every afternoon, after the cows and goats and sheep have grazed all day, a friendly farmer comes by on horseback to round them up and move them out down the road to their shelters for the evening. recently, my routine has involved work in the morning and an early afternoon shower, after which, i stand on the terrace and watch the parade roll by. sometimes a bull tries to mount a mate on the way out, but otherwise it's pretty quiet. serene actually, like a gently meandering stream, with the plub and fsh and splsssh of water replaced by ba-a-a and eh-eh-eh and muuuh of livestock, bobbing and clopping on their way to the barns.
today, the farmer had his youngest son ride with him, tucked up front on the saddle, while two other sons rode in similar fashion on another horse.
i have a feeling that during my first week back home, i'll be searching my hometown for a similar scene and most likely will not find anything like it within 15 minutes of downtown. actually, first i fly into the big gray apple and will have to deal with city-shock rather immediately.
ah, new york. new amsterdam, mannahatta, the city that never sleeps. never sleeps. never sleeps. nope, never. about eight years ago today, i watched replay replay replay of this insomniac city daydreaming its nightmare. in that dream-vision a magic eightball filled with cold sweat shatters on the ceiling and tells all the answers at once - all truth, all lies, facts, opinions, skulls, wombs, oceans, fires, eyes - and in an instant all of these things are golden ants on black sand, building a castle on a hill, and suddenly a gust of blue bullet rain and claws of lightning breathe fire across the hill and somewhere a man in a suit sips a cup of coffee and in the moment taken to lick a molecule of java from his upper lip the silence of a million stars imploding deafens him and then BAM! - a million more stars are born, blinding him and leaving him in a dumb stupor until he feels the sun on his skin and turns to it, with nothing left to do but follow it west. the sun shines powerfully and yet there is a constant rain. as his knees and ankles slowly rust, the flesh melts off his neck and back to reveal his red-iron bones, and he lightly fingers the top of his spine, where he finds a small anthill, with tiny golden ants still working to perfect their endless clockwork temple.
this nightmare daydream has been stuck on repeat for the past eight years, and every morning it plays, that same afternoon, a farmer in a small town on the pacific coast of mexico herds his cows and his goats and his sheep and brings them to their stables to sleep for the evening.
all constants.
what if the river were a variable?
it is this i am left to ponder, when i return home to stand by the banks of the gentle oswego and the shores of great ontario. so it goes.
today, the farmer had his youngest son ride with him, tucked up front on the saddle, while two other sons rode in similar fashion on another horse.
i have a feeling that during my first week back home, i'll be searching my hometown for a similar scene and most likely will not find anything like it within 15 minutes of downtown. actually, first i fly into the big gray apple and will have to deal with city-shock rather immediately.
ah, new york. new amsterdam, mannahatta, the city that never sleeps. never sleeps. never sleeps. nope, never. about eight years ago today, i watched replay replay replay of this insomniac city daydreaming its nightmare. in that dream-vision a magic eightball filled with cold sweat shatters on the ceiling and tells all the answers at once - all truth, all lies, facts, opinions, skulls, wombs, oceans, fires, eyes - and in an instant all of these things are golden ants on black sand, building a castle on a hill, and suddenly a gust of blue bullet rain and claws of lightning breathe fire across the hill and somewhere a man in a suit sips a cup of coffee and in the moment taken to lick a molecule of java from his upper lip the silence of a million stars imploding deafens him and then BAM! - a million more stars are born, blinding him and leaving him in a dumb stupor until he feels the sun on his skin and turns to it, with nothing left to do but follow it west. the sun shines powerfully and yet there is a constant rain. as his knees and ankles slowly rust, the flesh melts off his neck and back to reveal his red-iron bones, and he lightly fingers the top of his spine, where he finds a small anthill, with tiny golden ants still working to perfect their endless clockwork temple.
this nightmare daydream has been stuck on repeat for the past eight years, and every morning it plays, that same afternoon, a farmer in a small town on the pacific coast of mexico herds his cows and his goats and his sheep and brings them to their stables to sleep for the evening.
all constants.
what if the river were a variable?
it is this i am left to ponder, when i return home to stand by the banks of the gentle oswego and the shores of great ontario. so it goes.
