Carly Anderson

1 December 2009
Cabrillo College, Aptos, CA
Author Darryl Babe Wilson Speaks

“Every time I come here, it’s a full moon. I don’t know how that works.” Darryl Babe Wilson, author of the book The Morning the Sun Went Down, among others, is seated calmly in front of a packed fluorescent-tinted classroom with many eyes peering at him, willing him to speak again. What comes next? His appearance is a study in experience; short wiry black hair, touched with grey like an aged Scottish terrier and silver above the ears. His eyebrows are a curious mix of silver and black, tapering into thin creases on the end of his eyes. His eyes are unavoidable, though they gaze mostly to the right side of the classroom where I am sitting slightly towards his gaze. From this vantage point, his cheekbones cut an angle sharp enough to almost pierce the leathered skin that protects them. Despite the constant inflation and deflation of dialysis, a strong octagonal-shaped chin remains. It is emphasized by the evenness of color: a perfect shade of lightly roasted coffee, in a glass, with the sun shining through it. “Good evening, everybody.” There is a murmured reply, to which he replies with humor, “Louder, please.” He begins to speak and takes his glasses off and the gaze lands upon me, as compelling as if a half-moon in eclipse could gaze; its surrounding sky a subtle, quiet white. His conversation is punctuated with singing phrases that recall the highly quotable lines of his writing. In regard to the Universe, Wilson says, “If we get to be friends with it, it’ll talk with us.” The simplicity of his words but their expansive meaning leaves me in wonder. He deals with the confusion of scientific progress and Native American religion as simply as he deals with the Universe: “I looked science in the eye. I looked science in the heart. I looked at science in a dream. And I realized science does not have all the answers to any thing, at any time.” Strange silence follows, but it is a meditative silence. Eventually somebody asks the question that seems always in the back of our society’s collective mind: what will we do about the destruction of our earth? Wilson takes his time to think, and says, “Ancient wisdom says the Universe loves the voice of children. The Universe loves the sound of children singing, talking, playing. The children have a song in their heart. Take the children to the mountaintop. Sing with those children a love song with the mother Earth. The Universe will hear the children. The bad, the ugly, the sickness will go away. The power of the Universe will cleanse the earth again.” The flat light of the classroom throws a shadow on his face where none of the flatness remains. Instead, the light throws sfumato arrows of shadow under his cheekbones that point upwards towards his eyes. He speaks with a confidence that surprises me; his voice is louder than expected. There is an inscrutable note, a warble, as if any moment he may cry, or laugh. He looks around at the pensive faces, and advises us to “have coffee, and cry” and laughs.

{Piece by Carly Anderson}