JUNO AND AVOS

JUNO AND AVOS

The labor of love begins in the mind
works its way down into the body—
hollows imperfect architectural notions —
the way a termite hungers for wood.
At Goat Rock, or Slavic Gate,
I turn and speak to my Russian friend
in the few nouns I know.
Called home by the tzar in 1806,
Count Rezanov must have felt this hollowness
as he gazed upon his betrothed,
the Presidio Commander's young daughter,
ConcepcÌon de la Maria — or Conchita, as he called her—
before he set sail on the Juno that summer.
To love was to commit treason against church and state —
But by taking a wife, he could take a country too.
Besides having to woo the Tzar, the Patriarch,
and the Vatican, the King of Spain also had to give consent.
Teaching Conchita her first foreign words,
We must have faith, he said. Mea maxima culpa, she replied.
Did Rezanov and his secret bride pantomime desire
and willingness to wait in their own languages,
each hoping the other would understand?
Adios — go with God, she whispered to the wind.

That same Fort Ross bell still tolls for love:
I am the music of the field, what do you want of me?
Under the Russian-American Company flag,
the Leningrad Rok-Opera renders their love story
into Juno & Avos.                 We celebrate
the end of the August putsch and the 250th anniversary
of the Bering — Chirikov discovery voyage to America
by feasting most sumptuously on salmon, caviar, and borscht.
We raise a bilingual toast to peace, friendship,
and to the offshore flotilla anchored in the bay —
the frigate Pallada harvests only the wind in her sails.
Peter the Great must've dreamed of a moment such as this.
The end of summer, the square-rigger,
To the Pomo, the tall ships were exquisite winged gods
rising from the belly of the sea. Tabula Rasa. New lands.
After 150 years, the otter is making a slow comeback
from the brink of extinction, no more fur-traders left in the new world,
and freedom has resurrected Leningrad
once again into Petrograd. Peter's city.

The Russian singer calls me his Conchita,
naming himself as Rezanov.
The night is empty, cold ikonii.
No one told her Rezanov, weakened by illness,
was killed by a fall from a horse in Siberia,
and she waited 10 years for his return
before defecting to the veils of God —
as California's first nun.
No one can tell me the dark secrets
gnawing at the singer
who falls to his knees, and blesses me
on this feast day of the three Maries —
as if he were an apostle,
and I, a heathen in need of salvation.
He asks: Are we Romeo and Juliet? 
I shake my head: No, wrong metaphor —
Too seasoned a warrior to die for ideal love,
I keep an uneasy truce with religion.
As a child I was a cynic, I deliberately armed myself
by collecting small bright stones of venial sins,
insurance against conscription to Jehova's cloisters.
In as many days as it took to make the world,
he sings arias to me, Ave Maria, wooing me.
A chance meeting: have I fallen in love with the art,
mistaking it for the man?
But maybe there's no other way out,
maybe this is a natural reaction to so many years of denial.
Avos. Perchance by sleeping with the enemy,
we find we are one people after all.
On our final journey back to the ship's berth,
his first sentence in English: Marina, I want…kiss you, 
I nearly drove off the road,
last night's horses dreamed us into being,
having no common tongue.
Pointing at the dictionary, he gestures,
dumb and mute, I nod, yes. I understand.
He shows me the words serious and tenderness,
pointing to his heart.  What do you want?
I confuse the Russian word soul for rain,
and answer, No, the stars are shining.

At a friend's trailer, we sang
until darkness melded us to the redwoods,
Venus burned, we broke apart a sand dollar,
freeing the five small white doves inside.
Rick said: It's a gesture of peace 
to each take a dove upon parting.
Los aves, I say in Spanish. The Cold War is over.
Handing me a half a loaf of Russian bread,
and blowing me kisses, the singer asks
when I'll come to him in Leningrad.
I answer, In the night wind instead of In spring.
Our final kisses through the porthole need no translation
as the Akademik Shirshov shudders away from the dock.
A modern-day Conchita,
I race the ship to the Golden Gate Headlands
and wave my impromptu flag — red pants —
feeling as she must have so many years ago,
with her snowy petiticoats held aloft to the wind.
The vessel returns my salute with two blasts of her horn;
a white ship brilliant as an idea merges with the fog,
returning home to an uncertain future,
towards the westering sun to Vladivostok and Siberia.
Hammer and Sickle. What dawning country awaits?
The paradox of sailing west only to arrive in the east,
thus losing the day already gained,
is no less strange than this love.
I am hollow sacrament,
the chambers of my body,
riddled with light.

Labor Day 1992
Marin Headlands
1993 Maverick