girl dreaming on a river of blood

Here’s a clue… somewhere in Dupont Circle:

You can find her sleeping on a river of blood,
Dreaming perchance of the coming flood.

If indeed you spy her, do let me know,
And I’ll invite you to the everlasting show.

-I

-IAT

Fortenbraw dost hein fergose nacht sheol tolk

Feign trauph naught lei nein solken begat

Keindlerlorgin sluetmein Hanz

Eerinin roltan lei

Nein kloften braw.

Hein sholt regatin,

Bewolfen tau

Freulin tau

Lein hail martem begatts woben gtotten frau

Deargodbekindandhavemercyupontheirsouls.

Thine path hast beneath his mercy trotten

Kindred folk come hither and join

As cavalry of knights

March to battle’s fury

Andinhonorandglorypraisehisname

For ‘tis such… quel est votre dernier mot?

Il est juste la mercen kroften

Il est le Waheb-el-Hemat

Il est…

Il

I

My father was dying…
He had returned after twenty-five years from Japan, to die at home.
On his deathbed he had one request from me:
“Be gentle with my friend in Tokyo…,” as he scribbled her name with teary eyes.

I hadn’t heard about this friend previously.
In fact I had not heard much about my father’s life while growing up.
I grew up imagining the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, separating me from my father.
I grew up learning the meaning of infinite void while I searched for a father’s love…

After his death,
I took the scribbled name he had written with his trembling hands,
And resolved to find her.
I flew to Tokyo.

Upon arrival at Narita Airport I found myself in a sea of Kanji and Hiragana
And quickly learned to swim to a hidden out-of-the-way rinjin.
There, I found a weathered wooden gate wounding a white-washed wall,
And rang the doorbell.

4:00 PM, no one was home, I thought, and was about to leave
When I heard wooden clogs shuffle along hard pavement behind the door.
My breath caught. I stopped, and turned back around,
And stared at the door with all my strength.

The door opened with a soft wooden whisper,
And revealed a beautiful woman with onyx eyes and graying hair.
She looked at me bewildered, not a word passing her lips,
And collapsed in my arms.

We spent the days visiting tea houses,
And looking at ancient koi,
And watching raindrops splatter on lotus leaves,
Until it was time to leave.

“Here, all this is yours.  Take it all, I have no need for anything,” she said.
I asked her to take me to his den library.
It was a room lined with books from floor to ceiling, lit by a bank of north light.
The room smelled of moths and even older thoughts eating the Turkish rug.

One book struck me the most…
It was by a man named Vladimir Nabokov,
Speak, Memory.
And it was the only possession of my father I brought back with me.

That evening I left her with her graying memories.
Upon our farewell she took the train back from Narita,
And I flew to San Francisco,
Over the Pacific Ocean, even deeper than a child’s imagination.

Mid-flight, in the dim cabin light, with sleeping passengers all around me,
All of us hurtling forty thousand feet above a dark ocean,
I opened the book to chapter 2,
And learned about the color of letters…

-Iliad A. Terra

.

So I imagine I’m the sad little boy and you’re the flower…
Fascinated as I’m with your light… and you fascinated with me looking at you?

Or should I imagine that I’m blessed with your beauty and you have imprisoned me…

Or perhaps you are alone and so you’ve learned to shine so that you can see me see you…

Or maybe, just maybe, you’re a sad little flower, the last flower on earth.

Perhaps we go round each other, you and me, me and you…
With love so true the world is new…
Alas, were it so…
So I sing you these words so blue.

-Iliad