CANTO 57
Letter f/ Laura to Francesco In some ways I think that living here is a bit like being in a convent. The Inuit girls are
"protected" with strict rules, including no men in their wings-not even for a day visit. As a
resident advisor, I cannot have men over either. Some of the other RA's have lived here four years or
more and some are religious. Others are young things going to graduate school. Most are not celibate however; therefore the analogy is not strictly correct. The evening
security guard is a divinity student and studying to be a minister as well as a professor. This
place used to be a Catholic orphanage, and some vestiges of religious iconography can be
found. Not much about the building has been changed since the Indian School took it over 15
years ago. The Inuits are one of the indigenous groups of Indians in the Arctic. The names Eskimo and
Aliut refer to all the different sea mammal-hunting peoples in Arctic Alaska, and the Inuits of Arctic Canada & Greenland. We are up a hill in a very expensive, green neighborhood on a big piece of land, near some
large parks. The best part is the green and trees and birds, rabbits, even coyote, it is rumored. Letter f/ Francesco to Laura a lover's parallel with abelard & heloise comes to mind, with your living in a place "a bit like a
convent" and me continuing along my monk's path, and the narrative of old pet rock is thus
rejuvenated, and if i suffer, i am putting this to good use went to a wonderful house w/ bromige, owned by a landscape artist who has built a healing palace on joy road, which runs along the ridge between graton & occidental, a house w/ forty ft ceilings covered with arabic rugs of all sizes, woven between
1700 & 1850, the
cutoff point where non-traditional dyes were introduced, rugs from palaces & many prayer
rugs, and the host very knowledgeable, talked about the tree of life motif, which represents the
chakras and how prayer opens the crown chakra, as detailed in the rugs' designs our host is a body worker & he worked on bromige, who has been needing some healing energy, since he has been slow to recover
from his strokes, as well as being diabetic and physically inactive due to his infected foot while bromige was being realigned, i went for a walk through a terraced garden, laid out in eight levels representing the sufi heavens & it
was getting late & i knew
cecelia was expecting us for dinner She can get heated. Boy, can she get heated- she was heated that evening When we were late, 3 hours late We could have phoned But we got into those rugs, and Brian, he had his maniacal Agenda, and the other guy was into doing his bodywork & Mysticism, and the house was so big, it was easy to get lost If she had been there, she would understood how time disappeared At one point, I thought we were leaving but he said, "Oh, another half hour" So, I went to the garden, and it wasn't a half hour, it was another hour And I walked in the garden feeling suspicious, trying my utmost to believe Someone wanted to give all this energy & go on giving, long after you Didn't want them to, a feeling like being caught in a riptide. Love f/ Mister Sweet Lips Letter f/ Laura to Francesco I want to tell you that your kisses, before I left, tasted so sweet and good and surprised me with their intensity and ability to open
me up. But it also sounds like you are teasing me, signing your letter Mr. Sweet Lips, so I feel foolish
(but I guess I can take the teasing) and really it was your mouth that tasted sweet and maybe it
was just because of the Pepsi you drank, but maybe people either inherently taste sweet or
they don't. I enjoyed reading the first cantos although some of the references certainly were lost on me since I am not familiar with the work it is based on but would be
curious to read that original poem. Also I am curious about the story of Heloise and Abelard. But this I can probably find readily on my own or even imagine what it probably is, because
once you know the structure of these stories they tend to repeat themselves, and it is how they
are told that makes all the difference. XOXOXO Laura