He’s not There

Sometimes it feels 

like he’s not there

(just man-shaped air)

with a hole in his soul

and space for despair.

Japanese Grocery Store

 

Like a good Ghibli movie

a Japanese grocery store

is full of mystery and wonder.

The colorful packaging and 

ubiquitous kanji is a feast 

for the eyes and imagination.

It reminds me of my time

in Korea with its peculiar smells

and inscrutable conversations.

But what I want to know is 

why the sign says you should

run and not walk to the bathroom?

***

Mel & Me

 

I had a dream where I am out and about in NYC reading a nonfiction war book a la Tim O'brien and end up running into Mel Gibson.  I'd just read a particularly beautiful and profound passage and wanted to share it with him.  He sees the title of the book I'm reading and it opens him up to talk to me.  We start to talk about our favorite war accounts out there and get increasingly excited about what we are discovering about each other.

He then gets a peculiar look in his eye and he tells me to follow him.  We go to his private pad and he pulls out several sheets of paper of a war movie screenplay he is working on and it is all hand-written.  He has me read some of it and explains the creative process he uses to write.  I offer him suggestions to the story and an amazing chemistry starts to form as we flesh out these ideas making them fuller and stronger.  The thought occurs to me, if this movie actually gets made I might get some credit for it!

He then takes me to Central Park and asks me to help him act out a particular scene.  It seems he has me pegged for a particular character and I do my best to say the lines in a convincing way w/o being too self aware.  My mind starts to race about what all this could mean for me.  Will I be in this movie?  Will I become his new writing partner?  Would I make enough money to be able to switch careers?  

Then my daughter wakes me up.

***

Image is from Terrence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line”

A Bird among Birds

 

I dreamt I was a bird, 

but not just A bird

but a bird among birds.

We sang our songs 

sometimes alone 

but usually together.

Above the cornfield

we met numberless

and danced a dance

which might be called 

a “murmuration” though

it was free of murmuring.

We swarmed Scarecrow.

He was not scared 

(but neither were we)

until the humming lines

called to us to rest

our weary wings.

And I felt the fullness

of being alive on a wire

connected and connecting.

***

The Publican & the Pharisee at the Hospital

I heard it come from a nearby hospital room as I sat at the nurse’s station writing a note.  It was a man’s voice that was a little gruff saying “Well, are you saved?  ‘Cause I am.”

It piqued my curiosity enough that I got up and casually walked by the room to see what was going on.  The man who asked the question and made the assertion about his salvation looked to be in his sixties.  He wore a baseball cap, hands on hips, and was standing over the other man who looked frail and weak sitting in a chair in a flimsy hospital gown, probably in his seventies or older.

The imbalance of power in what I was observing upset me.  My impression was that the confident man was visiting someone that he did not know well.  Maybe for him it was a perceived good deed or a felt obligation or simply an opportunity to air his ego.

What I did not hear was love.  What I did not see was humility.  It reminded me too much of the self-righteous hypocrisy I’d seen growing up in a small town.  We were the “saved” confronting the “sinners” because they needed something we had.  A something not informed on any deep spiritual level, but an idea in our heads and a false confidence sustained by the liberal use of denial.

It suddenly felt like I was witnessing a reenactment of the parable of The Publican and the Pharisee where the haughty one stands in front of the temple thanking God he is “not like this Publican” and the humble one stays hidden in the shadows imploring God “have mercy on me, a sinner.”

***

Origin of “Lenin Lurking”

“Lenin Lurking” was one of the first stories I wrote in my early 40’s when I’d decided that writing was on my bucket list.  I was really pleased with it and like many of my stories before or since the idea was triggered by a photo.  The photograph was posted on flickr.com by a man named “Sergey Mustafin” and was taken in a former Soviet-controlled country where someone had removed a statue of Lenin and kind of hidden it away in an alley nook (whether to obscure it or preserve it, I do not know).

