita's relatives, who told us that Monita lived up the road a short distance away. Kerry and Linda strolled up the road and a short while later returned with Monita. It was a very joyful meeting and we arranged to return soon. She was happy to know there was a Baha’i community in Ka’u. It was one of the best home visits we ever experienced.

On a subsequent visit, in addition to getting to spend time with Monita and her 4-year old son, Ben, we met some of her relatives. They greeted us with Allah'u'Abha even though they were not Baha'i's. She told us that she taught them to say the Greatest Name for protection. She had to go to Kona regularly to see her cardiac specialist. Her on-going health issues with her eyes and heart kept her from being as active in the Faith as she would have hoped. She wanted to take Book 3 and start a children’s class in Oceanview for some of the Marshallese children there.

Monita was a special believer, very dedicated to the Faith. She was a certified nurse and midwife. She was from Majuro and had been living in Washington State before moving to the Big Island. She moved to HOV on the Big Island to be with family and to teach them the Faith. She knew some wonderful Baha'i songs. Her parents were very active believers and her father, Ben, had served on the National Spiritual Assembly of the Marshall Islands. Both parents had passed away before Monita moved to Oceanview.

We are saddened to learn of her passing and offer our prayers for the progress of her soul in the next world, and for the care of her son who is now six years old.

Clouds and Blue Sky

29 March I venture out the motel door unsure if “the sight of desolation”, or “the evidences of prosperity” will greet me. I move into the sunlight feeling something great, maybe powerful, is about to happen: maybe Christ coming down in the clouds, only today there are no clouds in the physical sky, only blue heaven raining down. Perhaps the Biblical clouds exist only in the minds of men and veiling us from the Sun. We live in a world of metaphors that beg us to search for meaning.

The trees lining the property seem to celebrate the cleaner air, oblivious of any virus. But to be fair, it is the beginning of Spring when joy transcends shadows and storms bring promises of fertile days ahead? The air is still for now, yet swells with swirling anticipation. It is raining down heaven

Sojourn in Arizona 2020

24 March I saw on the news that some US government officials are suggesting reducing restrictions for the sake of the economy even if older Americans will be at greater risk of catching the COVID-19 virus. I had a flashing thought-- WOW with fewer elderly out and about, maybe that would mean no more problems finding a disability parking stall at the big box stores Hmm... then I remembered that I am over 65. OMG They were talking about me! 🤔🤓😞

25 March The afternoon deployments of Coca-Cola semis leave their distribution warehouse in the time of pandemic. I watch them pass from where I watch on the empty hotel parking lot; their long, red trucks as if they are reinforcements heading out to those on the front lines of the battlefields. A rare jet flies overhead, perhaps with few passengers, as the news says few are flying during the pandemic. And we too sit and wait for our chance to escape. We expected to be home a week ago. Life abruptly stopped. Yet time moves forward though much slower than yesterday which moved slower than the day before that and so on into the hurried past. Now we stretch with wonder; What was the rush all about?

28 March Taking my daily Vitamin D stroll outside our apartment door onto the empty parking lot, I feel a surge of loneliness looking across the barren pavement. It conjures up a ghostly feeling, enhanced by the eerie hum of a gentle breeze whispering in my ears, "We warned you that this would happen, but you weren't listening."

Feb 12, 2020: Thinking how important it is to appreciate the Day we live in, the richness of each day in whatever circumstances around us and within us. If the day is dedicated to service and longing to be free of self, the heart is full with bountiful grain. Thinking back on the many bus rides I was privileged to take from Corozal Town to Belize City during our seven pioneering years in that country. Often while seated on a Bluebird bus with its creaking gears and diesel smell, sometimes riding in stifling humidity on a chosen bus whose windows were stuck closed, or the opposite--riding on a damp night in a rainstorm on a bus whose windows wouldn’t completely close, often a surge of joy would pass through my body in the realization of how fortunate to be on such a weary bus passing by cane fields and making stops along the way in villages such as Ranchito, San Joaquin, Sand Hill and Ladyville. This surge, which occurred almost anytime I traveled in Belize for the Faith, came with a strong feeling of thankfulness of being “allowed” to be a pioneer in Belize, even though I sensed that my shortcomings were engraved across my face.