THE BASKETBALL AND THE BICYCLE

                                        

     A basketball rolled down the sidewalk at the park. Not in the way a usual basketball rolls that is impelled by force in its path by someone else until it loses the battle with friction and gravity. This was a very unique basketball in that it moved under its own power and influence wherever it chose to go.  He had been a basketball for as long as he could remember, but had never quite found what it was that he was looking for. What he really wanted was a basketball player who knew exactly what to do with a ball. Not to give himself the ability to have what he could not on his own, but a person who could take what she was and have what they achieved together be something they could share. So far, he had never found one. Oh sure, there were plenty who said they could, but they mostly bought the basketball to put on a shelf to claim they were basketball players, or to people who believed that all they needed to do was hold the ball and wear the uniform to be basketball players. Not one actually wanted to do both. So he kept looking.  Today, however was a very different day.

   As he dribbled and bounced his way along, he caught notice of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.    She was tall and thin, and undeniably very athletic, but she was exhausted with the effort of what looked to be an absolutely futile endeavor. As she approached him slowly, the woman attempted to work the strong lean muscles of her arms and legs to lift a bicycle a foot off the
ground and then slam it back into the sidewalk with immense force, over and over. It must have hurt her more than she would ever admit to him, and with every leap, she would bite her lip and wince as she inched forward. She was winded and sweaty and fatigued and for all of her diligence was obviously losing the battle. She stopped under a tree, threw the bicycle against the fence and stomped dejectedly away from the fence and toward the park bench at the side of the walk. Her brown hair hung in her face to the tip of her nose and her bangs on both her cheeks stuck to the side of her face in wet strands.

     She was all by herself, and he watched her as she tried to gain a bit of strength in a place where no one would be able to see her. Just a few minutes would be enough to let her get right back to it, but it was perfectly clear to the little ball, that the muscles were not what needed to be rejuvenated. Inside her was a completely different battle. One that had no need of the muscles to which she had formed perfectly to the task she applied herself to. He continued to watch her and was amazed that he felt a pull to her in a way he simply couldn't quite put his, for lack of a better word, finger on.

The ball rolled slowly and carefully over to where she sat. 

"Hi"

     She jumped visibly as though all of her attentions had been consumed by who she was and what she was doing, but completely forgot about where she was.

"Oh. Hi. I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting to find anyone here and you kind of... caught me off guard."

"It's okay. I didn't mean to startle you. You just looked a little..."

 The word 'crazy' nearly popped from his head as he recalled what she had been doing just prior to sitting here, but he stifled it.

 "... upset."

Well I am having a bit of difficulty today.  I am very frustrated and .....tired.  I know its my all my fault and I am just not as good a basketball player as I should be. I try and try and I can never get to where I want to be. 

"Why don't you stop doing what ever it is you are doing to do and be something else?"

"Why? I'm not a quitter. Does it look like I am a quitter to you?"

     The ball was very careful here as he knew quite well that what she looked like as she labored down the path was ANYTHING but a quitter. What she was, however, was a complete and total mystery,. An undeniable paradox as he had never seen anyone do something so unusual as this and have it seem as though it were perfectly normal.

"Well, no, you don't look like a quitter at all. As a matter of fact I've never seen a person work so hard for anything in my entire life... but since we already both agree you are no quitter, then what exactly ARE you and what were you doing?"

     She wiped the sweat from her brow and seemed to stare off into space and crumpling into a memory before trying to cement into her own brain what it was she was doing. It obviously was not a pleasant experience, and a sadness crept into her before she collected herself again and gave the well versed answer she had memorized by rote.

"I am a basketball player. And this is what I do. I play basketball"

The ball stared at her in absolute amazement, and had he actually had a mouth, it would have gaped open like the maw of a carp. It was true, she looked very much like a basketball player. Her clothing, although completely irrelevant to an athletes abilities, was just like anything else he had ever seen being worn by a person who played basketball. That is to say, that her shoes were of the right kind for basketball and laced well. Her jersey was crisp and clean with the numbers 29 on it, and her shorts were very nicely fitted to her body to allow a full range of motion but still be form fitting and sexy. Her body, even without the uniform, was designed to accomplish the sport to a degree that would make her not only a very good one, but undoubtedly one of the best. What it was she was actually doing,however, was so unlike, so unnecessary and overworked, as to take any skill and innate ability she may have inherently had and wasted it all on something completely different than what she described as being defined by.

The ball said absolutely nothing as he took in everything around her and tried to fit all the pieces together into one cohesive picture.

   She suddenly realized that for once in her life, someone was actually listening to her for what she had to say and not just as a matter of course. Playing basketball as well as she was supposed to needed to be seen as effortless but leaves little time for anything else except doing just that, and distracted people who simply don't have their head in the game tend to be....losers.

     "From as early as I can remember this is what people told me I am and that this is what I should  be doing, but it seems like it takes more out of me with each passing day than it does from other people. I think it's more me than the ball because everything else works just fine as long as I put the extra energy into it, but I really didn't expect to work so hard for something they said I would be so good at. I dunno...maybe it's how I hold the ball. It never seems to want to go into the net no matter how badly I want it to, and no amount of planning ever makes it easier. If anything, It's getting harder and harder to play ball and more and more people expect me to have gone pro by now. The best strategy I have now is to just learn where the ball expects me to be and then be there when decides to go where I hope it would."

She kept mentioning the ball and yet there was not one to be seen anywhere. It was obviously intrinsic to herself so its presence should have been blatantly apparent, but it wasn't. He decided he'd pose a question in the hopes that her answer would help him to look for it without asking its location directly.

"Doesn't a basketball player need...a ball?"

"Well, Duh! Of course a basketball player needs a ball,  I have one. It's right there.

   The ball rotated slightly to look in the direction where she pointed. There was no ball to be seen anywhere of any kind save for himself. There was a walkway, and a bench, a tree, and a long white picket fence, but no ball. Leaned up next to the fence, however, was an orange bicycle.  For a moment the ball questioned if perhaps he had asked a completely different question than he believed he had.  Try as he might, though,  he simply couldn't find any other way to solve this visual dilemma except to charge right into it and state the obvious.

"You mean THAT right there leaning against the fence?"

"Yup, That's called a ball in case you were wondering."

"But... that's just a bicycle"

 He stated the small sentence quite plainly, but kept his eyes locked onto the bicycle just in case, perhaps, a trick of light and shadow had made him perceive a bicycle. No sooner had the thought entered his mind than he completely dismissed it as utter garbage. It would take a trick of light as large as an atomic blast or a shadow as large as an eclipse to blur enough features to make a bicycle resemble a basketball or vice versa.

