It might be gray and somber, slow turtle-sleeping day for creatures big and small. Or a blue-sky day through which a red-tailed hawk streaks. It’s a changing mirage, one that is out there and one that is nowhere; a world one can’t hold onto nor let go; one that reveals beauty and one in whose darkness hides all that’s grotesque only sometimes out of reach; and one that turns joy held so tightly into a passing memory.
On one day in one place, it’s a man’s world, where at every turn one sees the masculine spire of the conqueror jutting forth like giant penises: tall 80-story buildings, power poles thrusting into the sky; erect pine trees jutting up, pine nuts hanging down; and the unseen push of a billion engine pistons.
In another place on another day — maybe tomorrow — it’s a woman’s world, inviting openings, soft bosoms, gentle curves of loving arms. River banks, bending bows, the half moon of a bird’s head, a hand curved into another’s, an arm wrapped around a shoulder. Softness.
It’s a world of questions. It’s a world of answers. It’s a world in between the two. Guesses. Assumptions.
Like thoughts left dangling by fickle souls, it is a world where the raging storm is replaced by the mirrored pond; where the mirrored pond invites the toss of a pebble; a world where forever seeking leads to never arriving. It’s a world where peace slips away by the power of a look, and peace is restored by an outstretched hand; where the pain of childbirth is greater than the pain of death, and where the peace of death invites forth the birth of life.
It is a world to which one gives no meaning, and in the void, the gift of peace can be found. It is a world of music where in the pauses one hears a heart beat. Perdendosi.
It is a world where one can ride a roller coaster of fear of what might happen, or blame for what one thought happened. Maybe it was just all a dream from which one awakens to a turtle- sleeping day or to the scream of death — or was it life the talons carry back to the nest on the blue-sky day?
It is air breathed from the shadows of a receding path, the glue of memories holding the pain of love lost, the aches of life’s deepest rifts, as well as the tranquil anchorages and the signposts to peace.
It’s a world of energy, of waves rising up to touch the shore, a slip- sliding sibilance or crashing with a roar, while the wisp of breezes moves the earth to spin. It’s a world of crackled, dry, dusty leaves releasing their last gasps into the swollen smell of mountain bay laurel woven tight by junipers’ aroma.
Sometimes I think: “I can stay here forever.”
Until I don’t.