I was intrigued to say the least.  Because of the shadow he almost looked real, peering out malevolently, like someone who might want to waylay you for thinking the wrong thoughts.  It was this image of Lenin as a kind of shadowy shade roaming the streets of Moscow that put the story in my head.  And what might that be like with the Soviet Union so recently toppled?  I’d been reading about the explosive growth of churches and monasteries being built and/or revitalized throughout Russia after the fall.  It was like Lenin’s work was unraveling at a rapid pace as Russia was waking up from an 80 year nightmare.

And then there’s the introduction of St. Tikhon of Moscow into the story (his name was “Vasily Ivanovich” prior to taking monastic vows) .  He had been a thorn in Lenin’s atheist-side and when he died his body was hidden away from the Communists to prevent it from being desecrated.  And while St. Tikhon’s body lay in some unknown location, Lenin’s body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum on Red Square for the masses to venerate in a kind of bizarre mockery of the Orthodox tradition of venerating the saints whose remains are often-times found to be incorrupt.

In the early 90’s while the Soviet Union was in full free fall the main church of the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow caught on fire.  What appeared to be a tragic event turned providential when a secret crypt was discovered in the clean up process which contained the incorrupt remains of St. Tikhon hidden away for the past 70 years!

In 1998 I was in Moscow and a Russian friend took me to the Donskoy Monastery to visit and venerate the relics of St. Tikhon.  He is referred to as “Enlightener of North America” due to his missionary efforts here prior to being elevated to being the Patriarch of Moscow (and by extension all of Russia).  His icon sits in the far left of the iconostasis here at our little parish in Columbus, Ohio.  When we arrived at the wooden gates they were shutting them as the monastery was closing for the evening.  My friend begged the young monk to allow us in briefly but was politely turned away.  I felt dejected at that the moment, but in writing this short story 15 years later I was able to not only get into the monastery, but encountered St. Tikhon himself by way of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin!  

 

for love and art

 

Sitting on the front porch

on a Saturday morning 

reading Gene Wilder’s 

“kiss me like a stranger - 

my search for love and art”.

It is peaceful with only the 

occasional jogger passing by 

or a dog walker on the sidewalk. 

Cicadas play their tymbals

as a breeze rustles the pages.

When I look up from the book

I catch glimpses of honey bees

on the flowering hostas and 

then a humming bird arrives

to flit to and fro.

A bright red cardinal is 

interested in our front bushes,

darting in and out, providing 

a brilliant flash of color 

to an otherwise green scene.

It is a waypoint in the search

for love and art:

to take a picture

to write a poem

and find solace in so doing.

***

Charlie’s Angels vs. King Kong

 

Yes, that’s me in the photograph, probably around 12 years of age.  I was one of the shortest kids in my class and that didn’t change until high school.  The thing that sticks out to me in this photo posted by a childhood friend on Facebook is not the copper-rimmed glasses with miraculous PhotoGray lenses tinted brown or the the red-and-white striped sweatband, but that “Charlie’s Angels” t-shirt.  It’s the original trio from the popular TV show that ran through the late 70’s and early 80’s: Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith.  

My favorite was Jaclyn Smith who in the opening credits would make a swirly-turn in a white bathing suit with one of those floppy 70’s style beach hats that she coquettishly plops onto her head.  It was an accelerant to my tween hormonal changes, like gas on a fire (an appropriate metaphor considering my propensity for pyromania at that time).  

I liked the other two as well, don’t get me wrong.  Kate reminded me of the teen girl who lived across the street and Farrah, well, Farrah was Farrah-of-the-Hair.  I ran into her at Santa Claus Land so to speak.  We were there with my church youth group.  I’d just gotten beat at tic-tac-toe by a chicken when I spied the ring toss booth with posters as prizes.  There was a King Kong movie poster where he is standing astride the two buildings of the World Trade Center (very cool, but sad in retrospect) and right next to that one was the iconic Farrah Fawcett poster in her red one-piece bathing suit and the aforementioned hair.