"No it isn't."  "That's a basketball."

No, I am fairly certain that...that's a bicycle."

"And how are you so sure?" She asked in a curt tone, as though every word had been snipped to the quick like an overly manicured fingernail.

"Because I am a basketball" he finally admitted.

The woman rolled her eyes skyward at the comment."Don't you think I know exactly what a basketball is? I AM a basketball player you know. We've been around basketballs our whole lives, so I think we are perfectly qualified to identify one when we see it, don't you?.

"Well yes, I would ASSUME a basketball player is, under normal circumstances, perfectly aware of what a basketball is, but since I AM a basketball, I think that trumps your authority on the matter,don't you?"

"Well so what do you have that it doesn't? What makes you think what you are is better suited to say what is or is not a basketball or about playing basketball than what I have been using my whole life?"


"Just because you've done it your whole life doesn't mean you are doing it for the right reasons. I know plenty of tether balls that are used by fat kids as seats, but that doesn't mean they are masters at tether ball. And not to lose the main point, but a basketball is round with a place to put air into so that  it will roll and bounce."

"Well my little round friend" She glared at him while pointing with her finger, "That basketball ball is round too. In not one but TWO places, and BOTH of them have air in them. As far as rolling is concerned, Yes. Yes it DOES roll. So what's your point?

"A basketball bounces."

"My basketball bounces too...if I work at it."She seemed to visibly cringe at the recollection that she does, indeed, need to work at it.

"So you're saying that as long as you put an undue amount of effort into it on your own, it will perform to the minimal expectations and criteria of a basketball?"

"It isn't undue at all." She said as she rolled her eyes in an overly tired and exaggerated, albeit obviously irritated manner " It is what is required of all real  professional basketball players to make the ball do what I need it to do. Everyone I know says so. It's a skill. You have to learn it and even when you do learn it, it doesn't mean much unless you were designed for it,too. It's a mastery that I have, mind you, and I have everything I need to be great at it."

"You mean by people who were master basketball players themselves?"

"Yes"

"Forgive me, but a basketball is designed the way that it is to enable the skill and abilities of the basketball player to be defined and recognized by how he or she maneuvers the ball into the net, not defined by how well he or she has to work to maneuver the ball. Getting the ball to do what a ball is supposed to do is not the objective of the game. The net is. The ball and you are supposed to be two parts of a whole to get to the objective of winning the game.

"What do you know? You are obviously not a basketball player, are you?"

"You're right, I stand corrected. I am NOT a basketball player. What I meant to say is that a ball is spherical. That, over there, is not spherical. Parts of it are indeed round, but a basketball is WHOLLY spherical. Come to think of it, that is mechanical which is very UNLIKE a basketball."

The woman stared at him incredulously and replied "Don't be silly. Basketballs aren't mechanical."

     The poor little ball was stunned at the illogical disconnect between what it obviously was and what it was NOT being perceived as. As though by not recognizing the components, it was fair and true to say it wasn't a machine at all. Nothing better than disproving a valid point with a misplaced definition.

"Look, I understand that you are a basketball player, and that you do, indeed, believe that that is a basketball, but there are certain qualities to a ball in general, and a few very specific qualities to basketballs in particular, none of which that....thing possess."
.
"Well go ahead then, Mister. Since you are obviously the authority above a true basketball player, you tell me what defines a basketball."

"A basket ball is orange."

"Hello? Mine ball is orange."

     She motioned over her shoulder with her thumb as though she were hitching a ride. It was, to be quite fair, a very dull Orange. Much like....well like a basketball would be to anyone else. The ball remained steadfast and attempted to ramp up the technicality of the conversation to prove its point.

"A basketball is designed to be held in either of the hands with the aid of small plastic projections protruding off the surface that allow it to be controlled and to react to the surface to which friction is transmitted."

Well, DUH! My ball has those too. There's one on this side and there is one on that side and they are both plastic and they both protrude ,and when I hold them I control the ball."

"Those are handle bars"

"Oh no you don't. We're using YOUR definitions here, so don't go twisting this all out of perspective by trying to lead this argument in a different direction. I don't know if you are aware of it, but basketball players are very aware of being tricked. It's part of the game, you know".

"Okay, I am sorry. Let me see If I can be a bit more blatant.  A basketball doesn't have a CHAIN!"

"Oh, So now you're going to criticize what I do have hoping to use it to prove an argument for what I do not?  

"No, I guess I am not."

     The little ball had a new idea. One that had nothing to do with wordplay and semantics or with definitions and perceptions skewed into incoherence.  He decided there was a very good way to show the difference between a basketball and a bicycle. Ironically, it involved the two of them operating simultaneously in a way that would appear totally normal to the outside world, but as unreal to her  as what it is she did on a daily basis, and believed otherwise.

"Listen, I know you are a busy, hard working athlete, committed to your sport and profession, but what do you say we put aside this game for a few minutes and let me show you something really special. You in?"

     The woman was more intrigued than worried and decided that a few minutes wouldn't do her any harm. Who knows, she may just learn something new about herself. She agreed, and before she knew it,  the little ball asked the woman to lift him up and do the same things to him that she expected to be accomplished with her basketball.

     As soon as she touched his skin, she noticed that he was the same color as her basketball, but felt the small  nubs for the very first time. She thought to herself how much more efficient these would be in the palm of her hand as she bounced the ball against the pavement and noticed how her fingers curled off the ball, spinning it slightly to remove some of the work. With only a moments practice she realized that it could be moved slightly to come, not only right back to her, but to a place she expected it to be and could rely on. The muscles of her arms and legs worked as much with this round thing as with her basketball, but without the fatigue and bone crushing repetitive pain caused by first exerting the force to lift it, and then the impact of the consequential return. It was as though the round sphere was trying to make the whole sport easier.  For the first time, in a very long while, she smiled. In five minutes, she was laughing as the ball was propelled into the air toward the net over and over. Score. Another two points. Half court for three. The points mattered nothing to the little sphere, but he enjoyed the fact that she needed them. All he needed was to have capable hands catch and release him as he needed and to know he could concentrate on how he moved through the air to give her the happiness.

     It was basketball, but never what she had been shown or taught. Sure it was a bit different, and nothing that another person would expect or even possibly understand. But to feel the elation of watching it slip around the hoop and drop in the basket when she had become so accustomed to having to push and squeeze and jump upon that ungainly basketball was amazing. She wondered to herself why the hoop wasn't designed to fit the dimensions of her basketball and that it was so ironic that it had the exact dimensions of what she now held in her hands. Even more unbelievable was the fact that so many more things could be done that were previously thought of as impossible. Other basketball players could do them but she could not, and she had always attributed that to a lack of perfection on her part. She realized she was no longer looking over her shoulder hoping someone wasn't waiting for her to fall or fail. She was simply moving and relying on the ball to react exactly the way she needed it to.

