This time we have had, I assure you that my ideas may not be correct, yet have I tried at diligence....
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I said to Steed that Monday, "It was a hellava good get together, especially the last libation on the deck. Did you have a chance to see the AJC Arts sec on latter day swing...interesting... what goes around, comes back around." It was a party for the middle aged, those of lowered expectations who, once young activists had become moderate liberals who nowadays carefully picked their skirmishes. They who had grown to eschew excess alcohol and other assorted substances; who had gained a grudgingly cautious envy and respect for adolescence.
Topat, the eccentric, almost our last holdout for finding weirdness to be its own reward, said to me as I slipped out the backdoor to the deck, "you know all our friends are mostly dead...more dead than there are of us to remember them." "Yes," I agreed, "we are mostly dead...." I closed the door behind, stepped out into the fogginess after a rain in mid-summer. Steed, held two scotches and extended one for me towards a deck chair. "Pal, we are worms in the muck, thankful for the rain and groping for the next event." "Uh huh, worms who drink good scotch and remember mostly dead friends. Actually worms are more perfect than we are, to bother with much remembering and hardly any insight. I do agree that we are screwing away at a viscous reality." "But is the insight worth much, rather than to screw intently and with more vigor." Steed suggested from his shadow reclining in a chaise lounge. "And occasionally an intent and vigorous Scotch. By god I think it's rained enough to drown worms tonight." His voice seemed to float in the semidark, disembodied, voice of nowhere, no one. "Yeah it has, but it's refreshing, renewal - you know, like insight. And I do feel that insight though useless to the diligence of an earth worm is the only valid experience for the homo-sapien worm." The night mist murmered, "ummm" then falling to sleep begain to snore, gently. I accepted this presence of contentment, yet had I more to say. I spoke quietly to the earthworms under the deck and into the negative spacious palette of the night as one might speak to an etherized invalid or perhaps a deceased relative, into the ear-trumpet of the drawing void. Surly there is a place for everything in infinity. "I have run into this idea. I should trust myself to go ahead and do. Nothing seems so natural as to follow one's feelings. Feelings, of course, meaning essences, the distillate of diligent longing brought to light and that which causes a wild rose to be a wild rose, the cheeks of a child to be the cheeks of a child and thus the essentialness of a smile. I must investigate the idea of trusting myself to be dedicated, spontaneous, and unwilfully free. It is rarefied in aspect, astonishing in its possibilities. I am cautious, even fearful in taking such a responsibility, yet I must. Desires must be those inclinations without pain, distractions that would take one away from longing." As for worms burrowing through the miasma muck, I found one of my last letters from Jocasta. "The allure of anxiety is obviously the slingshot effect it has for directing energy and, as everyone knows, energy is everywhere. We are literally bathed in energy - that is, material moving at the speed of light multiplied by itself which in and of itself is scary. When you multiply yourself by the quantity of yourself at the speed of light, that is difficult to keep up with. We are literally expending ourselves at every moment, burning up like stars. Nothing is constant, everything is volatile and squirming with an unrelenting fizz. We know nothing for very long and its over before it begins. It seems like every effort we make is an attempt to apply a super slow motion to this swirling miasma, this heaving unsatisfied magma that simply wants to consume itself before there is any chance of remorse...."
