Thursday, March 29, 2012

Let me be clear


Let me be clear.

When I walk across the Kaw River Bridge
and look out at the sky reflecting off the water,
that is real.

And when I write about it,
that, too, is real -
the writing at my keyboard,
I mean.

And when you read about it
that is also real,
now three steps removed
from the first real.

And perhaps you will think about what I have written
when you are walking across the Kaw River Bridge.
Again, that will be real -
your walking,
and your thinking,
and the river.

But I should be precise.
These things were real,
or will be real, perhaps.

This real moment is
passing away.

These distinctions may not matter much to you.
It is only my observation
that while there is no shortage of reality around us,
we are often distracted from noticing those parts which matter to us,
and it is my contention that what is at hand and near to the present
matters more than we realize,
and we often fail to understand and appreciate why these things
and events
and people
should matter to us.

I don’t know if this will mean anything to you,
but Leonard Cohen sang these words,
some time ago:
did you ever go clear?

Today on my walk to the river
I dropped a golden dollar into Don Quixote’s metal cup
in exchange for a lesson he taught me some time ago.
The coin clanked against the bottom and spun,
according to the laws of physics,
catching a bit of the late afternoon sunlight,
before settling.

He thanked me.
I returned his expression of gratitude,
and I walked on and stood,
waiting at the corner,
for the light to go green.

I shall not attempt to explain all that I mean here,
but if you ask me, sometime,
I will try -
face to face,
in real time,
to be clear.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

A Band of Travelers


There’s a regular panhandler on Mass. Street I refer to as Don Quixote. He has long, shaggy hair and a reddish mustache and long beard. He wears a kind of leather armor on his forearms and lower legs – the leather pieces are laced on. He wears a chain-mail vest and a ragged leather skirt, and sometimes a black cape or poncho even in the summer. Sometimes in the winter he is hooded.

Of late he has been sitting in the doorway of the former Central Bank. He has strummed on a guitar in the past, but now he rings a tiny, tinkling bell. A royal purple cloth bowl sits at his feet.

A woman, also younger than me, often sits on the short curb by the parked cars and faces the bare wall of the Antique Mall. She plays the maracas. She has medium-length light brown hair - straight, flat - not lustrous, like on the TV commercials. She often wears very dark, wraparound sunglasses – even when it’s cloudy, and stares straight ahead, a tight, maybe-smile on her lips as she shakes her soft rhythm. There is a can for donations at her feet. When she takes a break, she often reads a book, although I’ve never noticed the titles. Never having been introduced, I think of her as Maraca Girl.

Maraca Girl and Don Quixote appear to be together, although they always work a block or two apart and not always on the same day and not every day. But I see them walking together on occasion, determined, rarely speaking, as if on a quest. Maraca Girl is several heads shorter than Don Quixote and usually leads the way.

I do not know what they think or why they live the lives they live. I do not wish to romanticize them in any way.

I have been gripped by visions of my own in the past, and except for several strokes of good fortune, I might well be part of their misfit band of travelers.

And I see others whom I do not fully understand, not on the streets of Lawrence, but on TV, microphones thrust in their faces for their comment. Several talk with apparent fear of the possibility that providing access to health care for all will doom our country to socialism. One envisions colonizing the moon before we have even begun to sustainably inhabit this very habitable world we are already living on, with its plentiful air and water and the ability to produce food and shelter with relative ease.

But I do not wish to evaluate the relative craziness of the differing visions of the world suggested by the lives and words of these people I see. People get by with what they know. Some are malicious and selfish. Some have their paths heavily constrained. Some mean well and things turn out. Some mean well - and they don’t. And most of us are a mix of all of the above.

I do not know what would be gained by understanding my fellow travelers better. I would like more people to articulate a vision whereby we might live together with more generosity and harmony – a vision where we, in fact, thought more of one another as fellow travelers.

All right – that’s nuts, I know. 

And so I continue to hide my particular form of unlikely visions among the cluster of travelers who are mostly comfortable and well fed. I’m following the one in front of me, and they are doing the same. Hopefully, someone near the front has a map.

In the mean time, I tinkle my tiny bell in my own way from time to time. Almost no one pays any attention. That’s normal.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Things go bump in the night



Things go bump in the night.
That’s when it is dark.
That’s when the sounds are muffled.
That is when the distractions of the day have drifted off.

During the day
your eyes are following the tip of the magic wand,
you listen to the patter of the illusionists,
and then at night,
when you lay your head down,
weary from failing to discover how life works,
from not being able to control your thoughts
even when you are trying,
you submit -
you do not will yourself to sleep,
you can only fall.

But things go bump in the night.
And then, your eyes are opened,
but you see nothing but the night light from the bathroom.
Your ears are perked,
but you hear nothing but the heater kicking on.
When you have nothing more important to do than sleep,
your mind alerts you that you are mistaken.

Something is out there,
waiting,
breathing,
not death -
maybe -
life.

You are not about to be attacked in your bed,
you are being summoned to understand the thing
beyond your grasp the day before,
the year before.
Of course, you are mistaken.

This is merely what has been called
the dark, tea time of the soul,
the witching hour,
the time good little children should be asleep.

Still, after a time,
and another time,
and you look at the time glowing
above your head one more time,
you rise.

And when you have satisfied your curiosity,
when you have noted the thought that wakened you,
you will get a glass of water,
and go back to bed.

You will not make sense in the morning,
and you will not make sense in the night.
It is merely your unconscious mind,
bumping into the furniture of life.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

The End of Winter

I shall be a little sad to see the end of winter and the many and wonderful ways women wear tights and boots.

What is it I admire, besides the given fact that they are women?

There is the leather - tall, short, zippered, laced, smooth, sueded, tanned, in every color imaginable.

And I am grateful for the animal, who sacrificed his or her life for our food and our comfort and our style.

I am not being idle here. This is a matter of life and death.

My own death will come and I will be meat for the microbes, which will be meat for the plants, which will be meat for the animal, which will become beef and boots.

Of course we should treat the elements of the chain of life with respect, which we are hardly doing.

And when a life is cut short of its natural course we should honor the sacrifice, as we say we do when we send off young men and women in their army boots to die for freedom.

So let us not take life and death too lightly. Or too heavily.

We are here for a short time and we should savor and admire the fruits of evolution and of labor which is not our own.

If we are going to eat and wear creatures less smart and swift than we are, the least we should do is make ourselves fit for their sacrifice, not for mere vanity’s sake, but for the sharing of our admiration of the beauty and elegance of living beings, including, but by no means limited to ourselves - and to the restoration of our own souls.

It will be spring soon, then summer and fall. And then women will being wearing tights and boots again. Some of us will still be here to see it. Not all.

Respect life. There is an opportunity to honor those who came before us in every bite and every step.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Modern Motherhood

A young mother,
one child on her back,
a small boy and girl
at her side,
crossed against the light.
“Mom, the light is red,”
said the little girl,
skipping at her side. 

As they reached my side of the street,
the young mother looked at me with a weary smile, and said,
“Teach them young.”