     Five minutes turned into fifteen, then an hour, and then two hours. All the while her legs and arms working back and forth and the small orange sphere dodging and weaving along with her as though they were two parts of the same thing. Amazing and wonderful and nothing she had ever thought it could be. And it wasn't a game to be played. There was no winner or loser. There was just her doing what she needed to feel and the other half ,the ball,wanting her to feel it. Even without a score, she was winning, and winning big.

      The sun began to dip low into the sky and she realized she needed to get moving again.  Her hair was no less sweaty than it was before, and she was out of breath, her muscles ached, but they were filled with an accomplishment she had not felt in a very long time.  She wondered if maybe it wasn't really the game itself she wasn't good at,but how it was she expected to be seen playing it.  If today was any indication of her skill, she was already better than she ever imagined. With a simple adjustment, she suddenly felt like a basketball player. Not a struggling one, or a mediocre one, or a good one that was ignored. She IS good at it.  They sat on the bench laughing and talking about how much they enjoyed each other and how they couldn't wait to be together again.


The woman sighed loudly and contentedly put her hands on her knees before pushing herself to her full height again. She had obviously grown extremely fond of this odd little object that was on the ground at her feet and had turned into something that didn't define her any differently than she had always wished, he simply made it possible for her to be those things. She felt happy and excited and with a new found purpose to what she was always good at. She realized she had no idea what he actually was. She realized she hadn't asked that question at all.

"Just out of curiosity, what are you? I mean what do you do?

     The little ball paused for just a moment. He knew all too well that what a person is and what they do are almost always two distinct things. He also knew that people believe they should define themselves with what they do, not define what they do by the kind of people they are. He hoped that this woman of such obvious and newly realized potential was going to persevere with the intent and belief that she, herself, was better and more perfect when the true agents of her perceived failures were revealed for their own inabilities, and that from now on, they would come externally of her and simply refuse to make  their weaknesses dwell within herself.
     Knowing full well that the correct answer was not one that she would believe nor tolerate with what she was made to know and believe in the past, the basketball replied in the best and most noble way he could. He looked at her with what was, for the first time,love, and said..

"I am a bicycle"

     The woman did not expect to be so defined by a bicycle, but if that is what it took to make her feel like a basketball player, then she was not going to argue it. She happily smiled and said that although she thoroughly enjoyed the company and the brief time to just be herself, that it was a good thing no one else saw her playing basketball with a bicycle.  "What would the neighbors say?"

The little round sphere looked at her and said as honestly as he could  "They would have seen the best basketball player in the whole world".

     And with that he rolled on his orange-skinned, textured, protuberant, and inflated bicycle of a body onto the walk and waited while the woman climbed back onto her "basketball " and dribbled it down the path and into the street. Her long smooth muscles beating fresh but now irrelevant holes into the pavement. The little basketball was a bit frustrated, but he did the one thing that he was happy to do. He rolled himself toward the basketball player and bounced happily along at her side. He may not be able to ever convince her that she doesn't have a ball, but he did hope that this basketball player would decide to be something else entirely, and wind up being exactly what she desired most of all in the first place, with a completely different kind of  ball.

 

FUNERAL DRUM

Sometimes people  need to be alone.
The world, fast and frenetic,
with the things others demand
that I haven't the strength to endure them.

Some take bathes and soak
lighting candles to soothe tired eyes.
Others, walk along empty paths
reflecting on conversations of the day.

I enjoy  warm water, too
and the soft flicker of candles,
pensive chats over coffee,
catting with all the voices  in my head.

At times,  I did need to be alone
to rebuild in myself,  the mountain they expected.
True, it takes time to build mountains, but
is nothing compared to what it takes to erode them.

To others, when all is toweled and dried
and candles are snuffed out,
doors  open, and strength
pours from their doorways like steam.

But mine do not.

Too much time, in baths alone
where the dripping tap, I feel,
is a Chinese Water Torture
and  small flames will suffocate me

The warm water that,on occasion
laps at  the chests of most, cools for me,
congealed, and then hardening around me.
An obsidian oubliette.

Footfalls of their walks lead them back
and they wave goodbye to the tiny inner voices
back in step, in file, ranked,
marching again, to someone Else's cadence.

But mine do not.

My path narrowed to a tightrope
longer than even my determined feet can carry.
Repeated,echoing voices, a dirge of fears,
stretched taught. The skin on a funeral drum.

TO THE MEMORY OF ANTON YANAKOVITCH

     HAVE you ever heard the name Anton Yanakovich? He's actually a fantastically brilliant  person who was, without a doubt, the greatest aeronautical mind in the known world. What you know of aviation today is a far cry from what Anton imagined, and had certain events not occurred in the manner that they did, what you know now of air travel would be very different, indeed. Never heard of him? How odd. Well let me tell you a little about Anton Yanakovich.

     More than anything else, Anton wanted to fly. He dreamed of it constantly, and there was no end to what he imagined for himself and for the rest of humanity. He used to stand on rocks as high as he could climb and close his eyes  imagining what it would be like to be in the flying machine he was going to invent. Feeling the wind rush over his arms as he held them out like an eagle, tilting them slightly from one side and then to the other while he soared over imagined countrysides. People close to Anton were very proud of his visions and  supportive of his ideas and notions of what it would be like. They too, had the dream of flight, but simply couldn't grasp the required insight to make it happen in the way that Anton had.  Instead, they lived vicariously through his visions and hoped he would achieve what they had, or could, not.It should be mentioned that Anton's  notion was fully formed and mechanically sound when he was only nineteen. More surprising is that Anton mastered these principles of flight and aerodynamics a full generation before Leonardo Davinci was even born and five hundred years before the Wright Brothers would amaze the word at Kittyhawk.

     Now Anton's flying machine was like nothing we know of aviation today. His machine would fly faster, longer, higher, could do absolutely anything regardless of the forces applied to it, and did so with the pilot and passengers having no ill effects as are sometimes felt even with today's technological advances. Passengers simply would enjoy it as much as he did. So, if this flying machine was so innovative and so much more fantastic and amazing, why do we not have his idea  instead of the one the Wright Brother's made? Here's the simple and very painful answer.

Anton was a dreamer, and that is all.