Jocasta comes in the mid afternoon. I knock off work early, gladly and go stand out on the deck while the coffee makes. I'm just in time to see down the narrow canyon road as she drives around the bend and up the drive, so I am not so surprised and Jocasta always surprises me with her appearances, her gaze, and her choice of thoughts to express. We have passion but we also a tacit,intuitive agreement to have a middle distance between us, another plateau that is our meeting place where we might forge other links, make pacts and give pause, even calm, before and after the inevitable fusion that is our rushing, consuming heat. Which caused her to say once, "we can always do that, it's obvious for us and more's the better, but it is the subtle things, the small things that we should attend to, needs that seem so incidental that they die of neglect...and we will not let that happen, will we?" No, I thought not. We sat at the table on the upper porch looking down. It was our time unhurriedness. She spoke almost airy in her American South way, unselfconcious in hesitations not flurrying her words, speaking softly one by one. "I've just read that according to one Zen rishi, there is no use to indulge visual arts or literature. All other than some sects of Shakyamuni is simply comic books and not worthy comedic books at that. Don't read Twain or Moliere or Plato. And most especially don't watch soaps or tell corny jokes. If you do, you're only forestalling facing the obvious: that your behind is burning up at a great rate." "Somehow," I say, " I really doubt the purpose of this. It's more simple than that even. Live a simple life. Watch the sun go down, watch it come up, and don't get bent out of shape. It is good to understand anxiety. The stuff means that something is going on or about to happen. It does not mean that you have to do anything but cope and accept it, strange and all. People do this with alarming regularity. The antidote to fearful anxiety is not to do but to do not. Stop, look, listen." "You know I've been thinking, there should be a long row of irises down the drive, this side of the hedges. Oh, do look, Fall is finally here, the tree tops are getting color and I can feel it in the air, at last, at last." There is no need for me to reply, to babble some echoing agreement. She is standing now beside me as we together look out, she touches the back of my head and says suddenly, "maybe we should live together soon, no hurry but something to think of. I saw Steed today, he said he'd call, he wants us over on Saturday.
I do not have to understand humility to know its importance, to understand why it's thought to be unachievable even by the humble who imitate this dance of the mosses in the forest, who mimic the simple song of grasses in the wind...
And sometimes I dream. I dream of that which has never been.
I think of her much of my time spent in thought. She seems to follow the spirit of the wood, spirit of the valley and the hollow, she has the voice of waterfall, the hush of butterfly wing, the taste of spring, she is the illusion of sun glitter dance in the stream and when the rain touches all the leaves. She speaks no words, yet keeps the secret of evergreen in the midst of dreams...
"Time to wake up and go to bed, Steedster, old great Whitehead." Of conversations we have had, I can assure you that my ideas may not be correct, yet have I immersed myself in the diligence of due consideration, tasted the stone soup, doubted the goodness of it and tasted again before serving. Not good enough, but the best I can do for now. First of all, you need a smooth river stone that comes tumbling down through the ages into the cookpot. It is not of ones making, it is of the maculate universe and greater than you ...older, wiser and of tried density, of which, I am not.
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The essence of genius lies in knowing what to ignore.
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My interests? Well here are few things...
Lyre, Tennyson, peanuts, didgeradoo, Chuang Tsu, endive, Alpine horn, Wan, pesto, Tibetan horn, Salinger, oyster, rainstick, Hellman, jasmine rice, conch shell, Austen, papaya, Fats Waller O'Henry, Hesse, wood sculpting, Bradbury, oil lamps, Lessing, Calder, Van Gogh Trumbo, wisteria, Klee, thatch, McLaughlin, earthworms, O'Keefe, barns, Matisse, couscous, cucumber, Jung Cleary, mama, 280ZX, socialism, capitalism, Hegel, Heidegger, patchwork quilts, guitar, tabla, teak, kudzu, "If I am to love full measure and true it would be to always know the hue and plaint of guitar with dulcet tone when passion is quiet and let alone...."
Prometheon
PROMISE IS NOT WISE IT SEES NO T WITH MERE EYES SHE SEES RIGHTLY WITH A BEATING HEART SLIGHTLY LARGER THAN THE SUN
AND THOUGH SHE MAY NOT STAND STILL YET WILL WE SEE HER RUN FROM DAWNING TO THE SETTING SUN THE GATES WILL OPEN WIDE REVEALING BLUE SKY HERE BEYOND ETERNITY GOES ONWARD AND ON PAST THE BOUNDLESS DEEP WITHIN THE MILLION STAIRS OF STARS THE DUST OF SLUMBER SETTLES INTO THE VOID OF GIANT SLEEP
SHE IS THE PROMISE OF AWAKENING OF AN ENDLESS NIGHT TO TAKE IS THERE WISDOM TO THE MIST MAKING THAT RISES FROM THE MIRROR LAKE IN VALLEY WHERE THE SPIRITS RISE FOR PROMISE SHE IS NOT WISE SHE SEES WITH A STELLAR VISION SHE PRACTICES AN ARCANE ART ALCHEMY OF LUMINOUS ILLUSION THE TATOO OF A BEATING HEART
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