I confidently slung the rings and won a poster, but the question was: which one?  It was a battle between my upper parts and my lower parts.  King Kong was huge, ferocious, and the perfect embodiment of suppressed tween rage.  But there were those hormones circulating through my body and having an undue influence on my developing brain.  It was unfair, really, and I made the fated choice of the Farrah poster.  

When it was time to leave I found my mother and tried to hold the rolled up poster as unobtrusively as possible.  She must have sensed something odd in my behavior and asked to see the poster.  I reluctantly unrolled it and her eyes got bigger and bigger as the full image came into view.  Even then, on some level, I thought I had run an endgame around her because I had the poster and there was no undoing that.  That illusion was quickly dispelled when she marched me back to the ring toss booth and demanded they exchange the poster and how dare they give such a thing to a child!  It was not the first nor would it be the last time my mother would force me into a mortifying situation (maybe stories for another time).

So King Kong came home with me on a poster and somehow at some point I came into the possession of the Charlie’s Angels shirt seen in the photo above, though I have absolutely no recollection of where or how I got it.  And as I’m now writing this I remember I have a photo of me holding my pet rat and wearing a white t-shirt also with green trim around the collar and sleeves that bears the exact same King Kong movie image that was on that poster.  I believe it was a hand-me-down from my cousin (some odd juxtapositions are pinging around in my head right now).

And while I am swimming in these particular waters I have to dive just a bit deeper to when I was in elementary school.  We had a small barn in our backyard that had a playhouse under the roof accessed by a trap door.  My sister was two years older than me and in junior high.  She had two friends in the neighborhood who liked to play “Charlie’s Angels”.  They somehow roped me  into playing the role of both Bosley and “Charlie”.  In the TV show Charlie is never seen.  He communicates with his “angels” to give them their mission through a speaker which is supposed to add an element of intrigue.  So, I would come up with missions for them and climb up into the playhouse where we had a cassette recorder.  I tried to sound like Charlie as I recorded the message, “Hello Angels…” and then rewind it so they could return and push *play* in order to hear Charlie tell them what to do next while I stood by as Bosley.

Over the years I lost track of all three women until about 20 years ago when I saw a news story about Farrah.  She was gaining some notoriety by making paintings created from spreading paint all over her body and then rolling around on white canvas.  And then about 10 years after that I learned of her developing anal cancer and making a documentary about it with the hope of being able to film herself beating it.  It was a fight that she was unable to win.

Radiant Beings

 

I believe that those who suffer most in this life will be the most radiant beings in the world to come.  It simply follows from the assertion in holy writ that “God is love”, don’t you think?  The Christian symbol sine qua non is the Cross, is it not?

If that is not the case I would feel compelled to start my own religion to make it so for the sake of my own fractured consciousness and melancholy nature.  I’m sure I could find at least a follower or two.  Will you join me?  I need help.

Maybe it is a cult, though that word obviously carries a lot of negative baggage.  I am not a particularly effective leader or charismatic personality.  It might have to develop into a cult-by-committee once I’ve got it off the ground.  

But now that I’m thinking it out I’ll probably just stay within my current faith community and continue to believe that those who suffer most in this life will be the most radiant beings in the world to come, basking even now in their pre-glory.

***

The Dark Lighthouse

 

An orangish yellow glow plays on the back of the waves as he emerges from the dark water under a moonless sky.  The soft wet sand pushes up between his toes and sucks at his soles.  He is putting one foot in front of the other to escape the tide while the ocean tries to reclaim him with every return of its waters.  He stops at the edge of the surf where the line of water simply laps around his ankles as he looks up and down the beach unsure of where he is.

A flash of distant lightning brightens the sky to his front but to his back there is only a palpable darkness and undulating waters.  A second flash of lightning briefly reveals the silhouette of a lighthouse sitting just inside the tree line in front of him.  A thread of wind winds around his bare body looking for entrance and sends a violent shiver down his spine.  He does not know where he is, what he is, or why he is, but he *is* and therefore moves forward.