     Everything that Anton could have done, he didn't. Everything that was possible given what he had at his disposal, was unused. He lived inside of his own imagination with a notion of perfected flight soaring in his head until the day he died, and took everything that he knew of the grand flying machine with him to his grave. five hundred years later the most rudimentary aspects of his flying machine would be rediscovered. So why did it take so long? Because while Anton was absolutely correct and actually would have flown, he simply dreamed, and the Wright Brothers went out and built a plane. No, it wasn't anything remotely close to what Anton would have brought to the world, and what he could have made was superior in every way save one. He didn't do it.  The Wright Brothers had within them something that Anton did not.

       At first glance, it would seem as though the more beneficial  response would have been Anton's; simply concede and satisfy oneself with the dream alone.  Anton allowed the notion alone to nestle inside of him. The Wright Brother's, however, felt an unrealized dream as an itch that could not be satisfactorily scratched, or like a slow burning ember that needed to be shifted loose from the ashes. To them, a dream was merely the beginning, not the end, and the difference is what makes the Wright Brother's be remembered for what they made and did, not so much what they dreamed. For Anton however, everything he knew, and his dream, would simply disolve into the ether of history and take all that limitless potential with him when he left this earth.

It doesn't matter that he imagined a greater, more superior, machine, or that what he knew would have undoubtedly given us the ability to leave the ground and reach the stars centuries earlier than we did. It didn't happen because he satisfied himself with stopping at the dream alone and believing that was enough. The greatest of regrets we should have, is that when Anton died, they dropped shovelfulls of dirt onto his head, and by default his dreams as much as any other part of his body.

     Dreaming is a wonderful thing, and inside a mind there is no boundary to what can be imagined. But before there is a dream, a wish must be there. A desire and a yearning for that which we see as the root of happiness. It is the spark that lights the fire under our feet.  Wishes are the progenitor of our dreams, and those dreams, drive us to accomplishing the goal that defines what we wish of ourselves.

     The concept of failure never entered into Anton's mind either, whereas it not only entered into the realm of possibility with the Wright Brother's, but visited them with a regularity that proves the tenacity of their dream.

      Perhaps the greatest gift a person who transforms thoughts into  wishes and then propels them onward through a dream into a reality, is a memory. No longer a fanciful and contrived fiction of possibilities but a concrete and very real manifestation of what it is to think and believe.

     Anton Yanakovich will not be remembered for all that he hoped and wished and dreamed, and for as amazing as they were and how correct he was,they dissapeared with him. The Wright Brother's, however are the exact opposite.  They continue through history, day after day, and their legacy is compounded with every new frontier that we set our sets on. Each one driving ourselves through to the next one.  And isn't that what we were attempting to do with a dream in the first place? To be moved onward to more dreams?

      I am happy to admit that Anton Yanakovich is a mere fiction of my own thoughts, and did not ever, truly exist. He was nothing more than a thought in my head that became the vehicle to a wish of my own to show you the very real tangible relevance of a dream. His entire existence consisting of nothing greater than a single page. But without realized dreams, will we allow ourselves to be any different? what is the difference between a single unrealized page and the unspoken dreams of a lifetime. It's all relative.

     Do not simply satisfy yourself with living dreams inside of your head. Try, strive, persist, and fail if you must in attempting to realize them, but it is a far greater thing to give credence to those dreams by your persistence to reach them than it is to claim a mute and shallow success for something that is merely a theoretical contrivance and in no way allowed you the happiness you expected from it. 

    Don't take my word for it, though. Ask yourself which you would prefer. Would you expect to experience and be defined by what it  means to be happy by listening to another person tell you of it, or would you rather know it by your own experience? I saw a quote the other day that gives me my answer:   "If you live your life based on the thoughts of others, what's the point to having your own?"

     Go think, and then wish your idea of happiness. Then dream, but don't stop there. Please, don't stop there. Don't satisfy yourself with merely that.  Give true relevance to your dreams by putting them into action through perseverance. Only then can you see the true value of a memory fulfilled and hold them in your hand as something you truly posses.

VITA NON EST VIVERE SED VALERE VITA EST

You seek to unnerve me
with burning eyes
and a silent tongue
expecting me to react with emotion
where, in you, there is already none.

"To what end?",
I asked myself.
Would sharp words
or a tearful unraveling of me
have done any more for you at the time?
 Had it ever before?

You'd have had me feel as though you were waiting-
False. invisible tension. for that which you coveted
mixed with misconstrued endurance.
To you, a strength, but to others,
a withered root of what it was to hope.

Instead, there was nothing of you.
A cold and static iron rod bent
to its shape by indifference
rather than  living coils of anticipation
and possibility I know is in others.

There is no intention to your face
save the status quo.
An invisible answer already on your lips
for the question you think
I will never be brave enough to ask.

The assumption is, I owe you a debt
from glaring eyes, to wear these feet of clay.
You say I am too emotional for anyone
yet I must admit, in me, there is still empathy.
Even for stones.

My thoughts were never my own.
But inwardly penitent, I whipped myself unfairly
for finding that which frees me,
for actions I choose in response
to things you claim you never said or did.

A hard, unyielding tendril
I had no hand in planting
yet nurtured within myself
to curl around an unspoken  dream
suddenly withers and cracks.

The clockwork springs
snap free, and turn again
tiny hands of a silent epiphany.
Vita non est vivere sed
valere vita est

You don't make me wait
any more than you ever did.
I learned to live with this
to live with less.
But she does not.

I will speak my mind
but not to you.
Softer eyes will behold me
and the tongue that oft runs much and errs
speaks as much from feeling as from thought.

Were I to set upon my love now
acrid railings or vented rage,
the tapestry of anger could not be woven.
She knows not how to make it
Knots of discomfort  are unraveled by her


To her, time counts
and keeps counting
but every wasted moment
held  but ignored and unused
was noted by her and felt for more.

"To what end..."
he could ask himself
"would this love stay so long for her?"
I smile inwardly at the face of placid indifference
saying nothing while I think to myself.

There is a difference between waiting
and in doing nothing.
Both are the same seen from the outside
but  only one can stay with hope
while the other fails in its keeping.

A day, a week, a year.
Would matter a whit to her at all.
What is it to ask the patience of a stone?
Already the answer on silent lips. Nothing.
No small wonder it was easy.

To her, I am but a difficulty
to be crushed in  fists
becoming  even smaller grains of sand.
But instead,  I slip myself
between this one's fingers, whole and complete.

Empty open palms
possess more of me with quiet thoughts.
To those hands, like a bird  I am held, it is true
but cradled from the sides in a nest
not from the top as a cage.

SHIVA'S REFLECTIONS THROUGH GLASS

                      

     Together, they sat in the loft of the small coffee shop that overlooked the street, and although they had done it many times before, they had never actually looked at other people as much as they did each other. How ironic that by looking outward on this particular day that they would recognize more of themselves.

