There are no days of the week, no time to be somewhere,
just waking with the sun, and long invigorating walks.
At home I make jewelry, clear out the jungle, wash
windows, and let the days drift.

Talks with Alcir are sporadic… time zones collapse time into
different worlds… he’s not home when I call, or he’s sleeping
and doesn’t want to talk, or he forgets my number, and calls
my daughter when he’s drunk…
…and she’s getting annoyed with his ramblings.

Sometimes he thinks he’s called me, but he never did…
and I wonder who he did call, because there was no message.

It’s all in a fog, but as usual, just when I drift away, he
comes back with clarity, telling me his deeply amusing
stories, or reminding me of his real self.

His experiences pile up with pain and disillusionment…
His grandfather gave him a house on the coast.
While he was gone, his father took it and sold it.

Another time he gave $30,000 cash to his uncle for
a house in Ibicui….that idyllic place we want to live…
He never got the deed, and now his uncle is selling it again…

Again and again, the knife in the back.  Since he was small,
the public beatings, and humiliations before his extended
family have created such isolation for him, such mistrust
in someone so naturally trusting…. and such disrespect
from the relatives, who used him as the scapegoat of the family.

There was/is  deep inside of him, this pure childlike trust…
a clear sense of what’s right and wrong… a fury at the travesty,
at the viciousness of humanity.
He sees things in such clear terms, as a child…or an indian…
might see them.

He truly doesn’t understand how people behave the way
they do, how anyone can be so untrue to the most basic
elements of kindness and justice.

“When I see stories of slaves being beaten, I think …
…This is nothing.  This is what I go through all my life.
Til one day I stood up and said…. NO MORE !
If you touch me one more time, I will break your neck…
I was 14…. and they never touch me again.

“Beating a slave is one thing… beating someone you
don’t know, who you have no feelings for…
But to beat your own flesh and blood……”
…and he sadly let the memories drift away…

And now, although some of that pure knowing remains
deep inside, he is an island unto himself.

Being one he trusts is an honor and a deep commitment.
I do my best to be clear and true, to remind him of who he
really is inside, beyond the distortion of carnival mirrors
shown to him as a youth, those wavy, untrue reflections.

“The first time I laid eyes …and lips… on you.. oh good lord…
how you changed my life.  I tasted what could be…”
…he told me once again, this time with different words.
“I want to remake myself with what’s inside of you”

I hoped that this desire for rebirthing was true.
And I hoped I could live up to his vision.

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