The near complete darkness makes navigating difficult as he moves over the sand in the perceived direction of the lighthouse, though numberless steps do not appear to get him any closer to the tree line.  He fears he has somehow got turned to the side and is heading down the beach.  Another flash of lightning reveals the dark tower looming overhead and blotting out the night sky.  In two long strides he finds seagrass and then dead foliage underfoot.

With two strides more he is touching the lighthouse having somehow slipped through the trees unimpeded.   His hand flattens on the curved brick surface to walk at arm’s length around its base and seek entrance, but once again the number of steps implies an impossibility of size or distance and he doubts his organs of perception.  Returning to the water seems more vexing than maintaining contact with the tower at his fingertips and so he trudges stubbornly on…

until stairs are eventually found leading up to a tall black door.  As he stands at the door contemplating entry a rain begins to fall and he instinctively steps through the doorway to avoid it.  The sound of wind and water that accompanied him up the beach immediately ceases, replaced by a distant thrum that makes him look upwards.  There is darkness here as well but it is of a different quality and high above he senses rather than sees a faint flickering light.

And he ascends one step at a time in a slow upward spiral that spins into days and then weeks and maybe even months but there is no progress as far as he can tell.  At a moment of despair he notices the faint flickering light is suddenly less faint and he stops to wait and see what it will do.  The light bounces through the railings and metal-webbed steps creating moving geometric patterns on the wall.  It is hypnotic and possibly terrifying.

The lights and shadows on the wall chase each other in circles, one swallowing the other as their relative sizes ebb and flow.  He sits and watches the spectacle.  The shadows appear to have the advantage but almost imperceptibly the light grows and the shadows begin to flee and consolidate further above and further below.  The sound of a boot hitting the platform above his head startles him.  He looks up to see a man descending with a swinging lantern.

The man is wearing a faded grey suit and rounded hat with short front brim.  His eyes are hidden in shadow, the lantern swinging at knee height, a hoary beard absorbing its light.  When he notices the man sitting below he stops and raises the lantern.  “Who goes there?”  No reply.  A groan reverberates above them and draws the attention of the keeper.  He looks down once again, locks eyes with the naked man, “You cannot be here!” and blows out the lantern.

The darkness is now complete.  He feels to be a disembodied soul or even a pre-soul existing outside of existence.  He forces himself to rise to a standing position but then stumbles and falls over the railing head first into an abyss, hearing the muffled thrumming like his mother’s heart beat.  And awakens coughing and sputtering in the wake of waves pulling him to shore while the sun breaks the horizon and skips its fire across the water.

***

A New Light

 

When life is normal we ply well worn tracks 

of self-deception and comfort in the lie of

who we think we are over and against who

others are in relation to this false-self.  The

alternative is seeing one’s self in the un-

varnished truth, with all the pretty and ugly

parts mixed together like a fruit-meat salad.

But when normal life is taken from us a great

gift has been bestowed, an opportunity to 

finally get to the end of ourselves and look

on in horror and fascination at who we truly

are.  It is an opportunity to begin the painful

process of healing the hurts, opening the eyes

of the soul, and to see the world in a new light.

***

The Sea Turtle

 

She must find the sea

having left her burdens 

on the beach

latent lives

buried in the sand

with great effort

a cycle

repeating endlessly

like the tide

and I, as witness,

must do my best

to honor it

with a persistence

towards selflessness

and grace.

***

The Sensation of Floating

It was an unfamiliar highway at night and the rain was coming down in buckets.  Red lights slurred in an impressionistic swirl of movement across my windshield and white lights followed suit in my rearview mirror.  

I was a college student who had come home prematurely near the beginning of my  sophomore year in a kind of embarrassed retreat from higher education.  The empty room in my parent’s house was reluctantly re-inhabited and would serve as a melancholy reminder of my faltering steps at securing my future for the next few months.  My older sister was a senior in college having followed the typical progression from high school.  My younger sister was a middle schooler and in the room next to mine.  

