“Eshu Is That You” by Jeremy Jacob Peretz

 

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Eshu Is That You
after Dafa Ifa, February 2015

Eshu is that you

Who foils plans just to improve them
Or just to change things up?

Is it you who lurks in the shadowy depths
In the creaks and crevices and in the open fields leading to the bush?

Is that you over there plotting and planning, enticing
Scheming to manipulate fates? or

just haphazardly going about your business, as if
no pre-thought were involved at all – just by chance things seem to fall into place?

Does Newtonian gravity control things as they fall into that place, or
is it you Eshu,

with meticulous moves shifting positions that seem positively pre-plotted, but
at the same time unfold random as a shot in the dark

Missing its target – but better – hitting its missed mark
with an accuracy only you Eshu could imagine, an imagination

imagine that
What’s right is wrong and wrong is right, but

not that simple of course,
you are a complexity of oxymoronics,
conundrums and dilemmas, proverbs and puzzles, preposterous

it means coming before after-ness, you say
Foolishness, stupidness, brilliant confusion, that

makes complete sense, although
professional deciphering is necessary
through that hermeneut – divine seer – counterpart to you

who can steal us a glimpse into our own paths to betterment, unknowingly self-chosen
the channels we can pursue for the changes we want in life

Right?

Are you the only one to see the changes we take ourselves through?
I know you can answer my questions, or

better – direct me to who really can, messenger, courier, director of favors and voice for on high
I know you’re there with me in my going out and my coming in, and

I know it’s up to me to offer you what’s yours
To share to care to be fair

I know if not you’ll take it anyway – rightfully so, and
so much is to be gained
all everything

everything one’s wanted for oneself forever, and more
through the boundless bounty of energy bestowed, afterall

without you what would happen?

Stagnation? Will all will stop? Just remain as is?
Status quo without the creative shock electrifying a juice in

the movers the doers the shakers and risk-takers, baby-makers?
You’re young you’re old, cock so long it wraps your head like a turban, and

milk-filled breasts – or utters – as they sway, then with you

Never nothing to change it up?

No broom no duster, to
stir up that air that’s been sitting there stinking up the whole place? (Eshu did you fart?)

No, I know you’re too ingenuitive too curious too motivated too lazy to not be around long,
you always have ways, you can always slip, in and out, here and there, please
don’t leave us, we

can always offer and we always must we always should, we need to
we need we need help we need your help, Eshu

Hear our call hear our praise receive our sacrifice, lead us along
that bridge connecting no-where to no-here, give power to make-do

we’ll heed your whistling tune, and follow your indecipherable tracks

Just keep turning the pot, don’t let the thickness of our lives burn-up
and stick too much to the bottom, please

And mind not to just be clumsy and kick over the pot.

Jeremy Jacob Peretz is a Doctoral Candidate in Culture and Performance in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance at UCLA.