     The upper loft had a few small tables arranged to either allow people to look down onto the lower floor or out of three large bay windows that opened to the world below but offered enough contrast from the bright sun outside to be nearly invisible unless someone knew to look in the first place or cared enough to do it twice. Today no one cared to do either, but the two of them looked out as they curled as best they could into each other. Even in separate wooden chairs they had always been  able to melt themselves together into a single being, retaining dualistic personalities but with its own four arms, encircled  itself, like an incarnation of Shiva. No longer concerned with creation or destruction, He simply drops the drum and the flame to hold the other half of his own soul.

     Such a simple thing to be able to sit and listen to the sounds of the others voice. Usually his was loud in his own mind yet silent to anyone else . And hers, spoken with the same need to be heard but ignored.  To have those two voices felt as much as heard and to convey such meaning to become the dominant and reassuring hum within the center of them both, was nothing short of unnatural. Nothing was ever spoken between the two of them that hadn't been told countless times before, but just as important to say again as to feel. Voices that go so far beyond the usual perfunctory transfer of sound and take on the rare and comforting weight of thoughts made real by how they settled within the others mind; like warm blankets rather than cold wet cloth.

     The fears still existed and the battle was still at no end, but when mountains of potential are ground to  flat plains of sand and dust, it is a great peace to walk out onto that  virtual desert of emotion made by others and be reminded, by one who truly knows better, that mountains, like  icebergs of earth and stone, are yet three times as large beneath the surface, and for all their perceived immobility, slowly shift. The pinnacles and outcroppings,crushed smaller and smaller through a multitude of slights and insults to ground down to pebbles and gravel,  becoming the grains of sand for an hourglass to which they have no use of nor any desire to account for.  Brief moments like these may not seem worth it for others to feel or know, but to them, time slows to a crawl to allow the flash of a smile or the briefest hint of desire to be equal to an entire evening in their arms as only a lover can. When someone asks how long he has loved her, it is with an inward thought to himself that by the mere passing of seconds to reply, he has missed decades with her. Were he to count it all that he had already loved her, it would be the worth of a thousand years.

     People below them passed in the street on their way to one place or another and she asked herself if the woman crossing from one side of the street to the other was truly happy. She was certainly no different than any other person , and  the same question could have asked  of anyone. But this woman just happened to present herself into view as a perfect example.  Nothing special about her or nothing unique, nothing beautiful to look at, but neither was she so disagreeable as to cause an undue amount of sympathy or pity. She was a random object that gave voice to a question that no longer wished to hang on the edge of her lips.

"See that woman? You think she is happy? I mean just the way she is? Is she happy?"

     The man knew exactly how complex that question was. Not a mere triviality to her to be handed an answer the way a child expects gum to fall from a machine after he sticks in a quarter, but a wholly critical and all encompassing analysis of her life needing to be quantified by the microcosmic entity simply ambulating across a street.  The two of them watched her briefly before the man ventured to answer her in the most definitive way he could that would let her know that he had comprehended the gravity of  it before he answered.

"Yes"

      He thought of the impact of that simple answer and how he felt about the woman he adored so much. Would what he had said be reinforced in her even more by it? He thought of where this woman below in the street was going  and what she was doing. Was she going  toward a man of her own who thought of her as much as I did for the woman who asked it? Does Shiva exist within the hearts of the usual and the mundane as much as it does in this wonderful woman who held his hand and smoothed her body into his? Didn't everyone deserve that kind of defining love that sets everyone apart from one another by who they adore, yet brings us all together beneath the fact that we all strive for someone to define in ourselves the same thing?  As if to answer us both, for all of the things we had asked, but imparted to be decided by transient souls with no more concern for  our lives except to pass beneath our gaze, another couple walked across the street.

     Two elderly people, their hands holding the others, crossed the street and walked to their car. Her steel gray hair had been dyed and did not seem to notice that her hair did not hold the color as well as the box stated it would. It was combed and curled and appeared she had taken the time to make it look nice for him in a way he appreciated. She tottered carefully on old and weathered legs and shifted her weight slightly from one side to the other as she walked. The man was tall and gray with a bald pate on the top of his head, and his skin was tan but weathered. He walked two steps behind her in a careful and cautious way. Not so much because of a physical weakness of his own as he was a bit  stronger than she appeared to be, but in a way of allowing her to choose where she went for herself and he would be happy to be as close as he could to ensure her safety.  He followed two steps behind her and let her to be the the one to choose their course without having her see it. It was not because she was  in charge of them both that he needed to be two steps subordinate to her. It was a very loving  distance that was as enabling to her as it sufficiently allowed him to be protective of her. One was not at the expense of the other, and the intention was not missed by either of us as he followed her down the road. In his other hand, he held her bouquet of flowers.

     He was not sure if everything that he had just seen and felt had filtered into the head of the woman he loved so much in quite the same way, but as she stood to go and hugged him close to her, he was reminded of how gracefully she fit into all of the parts of his body. How her arms wrapped around him and held his body against hers in a way that never seemed as though they would lose balance no matter how fiercely they clung to each other. Her hips fitting just inside his and her head nudging the pocket of his shoulder.  He was reminded so often of the very first time she held him like this. Of warm summer air and the sound and feel of dry gravel under his feet as she kissed him for the first time after saying that she loved him.

     The mountain recognized again, and the sand and dust swept away from the plain to expose the solid rock beneath once more, he reminded her again that she was adored  enough to allow her to  go so far as she needed to feel she has nothing left of herself to give or love, but that she will never be able to go so far as to have him feel the same thing for her. Time counts again, but not without the realization that for as easy as it is for them to slow and stop what they know so well, it is much easier to have others allow it to rush on by without a second thought.

     Shiva's arms unwind from himself. The fire and the drum are held again, and time begins to move. But souls are not unwound. Bound tightly they remain and continue to feed while unwanted sand and dust ticks away on someone else's hourglass. It will take eons to destroy a mountain, and for them, the sand does not  stop it. It only covers what moves nonetheless.

FALL

   

I have been sitting here watching the leaves of Summer turn from verdant green to the most beautiful of Fall, erupting into crimsons and yellows, of soft browns and dappled combinations of auburn and burgundy.
 
     The rain has been falling for days, but the air has turned colder each day and small hints of blustery wind nudge out the warmth of Summer. Small drops of rain tumble and fall and  a few are blustered onto the window panes.  It is beautiful and it is almost everything I expected it would be.

Almost.