Those were listless days and nights trying to figure out what the next step was going to be and I spent at least some of it visiting friends far and afield who had had no such trip-ups.  Two of them were my best friends from high school.  One was studying engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (affectionately referred to as “Rose Poly” by its students)  and the other was at the United State Air Force Academy in Colorado.  And I was at home lying in my bed  staring at the ceiling while leaves fell from trees outside my window.

The rainy night in question was during my trip back home from Terre Haute, IN where I’d spent the weekend with my friend at Rose-Hulman.  A few years previous I’d traveled up for their Home Coming (‘85) when my brother-in-law was a freshman there and we were juniors in high school.  That weekend included the tradition of brash and brainy engineering students erecting a monstrous tower of stacked railroad ties that was set ablaze and required airplanes to re-route in order to not get caught in the heated updrafts.  The entertainment for the evening included Dan Seals who I assumed was a country music singer with his cowboy hat and cowboy boots.  It was not an inaccurate assessment, but then at some point in the concert he picked up a soprano saxophone I had not hitherto seen sitting on the stage and began playing it like I’d never heard it played before, Kenny G notwithstanding.  He was followed by the headliner, comedian Yakov “What a country!” Smirnov, whose schtick was making fun of the differences between the United States and the Soviet Union.  The students ate it up as a kind of exercise in national self-congratulations, but now as an adult I can see more of the veiled critique of American culture that was inherent in his humor.  But those were less stressful times when I seemed to have a clearer trajectory and the pressures of college and pseudo-adulting was still a few years into the future.

So, getting back to “it was raining cats and dogs”, the rain was coming down so hard I started to feel a little uneasy and my windshield was beginning to fog up making it even harder to see in that dark deluge.  I reached for the handle to crack my window to see if it would help with the fogging problem.  As soon as my hand pulled back on the handle there was a kind of strange popping sensation like something had come loose.  The resistance in the steering wheel was suddenly gone.  I looked down at the window handle confused about what had just happened.  When I looked back up the world was slowly starting to move sideways.  I saw the lights in front of me moving from left to right, then the cement highway divider, then the white lights of the cars behind me, then the grassy side of the road, and finally I was looking forward again but sitting off the highway.

The car hiccuped twice, made a rattling noice, and then died.  I sat there gripping the steering wheel panting and feeling light headed.  Cars were flying by, but then I noticed some lights right behind me in my rearview mirror.  Someone tapped on my window which startled me.  I rolled down my window and a man was standing there in the rain.  “Are you alright?” he asked me.  I kind of blinked twice and then said, “Yeah, I think I’m alright.”  He waited to see if my car would start again and when it did he told me to be careful and then ran back to his car.  

I sat there a minute or two letting myself calm down and process what had just happened.  I had been in the far passing lane and traversed all three lanes in a three hundred and sixty degree pirouette with cars in front of me and behind me, eventually coming to rest off the road facing the same way I’d started.  When I eventually worked up the courage to get back on the highway I noticed I was only twenty to thirty feet from an on ramp where cars were flying down and merging with traffic.  

It was like a metaphor for my life at that time.  My trajectory was in a tailspin and I felt like I had lost control of my life narrative while others around me were seemingly locked into a path which was leading them to a fixed point of stability.  My path continued to be a zig-zaggy mess for several more years, but at the same time I don’t believe I’d be where I am today if I hadn’t taken so many risks and forced myself into uncomfortable and sometimes even untenable situations in an effort to find a way forward.  

***

Transcendence in the Temple

 

This place more than any other 

helps us see what is always present

but seldom seen, or so I believe.

Like a Midwesterner who has never been to the ocean

but sees a painting of it and recognizes 

on some limited level its power and beauty.  

Except the ocean is truly everywhere and we only 

occasionally catch a whiff of salt on the breeze 

or hear the cry of a sea gull and...

doesn’t our heart long for it in those moments?

***

Apocalypse Now

There was a time when things seemed relatively normal

and we could ignore the accumulation of pollutants in 

our environment (whether social, cultural, or material) which

at its core is a spiritual sickness belching a metaphysical fog.

