On a blue ball hurtling through the dark and teeming void, the
cluttered emptiness…a spark is born of an errant chemical process, a
mistake in a recipe

Electromagnetic energy absent mindedly nudges a nerve ending, annoys
a dendrite, causes a chromosome to misstep and fall in line
behind the wrong scout leader.

The beginning, the nexus of the germ of an idea, a long term plan imagined
in an instant; kind of sort of probably and maybe not but always
always always facing toward the end of time.

Follow that path a million years with fins and feet, teeth and tails, with
the entire knowledge of a world implanted in no more space than
the original idea, the impetus…

Wrap that in the understanding that we arrive alone, we leave
alone…and all the tears in between, the laughter, the moments
captured and lost belong to no one else.

I understand the need to gather, the requirement to share, to spread the
emotion, to hide the fear, to promote and exhalt…
to make the perspective the wrong end of the binoculars…but…

I can’t tell you without fact or fiction or choice or destiny but…I know, I
know, I know where it is that I am not…where it is that I will
never be…where it is that is not me.

And I am not god…or I am…or
we are, or they are, or it is…or….much much much
more likely…

replace “or” with “and”

Two stars rose in the night, sharing the horizon for a moment, for
an eternity…in an instant…a flash of 1,000 mile an hour emotion
a rumble in internal reaches, an external movement always
outward.

Images of her drift through thoughtless eyes, land on
infertile ground…fade into the ebbing noise of living
leaving the faintest hint, the slightest stain, always just
leaving.

They shared their light and burned brighter than ever; that
alone they couldn’t, that thinking allowed them to, that
darkness persuaded cajoled argued pushed always
away.

It’s not sadness that drives the thought, that pushes
the idea, that slowly quickly, ebb and flow, come and go
makes the day creep ever closer to the night, to the
outside.

Time walks away from us…we follow…we follow but not like
we have a choice have a preference have a plan we follow because
we are here at its pleasure, its simple little ego stroked by
humanity.

I like the idea of stars combining shining brightly, the idea of time
as a fickle master…of images falling into nothingness…of
ebb and flow…of come and go…of
eternity.

Ideas are manifestations of reality based on perceived events, they
aren’t reality, they aren’t stars in the sky, they aren’t romantic notions
lost on lovers tears, lost in the shadow of time…

…they are soft glimpses of what we want…based on what
we don’t have
or
what we have…based on what
we don’t want.

Ideas are us.

It started falling in the dark last night, in the early
hours it sat waiting and then leaped, head first toward
some lonely impact, some insignificant spot, alone it
crawled a crazy path from the sky, alone it landed gently
relaxed and waited for the rest to join.

They did and white was the day when I looked out on miles of
nothing, on stretches of blank ideas, nonsensical motives and
irrelevant strategies that define the direction, that create the pull,
that mitigate the circumstance that brought me here, that made
me who I am; uniquely the same as everyone else.

It’s insulation, you know, in a way, in the way that it coats and
completes and covers and condones the transgressions hidden
beneath it’s immovable stare, beneath its miles of nothing…
hidden in full view but disregarded, disbelieved, dismissed
and ultimately not what it’s sameness projects.

Snowflakes with 4, 5, 6, 7 points to their stars, with no idea where
they came from…only where they are now, only where their dreams
tell them to be, but they are no different in a grotesque fashion than
they are in details, no different in direction as they are in velocity, no
different and completely unique unto themselves.

As a metaphor snow works hard not to be classified, not to be lumped
in with everything else…it yearns to be that single entity floating flying falling
forgetting its home only knowing its journey only caring what is after and
never looking back at what was before because to be unique is to separate
from the past, from the herd, from the moment…from itself.

It started falling in the dark last night, in the early
hours it looked around at the trillions of other identically unique versions of
itself…and it leaped.

She wiggles her toes inside her shoes, looking around while
walking down side streets silent late pools of light washing over
hesitant steps toward where she thinks her future lay, where
she hopes but doesn’t know…dreams with eyes wide and unblinking
her toes a little uncomfortable she thinks about where her feet
are stepping where her dreams are sliding where she is now.

Walking lends an air of thought as she wanders toward a keyhole, where
with a twist she can hide can wait can watch can sit quietly and
feel the thread of her life reel out and wind around time, around
her thoughts, around her future which may be a husband which may
be children which may be a baloney sandwich on rye with mustard or
may not but it might be what she expects or nothing like it.

At 2:30 AM walking city curbs stumble not drinking just lost in
the thread that winds itself through around over and inside an
imagined life…a shadow falling somewhere close to now, somewhere
close to never, somewhere to be ultimately found within her heart her
head her hand waits open for another; another set of fingers, some large
some small…maybe several sets…or maybe empty waving goodbye.

She walks on and is sad thinking she lost the thread, lost the path toward
someplace she hadn’t quite found yet walking walking always
walking but she knows the thread is there; it is time life breathing living from
yesterday through today and ending never ending in tomorrow where
she imagines her path wanders dragging her along in its wake, in its
ideas thoughts decisions all the way to her breathing thinking waiting…now.

Today she is feeling her toes in slightly tight shoes skipping over cobblestones
in lagoons of city light while darkness laps gently against her thinking that
tomorrow may be where the thread rises above the surface, above the noise of
living in a time where happiness is placed along the same level; the cost
of fuel the cost of food the cost of the decisions she makes everyday, that
she watches unwind along with the thread of living.

I see it often, daily hourly minute by minute people
living tomorrow today, and
it’s sad watching, like bad Mexican TV in a dingy hotel room somewhere
in Croatia. I watch them miss breathing this minute in the hopes of catching
their breath later, in the hopes
in the hopes
that’s where they live and it’s painful
sad dreary moving slow it’s the milk running down the side
of the glass, it’s the
fist light through slowly opening eyelids on a morning after
the night before…
when today, this minute…now…is the thing, is
the breath to take, to live in, to see with open and bright
wonder, to embrace running slow-motion love on the beach and
crescendo music swelling background
montage good-bad TV…it is who we are when we are
ourselves and let go
of fear..of…
who we were if we were to be anyone
tomorrow.

I see it often and sadly I think, sadly I think…and
that’s it, that’s the rub, that’s the detail that stands out, that
invokes the TV show music in the background;
the more we live in tomorrow, the less we live today and the less
we live today the less
we live…because…
tomorrow
doesn’t
exist.

I canceled cable today, called the
guy and told him thank you, but
I was planning on living instead, planning
on experiencing
by
doing, not
by watching.  Yeah, I know that
it’s irrelevant meaningless crazy sad misguided but
that’s from an advertisement, from
channel 1471 or
CNN
I saw the snow today falling outside slow motion creating
insulation, creating newness, clean and blank and I
thought about
living and I wanted
to, wanted
to think without thinking, without thinking about
what I am missing at
8:50 PM on Thursday…
on the air.
I saw the white of the day laying prone and silent, waiting
for me to feel it, see it with eyes not
squinting from too bright moving blurred animated graphics, from
indecision and
fear I am missing something. The white day
opened up and I let
it in.