Private Deixis

Private deixis

Ana Paula Arendt

I’m stretching my body

in yoga movements.

Suddenly, the verses stretch too,

reaching where they hit the most:

The inner ground

where all the poems

are already written.

So many people in the world

hide their deixis

beneath objective speech,

working desperately to conceal their own view

–outsourcing it to others to express it,

torn from their own voices…

Why do they escape from the

wonderful ground

on which they stand?

They were punished

when they expressed their inner being

and they never recovered from remaining attacked.

Never felt safe enough to argue.

Never allowed to stand for what they truly were.

Their ground became uncomfortable.

Then began the search for themselves

in whatever others signal as valuable.

Year after year

they forget to be and to long,

only to suddenly reveal

their repressed inner face—

 like water finding no channel—

when they are given power

or deprived of power.

I saw my friends

criticizing power

becoming abusive

when they were handed power.

I refused to play along with it —

ah, the terrible smell of it.

Blessed be the place of the fool

still finding no answer.

But there is something

taking place

before betraying oneself.

While nothing breaks the surface

and we are free to let ourselves be

inside our world made of soft petals, 

we hesitate,

we share, feeling for our own thought

like tides reading the moon

to find a common sound.

Thus we are kept from the hardness of a stone…

When we never forswear that need—

the right of the other to be other…

Until power becomes the answer.

Until power sets like poured concrete,

hardening, sealing the ground,

forbidding forgiveness, understanding, and compassion

from growing as the soft tendrils of the human mind…

Where have they gone—

 the minds rooted in the heart…?

Where have they gone,

those who would offer their seat

in search of the unknown?

Power…

The answer and the order

of those who renounced being.

Having cast off any fear of reproach

comes the permanent promise of ambition.

By hiding and destroying deixis

order expands,

order exceeds,

order insists—

until nothing checks it.

It moves on

as a repetition.

A practiced calm of certainty.

Some know nothing about order,

yet seek to proclaim that order.

If you saw the mask–

ah, the ugliness of it!

Next come those who hold power

and yet claim they are not responsible.

That is the plain contradiction

entailed by survival in power—

until prison, until war,

until all land, all memory, all words

are left behind.

When the fear of mistakes disappears,

power becomes duty,

duty becomes habit,

and habit no longer asks—

it simply goes on as an empty request.

Chamber of hollow return,

where echoes have no source,

where they no longer find themselves…

I watch people come and go

in search of themselves

stifling their selves

until they are lost… 

And I am not outside this.

Even here,

stretching toward a centre…

Part of me went with them.

And I watch for them.

Part of them lives in me

when I search for answers.

But let me be there

where I have always been:

reprehended until accepted.

The abusive tongue

and calculated lies—

they leave me unmoved.

Words need to be written.

Lies never add up.

I choose a position:

call it ground,

as if it were not already marked

by where I stand.

I stay where I am—

just here, around you:

where speech meets

the place of its thought,

and cannot quite separate.

And while we are friends,

may I always be honest with you:

power loses its bearing.

And so

I prefer to speak

only from myself.

But let me see the fortress of your being

covered in flowers, trees growing from crevices.

And let me learn from my findings—

the poetical justice.

Let me find all my junctures

inside truth…

Let me tell you about

this place where all poems are written,

where I know each person—

even in oblivion—

is one of a kind;

where I recognize each person,

where I have met them all before.

(From The Pink Book of Passion).

Many thanks to Murlee, Prandip and Amirtha for their friendship, company, pictures and classes of Tamil! 🤗. Many thanks to Miss Manpreet Tharya for her valuable comments .