Gamla Laugin
This towel is snow-bleached cotton,
so industrial, pristine.
I untuck its edge and let it fall.
It crumples in a rippled heap along the unstained surface
of the yellow plywood bench that is
almost as pale as my near-naked shivering body.
I stand here with the other new things, staring
at the three-foot-hundred-thousand-year distance between
us and the hot spring, feeling so akin to all
this profane audacious youngness. But feeling as well
a knowledge old as ages, wisdom of the organism that I am, quietly speaking
to itself, raising its walls against cold air.
I know the words to tell the story of
these shifts in me, the science and the love song
of erector pili raising little spears of hair
on goosebumps hills, and skeletal muscle
tightening and setting off the shivering
that should generate more heat,
and vascular smooth muscle
locking dams in place and shunting crimson blood and heat
back to my core, and generator heart sensing
the change in pressure, temperature,
and soon in cortisol.
She's more than pump and regulator - she's a maestro, my mighty heart.
She reads four languages at least, and compensates for all the organs
that depend on her, and yet
science and culture call her mindless,
praise the frontal lobe instead - though it's
illiterate in contrast. It can trigger, alter, speak over
the messages of body, but can't read them for itself - only electrical translations.
Heart knows the deeper levels of this organism I am,
but she holds guarded what she knows. Beneath her constant faithful beating,
she keeps her secrets silent, hidden.
The water ripples. Gossamer sheets of steam
drift softly from its murky surface to the sky,
as though Gamla Laugin laughs at gravity
and suspends her veil from down to up.
I pad across the new concrete to ancient stones
that line the pool, and down the smooth, irregular steps
they form to meet the lagoon. Then I slip - toe foot calf thigh waist breast arms - into the pool
and feel all these defenses dropping -
skin blood vessels skeleton heart mind - relaxing,
feel the warmth flow through me,
feel something nameless inside me pulling, wanting to diffuse right back,
feel even the scantness of my swimsuit is too great a boundary
between myself and whatever is in this deep, deep, deep five feet of history,
feel the knowness and the science
and the audacious curious mind
of this bold brilliant blind organism I am
soften, melt, slip out of my pores and from
my fingertips outstretched, invisible trails through the opal water.
I feel tendrils, roots, unfurling
in places I don't understand, reaching
out to something unknown and familiar, like a language I've forgotten that I speak. My mind falls silent, but my heart
is beating louder than I've ever heard her,
and my mind joins in a throbbing fullness,
meeting the humming simmering power
of this water, mud, and air
with old kinship, ancient memory,
and the mysteries in me.
so industrial, pristine.
I untuck its edge and let it fall.
It crumples in a rippled heap along the unstained surface
of the yellow plywood bench that is
almost as pale as my near-naked shivering body.
I stand here with the other new things, staring
at the three-foot-hundred-thousand-year distance between
us and the hot spring, feeling so akin to all
this profane audacious youngness. But feeling as well
a knowledge old as ages, wisdom of the organism that I am, quietly speaking
to itself, raising its walls against cold air.
I know the words to tell the story of
these shifts in me, the science and the love song
of erector pili raising little spears of hair
on goosebumps hills, and skeletal muscle
tightening and setting off the shivering
that should generate more heat,
and vascular smooth muscle
locking dams in place and shunting crimson blood and heat
back to my core, and generator heart sensing
the change in pressure, temperature,
and soon in cortisol.
She's more than pump and regulator - she's a maestro, my mighty heart.
She reads four languages at least, and compensates for all the organs
that depend on her, and yet
science and culture call her mindless,
praise the frontal lobe instead - though it's
illiterate in contrast. It can trigger, alter, speak over
the messages of body, but can't read them for itself - only electrical translations.
Heart knows the deeper levels of this organism I am,
but she holds guarded what she knows. Beneath her constant faithful beating,
she keeps her secrets silent, hidden.
The water ripples. Gossamer sheets of steam
drift softly from its murky surface to the sky,
as though Gamla Laugin laughs at gravity
and suspends her veil from down to up.
I pad across the new concrete to ancient stones
that line the pool, and down the smooth, irregular steps
they form to meet the lagoon. Then I slip - toe foot calf thigh waist breast arms - into the pool
and feel all these defenses dropping -
skin blood vessels skeleton heart mind - relaxing,
feel the warmth flow through me,
feel something nameless inside me pulling, wanting to diffuse right back,
feel even the scantness of my swimsuit is too great a boundary
between myself and whatever is in this deep, deep, deep five feet of history,
feel the knowness and the science
and the audacious curious mind
of this bold brilliant blind organism I am
soften, melt, slip out of my pores and from
my fingertips outstretched, invisible trails through the opal water.
I feel tendrils, roots, unfurling
in places I don't understand, reaching
out to something unknown and familiar, like a language I've forgotten that I speak. My mind falls silent, but my heart
is beating louder than I've ever heard her,
and my mind joins in a throbbing fullness,
meeting the humming simmering power
of this water, mud, and air
with old kinship, ancient memory,
and the mysteries in me.
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