Life's Rich Pageant - I

I was walking with my daughter down my little suburban town's little suburban main street, and we passed a coffee shop with a couple of tables outside on the sidewalk. At one of the tables sat two women, both of whom were nicely dressed, and for whatever reason had an air of "middle-class security" around them. As we walked past I overheard one of the women said to the other, "...and now I have to protect my daughter, 'cause he's beating the crap out of me, and I don't know what he'll do next..." By that point we'd walked passed and their conversation was drowned out by distance and traffic.

I hadn't tried to eavesdrop, but because she'd spoken in a matter-of-fact tone at a normal volume I couldn't help but hear her very clearly.

Last Friday, I walked up Eighth Avenue to Penn Station having just left a dinner with friends in Greenwich Village/Chelsea. The sidewalk was crowded, as it will be in that neighborhood on a Friday night, but then for a moment the crowd cleared and all I saw were two young people facing each other, a few feet apart, about fifteen feet in front of me. They were well-dressed, looking as if they'd just been at a party or a family dinner. As I got closer I realized that the young man was yelling - screaming, really - at the young woman, gesticulating in the air between them with his hands cupped and upturned, as if begging. Though I couldn't make out what he was saying, he was clearly very angry.

The young woman just stood there, staring at him, saying nothing; when I went to pass them by, I looked directly at her and saw that she was weeping uncontrollably. Her jaw hung slack and she seemed - well, she seemed "defeated." I'll never know what the young man was yelling about; but the young woman clearly sensed that she would never be able to make him understand...if she'd been trying to talk to him, to make him hear her side, by then she'd given up. The look on her face was one of utter loneliness and defeat.

Life's rich pageant plays on and on.

Absolute Zero

The coldest place in the universe
Isn’t a point of interstellar space
Just to the right of Antares.
It’s a physics lab in Helsinki, Finland

The electrons sit quietly
Indecisive and uncertain
Waiting to be observed
No motion, no spin, no interactions

No strong force, no weak
Gravity has no rainbow
No up, no down, no charm
The center holds, but only from ennui

Is the color of cold
A shade of deepest blue?
One of the hues of hydrogen?
Or simply the absence of red?

Reflecting Rolke's Prose/Stories of God

Reflecting Rilke’s Prose/Stories of God

First the old man says:
Finding no rest in their beds
The men come out into the night
To gaze wordlessly, agape
At the silent, windless heavens

And then the beardless youth goes on:
Until, in the rising sun
Figures of men can be seen
Silhouetted against the flat distance
Atop the ridges of the kurgans

When a weary mother adds:
Within the kurgans lay cold
The fathers of forgotten fathers
Buried deep in earthen mounds
That ripple on the steppe like waves

To which a strong man responds:
Sometimes birds fly among the mounds
And wild songs drop deep inside
Where graves are the mountains
And men are the abysses

Now the child speaks his part:
Even their houses can’t protect
Them against the limitless steppe
For the dusty windows admit
The glaring light of eternity

A young maiden has this answer:
Only the icons succor them, as
Mileposts on the road to God
Glinting with flecks of gold they
Show His lost children the way

Based on a translation by M. D. Herter Norton

100 words on the subject of: quiet

The house was so quiet I could hear mice skittering in the attic three floors above me. I listened to them running willy-nilly and wondered if they were playing; I’ve always imagined that animals focus pretty much on their own survival – play seems like a luxury.

But in that nearly silent moment I suddenly understood that play is much more than a human diversion. It’s a genetic condition, evolution requires it. Those mice gamboling happily above me would die without their play, I was sure of that. Perhaps they’d have no reason to be born, if not to play quietly.

Lost on the sea of regret

I always thought you were far too pretty for me to ever dream about asking you out to a movie or into my bed or over and over, to the opening chords, again and again.

But I do know a lot of things, like how many feet there are in a mile, and how fast light travels, and what it sounds like when a broken heart hits the floor, scattering.

So I wonder and wonder, and sometimes I just can't breathe from the longing and the hopes and the dreams and devilish schemes that live here inside me.

But I did know instinctively howwhenwhere at the darkening moment when words have no meaning, to touch you, and I know how it feels to fall deeply in love, but to find out that I’m there an hour too late; but then not to know I’m too late until morning.

And I think I know a good song when I hear it, but I just never know quite what it’s about.

And I never know when to say when; or when to keep going but I do know that all will be well if I can.

And I know not to ask why, though why I’m not sure.

But IdocareIdo because caring and burning with fervent desire is feeling a little like living and dying, and dying of hope in the moment that’s fading away.

New Houses

The sun is setting as I roll down the narrow state highway. I’m pushing 80,000 pounds of semi- rig pretty hard and where there are houses or stores the view opens up a bit; but stores and houses mean traffic, so I try to keep my eyes on the road in those stretches. The sun’s low on the horizon and it can blind you. People zip out of side streets - you can’t always see them. Dusk’s a hard time to see when you’re driving.

I coast a bit. There’s a traffic light up ahead, so I let the clutch out all the way and slow down, joining the line of cars.

The light changes to green and I jog over to the right, bypassing the cars in the turning lane. The guy in front of me makes to turn right, and I roll past him. Past the intersection, the view opens up in all directions. I glance to the right and the setting sun blinds me just a little; I look forward again and I see clear road ahead, so I give it some throttle. You know, to pick up speed.

Looking out the side window again I see a bunch of new houses going up in an old field. Some of them are just frames, but others are finished and have a car or two in the driveway.

A lot of people get mad seeing old farms torn up for new houses, but its like arguing about the weather – nothing you’re gonna do. Times change, and people want nice big houses. Helps them feel safe, I guess. What do I know? I drive a long-line delivery route 325 days a year, always have. I spend my nights in an apartment I shared with my dad, or curled up in the back of my cab.

Maybe nice families need big houses like this.

The orange sun on the horizon is mostly hidden by the square blocks of the houses, but as I roll along, the windows of this one house line up just right so I can see right through the house. Window after window flickers with sun, like its on fire.

Through one window, though...I only have a split-second look, but I am pretty sure I see the shape of a woman...and she’s holding a baby.

I wonder if she is excited, looking out, thinking about the grass in the spring. Sure, who wouldn’t? I bet she’s thinking of the trees, and flowers, too, and all of the other growing things. Maybe she’s wondering if there will be kids to play with, or neighbors to share the mornings?

Who knows what nice things a woman will want when she’s got a big sunny house? I bet that house will make her happy.

Then she’s gone. The dark blocks of the houses hide the sun again. I turn to the road ahead and shift gears, giving her throttle. You know, to pick up some speed.

It's January, and I'm so cold

I sit in a parking lot, afraid
Losing this morning's hope
I know you weren’t ready to
Begin this new love affair

I read the poems you wrote me
Regretting the intemperate promise
I made to leave you alone
A promise I always meant to keep

I ask if I might sleep with you again
And openly admit my self-deception
You don’t believe a word I say
I tell you again that I love you

“I’ll make you leave,” you say
You’re angry because I disagreed
And you think I don't take you seriously
Because I’ve ignored your ardent advice

“Why did we start this, Mary?”
These things become so complex
It is all so confusing to me
Even the most important details

“Remember the starling,” you ask?
“That died on my front porch
The day we first made love?
That and sex are all I have to offer you.”