     Fall no longer has the feeling it once had when I shared them with you, and I want them back for what they have always meant to me that is so very different than is felt by any one else. Fall is not the beginning of an end for me. It is that wonderful beginning to that which simply doesn't end at all.  We all decide for ourselves which season to start with to track our lives, and Fall has always been mine. How fitting that I should find someone who is so very much like it.   That wonderful feeling of your gloved hand in mine as we walk down the street watching the leaves scurry about their business on the sidewalk beneath us.  The smell of wood stoves and the shifting elongating shadows that stretch from a sun hung low even at mid afternoon.

     I have always loved the warm smell of spice and coffee in the Fall. Of caramel apples and cinnamon doughnuts, but the smell I remember most vividly comes when you turn your face away from the wind and your hair, gently brushing my face as you lean your head on my shoulder, is all  I want to feel filling my nose.

     I met you in the Fall.  I have spent every season with you, but I feel what you are to me more in the Fall than at any other time.  Our Winters  were usually spent with the friends who have become our family, and is time to reassure those we love around us that they are important in ways we simply can not describe.  The long nights spent together under the roof sheathed in hard cold ice and twinkling lights  in the trees during the winter allows me to reflect on what a beautiful woman you are and how important you have become to me.
      Spring Is when I see you in the prettiest of the clothes you wear. It is the time I pick the flowers I give to you and delight in seeing you smile at holding them.
     Our summers are filled with days of us laying in the sun . We  in small talk during the day,holding hands together and the subtle promises that the warm nights in each others arms belong to the person we love and not to ourselves or to anyone else.
     Each season has it's own wonders to share with you,  but it is the Fall that fills me with such an overwhelming feeling of  love for you.  It is Fall where it is the most pure and complete in its own right.  To be able to feel the warmth of your body and experience the happiness  of you with me through your eyes more than anything else.
     To me, You ARE the Fall. The other seasons pale in mute, envious silence, at what you become.
     I can not imagine a Fall not shared with you.  And I will wait beside the wet windows for you to come to me  again as only you can do.  With soft brown eyes, and your gloves of crimson.  Of your wonderful hair in dappled combinations of auburn and burgundy filling my head with thoughts of apple cider. And mostly of your hand inside of mine as we walk among busy and scurrying leaves, reveling in what is to come for us rather than what leaves .

WISH YOU WERE HERE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETNrGpxBTQA&feature=related


     Sometimes, I think  the most profound things I have ever seen or heard have been sitting there, waiting, for me to come to a point in my life where it suddenly had meaning to me. That doesn't mean I didn't listen to it before but it didn't have a relevance to me yet, either.  I needed to be able to experience the world around me in a context that was simply unavailable to me at the time. How ironic that something that could have easily been a prophetic warning for my future, instead, found a way of becoming a blunt conformation of that which I was simply too inexperienced or naive to comprehend the first time I heard it. Regret, as well as hindsight, is 20/20. The only difference is that regret has the unfortunate quality of being recognized for what it is and its loss to a self only after it is too late to correct. Maybe this will serve to remind certain people to reassess their surroundings at the midpoint of their epiphanies, rather than at the endpoint where it will do little for them but to confirm their latent company with the misery of others so much like themselves.



So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in a war
For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here.

LITTLE TIN HEARTS

When I first met you it was though I had stumbled into the picture of a wonderland life.  Everything that appeared as it was supposed to be and everything in its place.  Perfect from the outside in every detail. Smiles for everyone and envy from the outside world for all that you seemed to have and possess. Charming. Utterly charming.  I wandered into this immense house and, inside a small closet, tucked away in the corner, and of almost no consequence whatsoever, I found a heart.

     It was a little tin heart.  So small and so fragile.  It had been left in the corner,crumpled and its paint dull. Dust had collected over the top of it as though no one had paid attention to it in years. And they hadn't. It was completely empty. Like an old Christmas ornament that was nice enough to keep, but not worth repairing or replacing and certainly not hanging on the tree for what it meant. Dented, and then filled from something within itself, but never from those who had caused it.

 So much like my own.

     Why it had been left in a closet as an obvious possession, and still so neglected and inconsequential  was beyond me, but I made it my goal in life to return it to what it once was.  I knew what it was supposed to look like, and while I have not been very good at having people take care of mine, I knew this one could be fixed.

     I took it home with me and went about taking the dents back out of it.  Straightening its small delicate curves and subtle faces until it was capable of holding so much more than it once had.   I buffed the outside until it shone with the light of a thousand suns and then I gilded it and reinforced its edges to withstand what I intended to put inside of it.  When it was complete, I painted it back to its lustrous shine and went about filling it. I had found it when it was not wanted, remade it when it was considered not worth fixing, let alone even noticing, and protected it when it was of little more than crumpled tin to anyone else. It was to be kept.

     Fixing hearts is not as easy as it seems.  Some hearts have become accustomed to what assails them and resist any desire to mend them.  But as long as you are slow and careful with them, and everything you do is conscious and honest, it will begin to look as though the worst parts repair themselves.  As long as the pieces you use are the very best that it deserves, there is no failing in mending a heart.  And this heart was one of those very rare ones.  A heart that, for all of its simplicity, had wrapped its fears and injuries within its internal workings so as to believe they needed to be there in order for it to exist at all. As though compassion required the component of corrosion, and tense anxiety was what defined the motion of clockwork springs and gears.  A heart like this, once it is repaired, can be the type of thing only miracles are made of, come from, and it takes miracles to repair it as well.

     Now hearts can be filled with anything, and self sacrificing hearts have more shoved into them with the sense of responsibility and duty more than with love. Anger,resentment, loneliness, apathy. Sadly the greatest thing it is usually filled with is fear.  But this one I filled with my very soul, and the weight of it, once it was filled would be much too heavy for any man with more selfish  intentions could bear to lift.  I left no room in it for anything else, and when it was finished, wrapped  my hands around it and protected it as a prize beyond worth.  A treasure for which I would give my very life for. Truly PRICELESS.  It was THAT important.  It was important because in returning that heart back to what it was capable of holding, I  refilled mine as well.  My heart filled with my own soul and the promise that it belonged only to one person, and one alone.

     Before I left, I covered the heart  with letters and wishes, of small kisses and promises, and confirmations of its worth and protection in spite of anything that lay before it or me.  Nothing would befall this heart, and as long as it was filled with my soul there was no room in it for anything less. Before I left I knew it to be impenetrable.  Over time the small reinforcements became a chest to hold it within.  The key to what lay inside is in only two places.  In your will to let it out, and around my neck to open it when I returned.  Its key is still around my neck and I would have never removed it.



