inter alia

some months ago james ham and mary ham turned 21.

there was food, drink, gladness, and ping-pong. slacklining in light snow.

there may be more air when not in boulder.













again
dear, hello
whispers seized at the glottis—
violated lexicon in fragments of parchment
floating from the apostate tower.
we recovered what we could
(scraping through the ashes for little bits:
for arrowheads and carabiner shells,
laughing at puddles of glass
and the defiled illusions of book pages)
and these fragments are the outlines
of something warm and hidden
by ostentatious mendicants
entrusted with extrapolations of history
and rahab’s commission for national defense.

hello again,
dear
blue light and offsetting warmth
are the sky
and they are the earth;
they teach us about optics—
and about light of long wavelength
igniting desiccated foothills
and about light of short wavelength
so graciously inconvenienced
to set a melancholy mood.

dear,
again hello
in each hand an essential component—
one to direct those particulate waves,
the other simply to measure them—
and i have to choose which to move forward
and which backward
with no certainty
but that only a sliver could be clear
at any given moment.

a notion of insecurity

i didn’t know what to expect in Gulu—Gulu! Gulu—the site of documentaries and horror stories, atrocities and a seminary. Father Raphael lost friends to violence at the seminary.

we eased into town and visited alllll of the hotels. Gulu! where the hotels are nice and the foods are multicultural. Ethiopian food was sufficiently delicious at lunch—when i spilled coke all over the table while uttering ‘igziyabher yimmesgen’—that we returned for wine with dinner, and the consequent long walk across town in the chill night rain.

we sat on the balcony and watched folks pass in the july rain. Gulu was nice—it felt developed, safe, comfortable.







we went for walks in the south. ‘what building is that’—of the white edifice to our north. entebbe peninsula sunsets were approaching, but i had left my memory card back at the hotel. they chuckled nervously ‘we don’t say what building that is.’

we spoke of the state house, the relaxed home of yoweri museveni, president of uganda.

to the hotel to retrieve my memory card, and then back for another long walk. entebbe peninsula—a thoughtless spit of land ignored by lake victoria, never much more than a half-hearted punt from the water, home to so many historical dead ends. but try as we might, we couldn’t reach water ourselves. a parable—an allegory?

night came; cities at night are sadness. but we strolled past fishermen’s hovels toward the stench of the lake. twilight, and the stiff men in whom was conflict between mathematics and physiology untangled their nets after another long day on the lake. small waves towards my toes.





we ate chinese food amid the intermittent municipal electricity. rum and coke with the cheapest food on the menu. we were going home.



a pleasant
with gracious wariness
sideways glances
a smile (somewhere in there)
tell me subtly
unexpected.
perfected:
a notion of insecurity
persistent without cause.
stoics and epicureans meet
under that bridge
(i think it’s at 28th and baseline)
and look into each other’s eyes
(but only when the other isn’t looking).
no laughter, just chuckling
‘don’t condescend’
no sights, no sounds, no textures
just the keyboard, my couch;
it’s not the same,
ad hominem, ad mulierum
but i’d fake it
you realist.

as the romans

we were left a few miles from the small town of rom. ryan mccabe had agreed to give us a ride the rest of the way to kitgum, from where we would be able to catch reliable public transportation the rest of the way back to kampala.

we ate one last meal of posho and beans. i never adapted to a diet of posho and beans in 2009. i did adapt to a diet of posho and beans in 2012. the great upset of 2012 is that by the end of the trip, i preferred posho with my beans to rice. i didn't and don't know how that happened.

stephen and i hiked around the grounds a little. then we piled into ryan's truck. as we turned onto the main highway, he threw on some music. jónsi. my life was taking a turn for the better.















we were very graciously welcomed to a missionary compound just outside of kitgum. we went into town for indian food (at last! so delicious). the sun set; i lingered with a friendly dog on the outskirts of the compound.















the mccourtneys, one of the families that started the compound, have adopted ugandan children numbering in the double digits. they were some of the happiest, most well-mannered children i have encountered anywhere in the world. a family from america had sent a bunch of glow sticks for the children to play with, and i was able to shoot a little bit of the ensuing delight. we passed a little bit of the next morning playing with the kids and watching the butchering of a goat, and then caught a bus to gulu, where we would spend the next two nights.

we left karenga

my phone rang. 'you come to the convent. bring esteben.' we tossed the frisbee under the porch and climbed the small hill to the convent porch.

wobbly wooden tables; a few chairs. the sisters brought out a few bottles. one last evening wine at the convent.

the last few days in karenga were more productive than the entirety of the preceding two months. tolim akibap nabo, said countless men and women into stephen's recorder. komol was content to say baz, ezeruaze aago. nané ranuk.

some days, you just can't get any work done in karenga. on those days, you should play frisbee. if you do that, you'll be a lot more productive on the days when you could conceivably get work done.





some days, there's a rat in the bathroom, and stephen will kill it with a squeegie.



rain fell. plants were reflected out of my bedroom window. shoes were washed in impromptu fashion. nobody would play frisbee in it with me. portraits in diffuse, blue light.







we said goodbye. augustine took one last snort of my tobacco. komol stepped around the kitchen. father raphael drove us halfway to kitgum, where we would spend a day with ryan mccabe before traveling in his company the rest of the way to kitgum.







often wished there was a way
to restrain the things;
i say, i often wished there was a way
to restrain the things i say
like ‘stay—
stay, if only for today’
but there may not be
or have been
but i’ll stay—
i’ll stay, if only for today;
stay still, still stay—
stay for a moment
a passing gulp
of this mellifluent effluent
(i could never restrain it)
and i say—
i often wished there was a way
to restrain the things.
i say, i often wished there was a way
—as modeled by certain low spots—
to restrain the outflow,
(to be an effluvial plain.)
but they pass by;
no way to restrain the things:
i say, i often wished there was a way
to restrain the things
the things i say,
or the sundry things
effluents convey
(mellifluent effluents!
i hope again soon
you’ll pass my way.)