Frodo and Samwise

The ring is very heavy, Mr. Gamgee. I will throw it in the pit. Look at the elves, Mr. Frodo. They know the way. I was given this quest, dearest Samwise. To destroy this evil ring forever. I have seen the Eye, Sam. It is very scary. It can see into my heart, but I can see into it’s emptiness as well. Well, Mr. Frodo, in ages to come, a strange guy named Tolkien will tell our tale to a bunch of people who forgot about the war of the ring and the beauty of the elves. Yes, Sam. It is very sad. They will have forgotten all about magic, and about how powerfully GOOD it is, in fact they will start to call it evil. That is indeed their loss, Mr. Frodo.

They have all forgotten about the good Shire. Jolly old hobbits, prancing about and drinking that wine. They have forgotten how to dance. They do not listen to Gandalf the White. He goes by many names, of course, like Gandhi, Mother Earth, The Great Spirit, Yahweh. He is in the heart of all little hobbits, playing games in their hobbit homes and giving people all the presents in the world. They have forgotten what it really means to laugh, to pick the mushrooms from the farm. Dearest Sam, we have saved the Shire for them. Why do they not return to who they used to be? I sailed away to the West with the elves, Sam, but I did not want to fall out of love with your beauty. It is your turn to love Rosie Cottontail.

Women can be prophets too, of course, although before the ring we did not speak with words like that. We had many years playing in the fields and gardening and attending parties, and then we had the adventure that was given to us. Going to Rivendell, befriending Gollum, destroying the ring. It was a great adventure, my Sam. It was ours, and I love you. I often still hurt from where the black riders stabbed me. The pain is dull but ever present. It, too, is a great present, Samwise. Yes, yes, that is it, it is a present. It is wisdom. Though it is disguised as pain, as bitterness, as suffering, it is a great present. It is such a joy to unwrap, Samwise. It is wisdom itself.

Do you still tell stories? Do you still laugh in the garden and water the flowers? Do you spy on the hobbits that are talking to Gandalf. It is all in good heart, Sam. I am thankful you went with me all the way to Mordor and back.

And to the subject of magic. I am with the elves now and I am immortal. In today's world so many people are stoic and magicless. Many of them see it as a great evil. Magic itself is not evil. It is like a knife, a tool; it can be used to hurt someone, or it can be used to heal someone, to bless someone. Witches were put on this earth to seek wisdom, listen to the Earth, and cultivate the flowers of the lands. They were put here to use their power to make things right in the world again. Their quest is much like the quest to throw the one ring into the pits of Mordor, if this strange new world's churches, mosques and temples will let them. It is such like the ring, dearest Samwise: "Keep it secret, keep it safe." Because many men would choose to condemn them, to call them wicked when what they are is wise, to call them devils when they are more like angels. Not quite angels, something different, something a lot like the hobbits of our time in the Shire.

I talk to Arwen all the time. She has told me many times that she has wished to make Aragorn immortal. And they would have their dance, after their time ruling the worlds of Gondor. It is all very special, Samwise. I will tell you more of it another day. Let us be happy that that old ring of Bilbo's isn't there anymore. There are other beasts, other monsters, other devils than Sauron. Some of them are worse, let us be lucky that they mostly let us be, leave us alone. Just as we tossed the ring into the pit of Mordor, I think we could banish them if it came to that.

So keep in touch, Samwise. You are still the best gardener there is. Isn't Jesus a gardener, taking care of the blooming flowers, making sure those quiet flowers just soak in that sunshine? They do not labor or strain. They have not a worry. The best flowers are just that. Not a worry. Not a word to the elf, like the dwarf said. I am so thankful that you were my gardener and guide.

I can smell the past, a poem of times before

 I could smell the past on the wind at the bus stop, the way that cigarette smoke landed on the asphalt like ashes of my time at the Occupy Pittsburg movement.

I could smell the past, like I was back in my tent, waking up. I walked past the busy people and floated back to a different time. A time elegant and different, where a beautiful boy told me to stop and smell the roses, as an afterthought.

He was a beautiful man with long, dark hair and a mischievous grin. I smoked weed with him under a bridge. We listened to a mom and her child bicker in their tent somewhere to the side. They were just lying there, with their eyes bright. They were who they really were, before society told them to be something else. Genuine living was obsolete, even then, as our ashes fell to the ground and the man told me about his dream to have his own spaceship, and fly to outer space. As if there, in outer space, the things that tormented him would fall away.

I could smell the past as I walked through Shady Grove station. All of the busy people, their different stories woven into the tapestry woven by God. I was high on the buzz of doing good in my language classes and I went back to a place where I was a different girl, new to activism. I loved the taste of coffee. I loved the frigid air and the electric blankets that kept me warm when I slept outside in Pittsburg winters, even though I did not have to.

The beautiful man was my first love. He taught me to live in my pain. As I walked to the bus stop, I sat by a lady wearing a bonnet and a warm winter coat. I wondered what her story was. She was looking at her phone, busy like a bee wandering around a strange forest.

And the ashes fell, and landed where they may. There was a red fire warming me up. I could remember echoes of an old dream, to become a shaman and to walk through this world with honor and hope. I was to be a steward of an old man’s dream. I could only hope to walk, my heart wide open for the Great Spirit, hoping He - She, Them, in whatever form They may grace us with - would pick me, shine Their Great Light upon me.

Pick me, I screamed. Pick me for a great journey, to travel under a star-lit sky. I would go somewhere else, that was for certain. And one day in the future, I would smell today.