It was like the gum we were chewing was losing its flavor

until we choked on it, turning blue and gasping for air, looking

for someone to wrap their arms around us and squeeze

but there was no one to be found in the thick haze of indifference.

So we died but kept on living nonetheless with new hungers.

The pollution was our sustenance but what it sustained

was hardly human and we continue on in our fear and alarm

at the sight of others who are not like us, or so we imagine.

***

Pebble in a Tin Can

A tin can came rolling across the road blown by the wind causing me to swerve to avoid crushing it on the way home from the hospital.  It got me thinking about the patient I’d just seen, blown into my path as it were by way of a psychiatric consult.

She was in her mid-twenties, admitted for a large abscess on her arm from shooting heroin.  She was showing signs of premature aging after years of use.  She assured me she was a hopeless case, multiple rehab failures, never able to finish a program before being kicked out.

She was abrasive and sarcastic, quick to pounce on any stutter or redundant question with ridicule.  I felt the stings but left them unattended, not allowing irritation to enter my voice.  I would not be like most everyone else: caught up in her anger, frustration, and impotence.  I was there to help if I could.

My lack of responding in kind wore her down.  Useful information began to trickle out. Her first memory of childhood was of being raped.  Chronic insomnia, nightmares, and flashbacks from smells plagued her.  She used drugs to self-medicate when outpatient treatment was scarce between rehabs.  

Subtle signs of warmth began to escape from her at unexpected times, furtive glances becoming more sustained eye contact.  There was a connection forming on a basic human level, hope and love still in there echoing about, maybe even a bit of faith rattling around like a pebble in a tin can.

***

Invisible Touch

January 30, 2021

Tonight we made an ice cream run and since I was driving I popped in my Invisible Touch CD.  My favorites on there are not necessarily the ones that became big hits for Genesis but the whole album continues to feel like it is really well done and something I enjoy listening to.  I would say it holds up well in spite of (or maybe because of?) its electronic drums and synths.  I was explaining to Elias that in the 80’s most pop music used synthesizers and electronic drum beats.  His favorite is the last track on the CD “The Brazilian” which is an instrumental.

Back in 1987 I was a senior in high school and one of my best friends was turning 18.  For his birthday his Dad bought him and a few of us friends tickets to the Invisible Touch Tour in the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis.  He drove us up on a Saturday and we checked in to the Union Station Hotel just across the street from the Hoosier Dome, all expenses paid.  We be-bopped around the hotel for a bit, ate dinner, and then made our way over to the concert. 

The stage was set up on one end of what was typically the Indianapolis Colt’s football field and our seats were just behind the stage and up several rows.  When Phil Collins was singing at the front of the stage his touring drummer Chester Thompson would be beating and banging away closest to us, but at one point Phil joined him at a second set of drums.

The stadium went black and the sound of African-like percussive sounds started to echo through the place.  Crowd noises began to swell and then Phil and Chester started their blazing fast synchronized runs of The Brazilian.  The light show was spectacular as banks of multicolored flood lights moved in 3 dimensional space and rotated 360 degrees in synch to the music.  It was entertainment at its finest with bodies pulsating and our senses being overwhelmed as we looked at each other like “are you kidding me?!”   

So back to tonight, we’re driving along and the song “In too Deep” comes on.  Anya is digging the ballads a bit more than the trippy prog-rock stuff and when Phil goes into his falsetto voice she expertly inserts her own falsetto (a la the Dr. Pepper commercial guy) with “It’s the sweet one!”  It fit in so well we all burst out laughing.  When we arrived home Anya jumped out of the car exclaiming “I just love everything 80’s!  The clothes, the music, the hair styles...”

***

The Bus Driver

 

The trek through the wilderness had been interminable as day had frozen into night and night had thawed into day in an endless cycle.  It was a matter of one foot in front of the other but he was growing increasingly tired.  And as he tired and slowed he sensed the presence of predators patiently plodding nearby following his progress.