     Every day that I spend without it is a day that I remember how badly I needed it and how solemnly I swore to protect it.  And not a single day goes by that I do not believe with all my soul that he believes he has stolen back from me what is no longer, nor has ever been,  his right to say he owns. The belief that it can be "owned' at all is enough to question the right to  hold it at all.

     He left it alone long enough for someone else to find and reopen its worth, and all the regrets in the world that he has, are not enough for me to willingly accept he has any idea of how to protect it any more now than he ever did.  Not  then, not now, not ever.  Even if he could, what right does he have now to take it for himself when all I ever did was make it everything it could be?  Have I ever done anything less to deserve it?

     And so there the heart sits, filled with both my soul AND another, and a blackened, resentful fist keeps it.  This is not what is fair for hearts repaired by men who know their worth.

     Neglect the little  hearts of the world if you so desire, but there are those who are more than willing to seek what is only thought of as crumpled tin, and while you may be able to dent them again and again, and to leave them to collect years of dust from neglect, rebuilt hearts, with reinvented clockwork springs, will beat for years longer than you can imagine.

THE LETTER ON THE BRIDGE

                                                            THE LETTER ON THE BRIDGE


     I  left my house and walked. Just walked. Nowhere in particular; just an excuse to leave the din of mediocre silence within a house that was a collection of indifferent and autonomic processes- Accomplished to every one's expectations, but not a single one done with more passion than was needed for anything more complex than a load of laundry or a sink full of dishes.  Passion was something I had traded long ago.  For what, I am not exactly sure, but without it, I often wondered why it was I was attributing success for it at all anymore.  With the roles reversed, would I feel as though I should show more appreciation for what they did than what I felt in myself right now now?

Probably.

     I walked up the hill and turned right on the bridge road that wound its way across the river and on back into town.The view from one side of this bridge spreads out over the water in  steady and even lines on both sides of the river, as though it could be painted with  single strokes from a painters brush. No effort at all. Pretty, yes, but easy. Too easy sometimes.  Too simple to see it as anything more than what it is already was and with little or no expectation to have it change. It is almost always calm and serene and I use what I see from it as a way of reminding me that what I feel good about myself has put me where I am today. This is the side I attribute to accomplishments. My small internal reward and validation of positive choices. Sometimes those accomplishments, however, are not mine alone. I can look at them, and be a part of them, but no more than anything else painted into the landscape. As though it would come as no surprise to have someone view it from the other bank and paint me into it with no more consideration of my presence than is given to  a rock or a tree in the same place. It is a verification that I am an integral component to the universe as a whole, and not separate from it.

     But bridges have two sides as well as two ends, and when I am unsure of myself, or need to find answers, I cross the road to the other side that is much shorter in its view but more active and changing from day to day.  This is the side of the bridge that I hope and dream.  Where decisions are made and where simple reflection gives way to thoughts and actions deeper than the water beneath my feet.

     The sheet of stark white  ice ends only a few short feet from the edge of the falls.  Cold water, dark and smooth, bulges  and swells at the surface as it escapes from underneath before sliding away like molasses and curling over the rim in a seamless and unbroken line.

     The water thunders at the bottom of the falls just a few feet away, and the spray of water droplets stick and freeze to any surface they touch.  Everything beneath the rocks is coated in icy crystals turning simple plants and small shrubs into jewels as fragile as they are priceless.  Great plumes of mist roil and pour into the air, constant,but always changing. Always different, but ever present.  Like streams of thoughts that some point to as being inconsistent and, therefore, worthless, because they are never in the same place.  Others, however, see not the position of those thoughts as being what is important and are instead, relying on the fact that what causes them, is  always present. Thoughts, like the mist from a waterfall, are only possible if a source continues to feed them.

     The pool of water beneath the falls is a mass of sharp and twisting waves. Like flakes of obsidian or a flock of angry crows, their wing tips battering each other for space. The river juts off to the left and then settles into a small curve that finally hooks itself like the arm of a lover before drifting out into the small valley beyond. All the feathers of those angry black birds smoothed into a contended slumber of inky feathers.

     So much like my thoughts and dreams, this side of the bridge has become. More active and changing, but always with a sense of adventure and...passion;  That what occurs on this side of the bridge is not so much a chaotic event with no end, but a fight for that which is just as real as the other side, and paid for with activity and motion and energy. The end result is that both become placid and calm, but that this side can be seen and quantified, whereas the opposite side simply expects to be taken for what it is. Neither good or bad, right or wrong. Who is to say which side of the river is its truer nature if  there is no way to gauge what it is capable of? Do I  admire its current state because of what it is, or do I question it because of its indifference?  It is what it is, but it also, is what it is not.

     At least this side of the river, with its constantly changing and reinventing  of itself and its surroundings brings a sense of desire.  That the landscape the water pours through is just as much a part of itself for what it changes as much as what it does to its environment. To this side of the river, it isn't enough to simply rest along the banks in simple indifference and be seen as a sure thing.  This side of the river thrashes and fights and assures me that what it results in was earned much more than simply expected or assumed.


     I rested my arms on the edge of the round steel railing and just breathed in. As though the frozen air, had within it something I could take into my lungs here that could not be done breathing it in  within the confines of the house.That was a different kind of cold. One that solidified a soul rather than invigorated one.

     As I looked out over the water a small glint of red flashed in the corner of my eye.  Too bright to be a trick of the light, and too small to be something I had neglected to see as part of the view, it was there for an instant and then gone.  Two more, a pink and another red, lower this time, flashed again. As though the thoughts within the mist had suddenly fired a flare or emitted a shower of spark. I realized I was standing on top of a small pile of glitter.  It had been spread out over the ice on the walk, and as the breeze blew, it lifted small bits up into the air.  I looked down at my feet and found a letter in a plain white envelope tied to the railing with a piece of string. A single rose lay beneath it, held firm to the ground by the ice that covered the two shiny green oval leaves.

     I knew it wasn't for me.  No one knew that this spot held any more importance to me than would any other stretch of road to anyone else.   No name was signed on the front. Just a card.  Crisp and clean with no outward bend or mark. "How sad" I thought, that whoever laid this card had so feared that another would find it that they could not put the name of the person they loved at the top, nor could sign anything name at the bottom.

But a card nonetheless.

      I held the card in my gloved hands. It wasn't mine. It didn't belong to me. But I had spent so long in an environment where even remote excitement had become an impossibility. I knelt back down to replace the card where I had found it and instantly felt the pang of a loss that was not mine to possess. As though  a penance had been paid by me already and could read and feel by proxy. I stood back up decided that fantasy and fairy tale were as much mine to dream as it was for someone else to experience and not have.
    
