What Do We Make of This?

It's almost the end of the season now. Three weeks left to go, to run, to grin and bear it.

And bear it, I must, for it has been one long hunkered hibernation, alternating periods of light, dark, sleep, wake, writing and rest. A breath, held too long, underwater, under the grey-green glossy shimmer of light trickling in like pale stars through the seaweed of thought, fact and attempted logical prose. How does one simultaneously present half a dozen facts coherently?

But yet, one must say, the imposed solitude does bring in to sharp focus many things. It has been hypnotic, to say the least. Reducing thoughts, crystallized notions. Rich, fleeting and maddening.

One sees clearly, perhaps too clearly, the past, the present and the future. Past conversations archived deep in the recesses of conscious thought surface mysteriously. The temptation, often, is to delve in it, and perhaps, that might be my fatal flaw. For I have neither the strength nor wisdom to hold it safe at arm's length, just as anyone would do with a viper or a live wire. No. Instead, I tease it, prod it, hug it. Memories, good or bad, all require a response - a responsibility, a burden. Just what do we make of it? Events, circumstances, people, opportunities.

What if? Perhaps? Maybe?

Time, does not run backwards, mercifully. But our thoughts and memories run amok through the corridors of the past, and future, and addle up the present.

It begs a response. Un-answered questions, if they remain unanswered, are they still questions? Or perhaps it is the answers that are devoid of potency? The most poisonous of them all, rather, could possibly be that maybe neither deserved asking and answering.

Perhaps ignorance is bliss; and curiosity did kill the cat... Curiouser and curiouser.

Just what do we make of this? Reality, history, tapestry and poetry.

Everywhere I go, I see You.





We'll be together again
A Ragamuffin Band


We sat by the waters of ranging white river
Climbed through the valleys to tree-covered summits
We've stood in the rain from the northern Pacific
Breathed icy air on the West Irish coast-lands

We've tasted the fruit from orchards in summer
Bathed in the waters of near Mexican shorelines
And all that we've done was just one tiny moment
But we'll be together again

Singing the song of the mid-western prairie
Telling the tale of a tiny child's prayer
The words are like water to my thirsty heart
Giving me hope when I've run out on my faith

We've been the beggars who ride wishes horses
Living like dreamers I wont deny
All of our dreaming was only a moment
But we'll be together again

You're standing beside me, laughing out loud
I'm standing beside you, a laugh, and a prayer...
You're standing beside me, arms stretching wide
Singing your freedom, we'll be together again

All of life's treasures, and all of life's trials
Are all in the moments of living each day
Tomorrow is coming, the ride's just a breath
And we'll be together, we'll be together,
We'll be together again.

I Remember

Stephen Sondheim from "Evening Primrose"
(here's a link)

I remember sky
It was blue as ink
Or at least I think
I remember sky

I remember snow
Soft as feathers
Sharp as thumb tacks
Coming down like lint
And it made you squint
When the wind would blow

And ice like vinyl
On the streets
Cold as silver
White as sheets
Rain like strings
And changing things
Like leaves

I remember leaves
Green as spearmint
Crisp as paper
I remember trees
Bare as coat racks
Spread like broken umbrellas

And parks and bridges
Ponds and zoos
Ruddy faces
Muddy shoes
And light and noise and
Bees and buds
And days

I remember days
Or at least I try
But as years go by
They're a sort of haze
And the bluest ink
Isn't really sky
And at times I think
I would gladly die
For a day of sky