He found a path to ease his way and lessen the stumbling brought on by exhaustion.  It wound around and down through shrinking hills eventually taking him into a pine forest.  The quiet there was striking.  Pine needles softened the ground and the birds had ceased to flit and call to one another.  He seemed at the end of himself, but then he saw the clearing ahead.

It gave him a bit of a bump and he sped up to meet it, stopping at the edge and peering about the space.  At the far edge he spied an abandoned bus and he wondered how it had found this improbable spot to retire.  It was white and green, top and bottom, with a yellow undercoat peeking out in various places that had been worn away by sun and rain. 

Strange as it was, it was a welcome sight after an eternity of walking.  As he approached the bus he noticed a rusty chair beckoning him.  “Come, rest yourself” it seemed to say as it creaked under his weight.  Some of the cares of his journey fell from his shoulders into the overgrown grass and were strangled amongst the choking weeds with nary a cry. 

His chin found his chest and sleep was not far away when a fast moving shadow on the ground startled him back to wakefulness.  A large owl swept down out of the trees to perch on the hood of the bus.  It swiveled its magnificent head to take in the weary traveler and queried him. “Who?”  Nonplussed the man replied “Why?”  The owl blinked thrice and then flew away. 

The sun was falling below the horizon and stars were beginning to wink into existence in a pale blue sky purpling by the minute.  The traveler made his way around the bus and into its darkening interior where he found a rusty barrel furnace and a bed.  He did not bother to remove his coat before lying down and falling off into a dreamless sleep. 

The loud popping sound of a burning log suddenly brought him out of sleep.  His eyes remained closed and an inventory of his body indicated he could not feel his feet or the ends of his fingers.  He waited for fear to find him but it remained bashfully at the edges of his awareness.  Instead he was feeling the sensation of warmth emanating from what may or may not have been a fire. 

Through his slightly opened lids he could make out the blurred form of a man undulating in flame and shadow.  He forced himself to sit up in the bed, rubbed his eyes, and found he was facing another man sitting in the rusty chair.  The man was young and bearded with a mischievous grin and knowing eyes deeply set.  They sat in silence looking at each other.

The only thing the traveler could eventually think to say was “Where did you come from?”  The man put his palms together in front of his face and then moved them outward in a big circle.  “Uh, you’re from around here?”  The man smiled and looked around the bus in a kind of exaggerated manner.  “Sooo, right here, right here?”  And he nodded his head in agreement.

This silent man confused the traveler but he did not make him feel uneasy.  The man gestured for him to lean forward and when he did he placed his palm on the traveler’s heart.  He felt a popping sensation and everything seemed to stop as the roof of the bus suddenly became transparent.  The stars burned brighter overhead than he’d ever seen before.  Tears came.

“Who?” he choked out...“Why?” a whisper.  The man got up and went to sit in the driver’s seat.  He pulled the throttle and pumped the gas while turning the key.  The bus roared to life vibrating the furnace and the bed so that the traveler thought the whole vehicle would simply shake into pieces.  The driver flicked with his flattened hand the sign for “forward!” 

Expecting the bus to lurch forward the traveler braced himself, but instead it lurched upwards.  The tops of the trees quickly came on level with the windows as the bus paused in its ascent.  The bottom of the bus became transparent as well and the traveler experienced a kind of existential vertigo as it resumed climbing at an accelerating rate of speed.

The trees fell away.  The hills fell away.  The mountains fell away.  And the earth spun blue in the abyss becoming just one more point of light in a limitless expanse full of radiant silence.  “Where?” asked the traveler.  “Home” answered the bus driver.  And he knew it was true.

Taller

 

I glanced out the window 

and what did I see?

A once small boy 

now taller than me.

***

Until the Ego Sleeps

When humility awakens

and the ego sleeps 

the world opens up 

like a beautiful book.

What was once separated 

is now connected in a 

dizzying number of ways 

never before dreamed of.

But until the ego sleeps 

and humility is awakened

the isolation continues 

unabated in blindness.

***