I've walked the world cast in the role of distant stranger, and seen the old, the bold, the minor, and the major. And people talk of fears, but I would make a wager that never was a sense more ill-tuned than that of danger.
I watch a frangipani blossom -- its elegant five twisted petals swept downstream, drifting toward the smooth laminar lip that rolls over the cascade. And I feel a teensy queasy, watching it be lifted and whipped over the edge. As if I were it, and it were me.
to be poured steaming tea from a dented kettle, in a wooden building, hanging at the mountain's edge, at the end of a long day's journey, has a special spirit-raising force
The burbling sounds did clarify my mind. Somehow, the flowing stream was one with me, and sitting down just at the riverbend, I felt more flowing rhythm than I could see. Some part of me was whisked in search of sea, though my body sat at the muddy edge. I know not how a part of me could flee -- just pure potential, being on a ledge. I lost the river like one loses blood. It's there, but [unseen] becomes all and none. Each is swept along swiftly by a scud, but seem so still when you and it are one. The mystic moment comes then flits away, and I am left with nothing fine to say.
"I saw a bloated body as it tool'd downstream - 'twas a man festooned with jewels!" "How long ago? Maybe I can catch him?" [Dives in] this mate, a man who was quite dim. "April Fools', my friend, April Fools'!"
flags flapping, twisting on a line, colors bright on the arid mountain -- desolation décor
the parting clouds divulged a deep blue sky and lapping waves were proof that time passed by but only so gently that I couldn't say if time ran true or told a subtle lie
The march of time is chopping at the world like rugged heels that hack the rocky ground. It feels as though the Earth, it has been hurled, and as it was, sped spinning round-and-round. A nauseating ride, it is of late, and only getting faster by the day. I have no time for dates with my own fate, and have given up praying for delays. I'm hit by pounding waves of happenstance, and random acts of near haphazardness. I lose some hours adrift in blurry trance. I'll schedule later dates to feel distress. Yes, even though I know that date won't come, I'll play the game as if I won't succumb.
the cone looms as the city's backdrop, drawing the eye -- some things are prettier in death than in action
There are times when the water is a perfect mirror, when setting sunlight is scattered into a million hues, and when clouds drift so low that one feels one could jump up to scratch cloud belly, and in those moments the world looks fake, but feels more real than ever.
