Possession

Portland, OR

“Break it in half it glows in the dark we’ll call it a mini-burrito am I right ladies?”

Glancing up from lunch I am relieved to see the babbling man is wearing ear buds.
Those crazy business folk! He must be on a conference call.

“So they don’t like pepperoni we’ll feed them eggs they have guns everybody likes eggs...”

Then I notice the headphone jack is dangling from the man’s shirt.
He isn’t plugged in to anything – that makes him just crazy! Dangerous!

Like any good citizen with something to lose, I pretend
nobody is gesticulating at my bench
and return to my jar of salad with renewed fascination.

-

In Njombe, the neighbor kid comes over often, but never needs entertaining.
Today he stares at my bookshelf.

“You have a shelf full of things.”

I admit yes, I can fill a whole shelf with my possessions:
books, art supplies, a battery for my solar panel...
but that really I have nothing compared to most people from my country
they can fill a whole house – several houses
even rent storage units
and hire trucks to take away the stuff they can’t fit in their houses!
...but when I run out of breath I realize how crazy I sound.

When Baba returns from town
he stops by to collect his son.
Never in a hurry, he stays for a moment to continue our discussion
he asks,

“where do the poor of America live?”

The answer I give him rolls off my tongue so smoothly
yet is so hard to swallow,

“wanalala barabarani”
they sleep in the streets.

He doesn’t understand at first – a nation of stargazers?
No, without money you don’t get a house in America.

-

After my lunchbreak, I walk two blocks
from the waterfront to the bike shop.

A woman has been pacing up and down the block since I opened this morning.
She is shouting about the government
and the sky and anger and fear and I can imagine
where stories of evil spirits inhabiting human bodies must have come from.
In a different time we might have called her possessed,
others would call her a conduit to the spirit world,
now we call her mentally ill.

A tourist stops by to ask for directions to the donut shop
famous for selling pastries in whimsical shapes and flavors.
She asks if there’s a way to avoid
“those people.”

The more I think about it the more it seems impossible
there is no way. Not in a city
growing dark in the shade of new luxury condo high rises.

A man in a grey suit walks past the window,
looking for all the world to be talking to himself
if not for the headset blinking in his ear.
I start to wonder,

who is possessed?
Who belongs and who is owned?
The homeless woman,
overflowing with all the pain she sees in this world?
Or the businessman,
bargaining for more in a world with too much?

Frederick Livingston plants seeds: grounded in regenerative agriculture and experiential education. He hopes to grow community, peace, avocados and mangoes.