    Curiosity took hold of me,though, and I opened the envelope. The card folded into three sections, and beneath the third fold, a letter slipped out. I very nearly dropped it into the water, but pushed the entire contents to my jacket and fished the letter out from between my gloves and my body.

     Another wave of guilt passed over me as I contemplated putting the letter back inside, unread, and walking away.  Who was I to live vicariously through the love of someone else? I answered myself almost as quickly as I asked it. "I am myself, and I do need love, vicariously or no".  I wanted, no needed, what was inside. I needed to know that what I felt was not unrealistic or selfish and existed somewhere else for other people, even if not for me at the moment. Maybe one day I would, but for this moment, right here and now I needed it, and I was going to feel it.

     It started out with the usual affirmations that are so easy to say. Little affectations that require absolutely no thought at all and can be performed with the automaticity of operating a light switch or a car door.  But as I read, it slowly gave way to a deeper, more difficult, plodding, kind of writing. As though the intention was to run, but that he just hadn't got his legs to catch up to what his head and his heart, was thinking.  Suddenly, it took off in a whirlwind of emotion and I felt myself, actually felt, what it was that was being said.  Not in a way that could be seen as occurring to another person, but to myself. As though what he had written was meant for me. I could feel every word as though it were very real fingers that touched my neck, or caressed my breast, or pressed against my lips in a way that stole my breath from me.

    He did know me. He knew us. Most of all he knew himself more than any other person I had ever read from. A total stranger, with me reading his love letters to a woman I would never know, and it was as though he was standing inside of my own head.

     I stood there, holding a love letter intended for someone else, and yearned to have a heart this pure within me. I held it in my clutched fist and felt the crisp paper as I burned inside with a want I could not have.  The wind blew and small bits of confetti and glitter drifted down onto the frozen river.

     My momentary loneliness gave way to a deeper sadness and regret for all that I was once more than willing to sacrifice. It crept over me in a slow oozing, like tar, and then quickly cooled to a hard and brittle shell. What was left of me locked inside of myself.  And then the grief transformed itself into anger. A blind uncontrollable anger that not only had I been duped into this feeling by someone else regardless of all that I had given, but that I had been convinced that it was myself who wished it for myself. I didn't. My silence was not an acceptance at all. My silence was the only thing left that had not been taken from me by fear of losing something else. When you can't fight, you run. When you can't run, you hide. And when you can not hide anymore, you stay as absolutely still and silent as possible; hoping you are seen as innocuous as a wall or a rock. Prey may be eaten alive at any moment, but no sense in making the inevitable approach more quickly with unnecessary movement or sound. I crumpled more than sat and stared at the letter in my hands feeling it slowly warm my heart until it melted my frozen feet in the snow and set my heart to flame.

Down on the ice, a dozen roses and tulips were strewn about and held within the ice. Locked in place and trapped where they fell. I wept openly and tears spread down my face. No longer tears of grief but of a rage I would no longer contain.

What a loss. That something this kind and gentle had to be left where only one person could see it. Not by those who walked by lifting their head up, but only by someone hanging their head.And it wasn't her. It was me. I was left where only one person could see me, too. And he didn't even have the emotion left to devour what he had already hunted and wounded but would not kill. I envied her. In a way I can not explain, I envied what she has. I say 'has' because there is something far more compelling to a person who can not do what he wishes, and finds a way to do it anyway, than could ever be said by having something and doing little to show it.  I am holding what is hers and she has so much more than me, and I envy her.  God in heaven I envy her and that kind of love.

     I so desperately wanted to keep this card and feel it over and over, but I slipped it back into the envelope and placed it back under the string that held it.  For the next few days I went back every night and reread it. I thought of taking it several times, but simply couldn't bring myself to do it.  Two days later, the letter was gone, but the rose remained. I knew in an instant that someone else had read what I had, someone that was not her,and that it was, again, not who it was intended for. If it had, the rose would have been gone as well. Just like my own life where the pieces that were wanted were taken only in part, and the remainder, left to be disposed of by time foot traffic.

     I burned with jealousy that someone else had taken what I could not, and that the woman it was intended for would never see it. I felt angry that someone else had what I wanted and even more furious that another perfect stranger held it now.

     And then it hit me like a hammer.  Another person read this. A person just like me. A person who may have walked across the same bridge with the same feelings and found what I had.  Maybe she had a greater need of it than I did, or maybe her life was even less than what mine was.  Maybe to her, there are not two sides to a bridge at all. Maybe only one or maybe there is no bridge at all. My mind quickly flashed to an image of a woman trapped on an island not of her own making and was only able to cross when the water froze to a single sheet of ice. Sometimes, there are no paths or bridges at all.

     I wondered what was so important about this bridge and how many secrets have been told to it. Whose secrets does it hold, and are there deeper ones below the surface of the water? Too solid and permanent to be seen even by those like myself who happen  across an occasional one but could not possible understand what they could not see? I had a feeling that this bridge held far more than mere flowers.
  
     Spring came early this year. I went back to the bridge today to look at her flowers one more time.  I chose a good day to do it. I waited and watched as the ice broke free and I watched the flowers, her flowers, break free and tumble over the falls. I stared down through the inky water. Deep beneath the surface of the water, like a star exploding, a brilliant ice white flashed once and then was gone.

     And once again, I envied her.

THE TREE OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE

I wished I was the tree
outside of your house.
With its broad green leaves
and spreading branches.
I dreamed I was your tree.

I would be tall enough for you
to stretch over your lawn,
and peer down through the window
while you slept.

Watching over you,
a sentinel for all seasons,
Immoveable, and solid.
I wished I was your tree.

But the tree, they said,
despite green leaves and a solid trunk,
was bad on the inside,
and needed to be cut down.

And so they sawed off its limbs
and then cut it in half
and ground the stump to the grass,
but I still wished to be your tree.

split and rendered
to firewood alone,
I would still warm your body.
I still wished to be your tree.

But the wood, they said,
was diseased and unsound
not fit for the heat of the hearth,
but I still wished to be your tree.

Too filled with the beetles,
or so they had said,
to even be left for a log,
but I still wished to be your tree.

The wood, it was loaded
in a truck to be chipped
and shredded to mulch,
but I still wished to be your tree.

Now, it is gone.
Unseen to the eyes from above,
its roots still winding deep and strong.
 But I still wished to be your tree.

Trees, made as they are, above,
as well as below, are twice what they seem,
and sheering the top takes but half.
I still want to be your tree.

Let me stay, nestled deep,
in the ground of your lawn
touching your foundation,not windows.
I still wish to be your tree.