Panhandling

The stoplight at City Hall,

mere steps from the river,

repeats,

every hundred and twenty seconds,

that the walk sign is on to cross 6^th Street,

walk sign is on.

Leonard Cohen sang these words,

did you ever go clear?

T. S. Elliot wrote

that in the room the women come and go

talking of Michelangelo.

Wendell Berry wrote,

in black ink,

on a postcard I have stuck in a book that he wrote,

that to do all he can to keep his money out of corporate pockets is one of his amusements.

Mike Brennan asked,

Does it hurt to think?

Annie Dillard wrote,

among many fine words,

that the world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand.

David Orr wrote,

speaking about poetry,

that out of such small, unnecessary devotions is the abundance of our lives sometimes made evident.

It is recorded in the gospels,

and I have no reason to doubt it,

that Jesus wept.

Mark Jost responded,

if not exactly to the question,

What is truth?

with where are my pants?

There are many words that I recall from time to time.

They are lodged in my mind.

I walk to the river

to attune my mind

to what matters

to me.

I ascribe meaning

to what I see.

It is an exercise.

Every 24 hours, or so,

I am on the Kaw River Bridge,

looking at the sky reflected in the water.

Sometimes I fail to notice what I see.

Sometimes it appears that the sky is reflected in the water.

If I see you there,

I might ask you what you see,

and what you think it means.

Your answer will be important to me

in that moment,

but of all the things that I have seen,

and among all the words that I have heard,

and, yes, all the phrases that I have read,

my mind has chosen and not chosen

to remember but a small fraction.

I walk to the river to attune my mind,

to learn to see

and to remember what matters to me

so that when you ask me what is on my mind,

I can speak clearly,

and perhaps my words will ring in your mind

like an coin in a beggar’s cup.