The sandbar

If you walk out on the sandbar below Bowersock North,

you will probably see little more than sand and rocks -

driftwood and an occasional dirty plastic bottle.

Perhaps you will see more.

But there is really not much more to see

than sand and rocks,

some driftwood

and maybe some herons or gulls –

perhaps more.

I have been going out on the sandbar

more times than I can count now

and this is just about it.

There is the water, of course,

sometimes sunlight sparkling off ripples,

and sometimes, I suppose,

you might see more,

but mostly on the sandbar

there is sand and rocks -

driftwood and some miscellaneous junk.

Blood draw

 

I waited at the red light,

a white fold of gauze

taped to my tan arm.

A man with a red beard

crossed in the walk

and sticking out of his black backpack

was one long-stemmed red rose.

Now I am not a religious man

and colors and coincidences

are only that for me,

but I prayed my blood

was red enough

for another year –

at least.

I think I can wait

a minute

for the colors to change.

It will only seem like years;

and years

will seem like minutes.

And then the man with the red rose,

turned and walked west

and I drove on to the east.

Just a little stick,

she had said.

We had laughed a little about people

preferring one arm or the other.

Nothing to it,

I thought.

Walking out the door,

I told her I would

forget how she had stuck me in another minute.
And then I would forget her.

And then the man with the red beard.

And then my prayer

pulsing through

my veins.

And a long-stemmed red rose.

Not a sound

I can tell you she was dressed all in black,

her leather boots, her tucked-in pants, her long, quilted nylon parka,

but I have no words to describe the sound of her voice.

My feet crunched behind her in the hard frozen snow.

She suddenly turned,

her rosy face flashed from out of her fur-lined hood.

And then, returning, she continued on.

In the ten steps of my quicker pace, I had caught up with her

and offered her something about not sneaking up on her.

She told me in warm tones she hadn’t heard me through her hood

but had only sensed my presence as I approached.

For a few short steps more as we reached the end of the bridge

I would have listened to her explain the whiteness of the snow

or the grayness of the sky or the coldness of the cold.

But instead she merely wished me well as we turned on to our separate ways,

the sound of her voice diminishing in my mind with the crunch of every step,

not even an after-tone remaining in my inner ear.

Roosevelt Fountain

12.30.2014

Heraclitus was right. You can’t step into the same river twice.

I walk through South Park nearly every day. I have captured moments in time - in images and words. And my mind is full of memories which seem astonishingly unformed, yet when I look again the next day or the next year, I recognize what I see, both in its sameness and its variation. I realize that I have been here before. And that time has passed.

It amazes me that I can recall to mind with fragments of sensation that I have run my fingers through the water in the basin of the Roosevelt Fountain as I have walked by. And I can recall that after only minutes in 6 degrees of cold, taking photos of the same fountain, I could hardly feel my finger pressing on the button.

And day after day my hands were at my sides as I walked by – unnoticed and unnoticing. I can almost recall that as well.

And sometimes this all matters very much to me. And yet it matters not at all.

Of course my attention – both when I manage it and also the part that fills corners of my perception when I am not clearly noticing everything – I try to put that attention mostly on how much this place does matter, on sensing this place and my experiences in it, of feeling alive.

For a time, South Park, the Roosevelt Fountain, and the other elements in and around this place that I could name or at least see or touch – they are the reality that matters.

For a time.

I will step into this river often.

And Heraclitus was right.

But nevertheless, I’d like to ask him what he meant when he said that.

Sometimes I’m not sure what I mean.

But you can see and feel the Roosevelt Fountain. It exists in time and space. And somehow, also in my mind.

2.4.2014

5.12.2012

9.23.2001