before you leave the country

on a risky mission
give to every beggar on the street
drop three quarters in the bent paper cup
of the young black sidewalk sorcerer
who says check your itinerary
make sure you have enough resources
know the break point when to cut and run
and the safe place to breathe while you can

go where they sell gargoyles
to buy protection and of course
when you ask for the fierce one Michael
there he is hanging on a chaplet
of snowflake obsidian beads nine times three
red-haired ChloÎ understands when
you can't tell her why you need him
she'll light candles while you're gone

obey your travel agent wear dark clothes
buy the smallest flashlight you can find
quiet shoes with good traction tin of polish
for your face don't worry about credit cards
they won't question the shopkeepers
who can't give away anything anyway
because you don't know yet yourself
what happens in the next act

what you do know
makes your life a performance
don't pack any prop that might cause
the slightest hesitation when
in some open field you have to drop it
and leave it lie in wet grass

Jody Aliesan

aliesan@telus.net

Jody Aliesan (Al-ee-es-ahn) lived in four corners of the continental U.S. before leaving for Canada in July of 2004. Born on the great plains, she moved through Occidental College (B.A.) in California and Brandeis University (M.A.) in Massachusetts until events in the world changed her life. The year Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered she was teaching in Birmingham, Alabama and afterwards worked as media representative with the Vietnam Moratorium Committee in Washington D.C. and Chicago. After moving to the Pacific Northwest in 1970 she was deeply involved in the early second wave of feminism, and continues to work against war and for social and environmental justice.

Aliesan's poems, stories, articles, essays and reviews have found their ways into national periodicals and anthologies, earning grants and awards including a literary fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She serves as contributing editor for The Raven Chronicles. Her dayjobs have included shifts as an editor, press representative, researcher, co-director of a women's center, street singer, produce worker and packager in a food co-op, manager of a conservation education program, environmental columnist, coordinator of a Braille project, substitute postmaster, farmworker, office worker, teacher and director of a non-profit land trust saving farmland from development. She lives in Vancouver, BC.

---

Books

True North/Nord Vrai
(Blue Begonia Press, 2007)
Loving in Time of War
(Blue Begonia Press, 1999)
Grief Sweat (Broken Moon Press, 1991)
Desire (Empty Bowl Press, 1985)
as if it will matter (The Seal Press, 1978)
Soul Claiming (Mulch Press, 1975)

Chapbooks

Desperate for a Clearing
(Gray Spider Press, 1998)
States of Grace (Gray Spider Press, 1992)
Doing Least Harm
(Brooding Heron Press, 1985)
To Set Free (Second Moon Press, 1972)
Thunder in the Sun (University YWCA, 1971)

Recordings

Selections from Grief Sweat
(Broken Moon Press, 1993)
You'll Be Hearing More From Me
(Second Moon Music, 1972)