mental vacancy, part one

Somehow this life has scraped away much of what has been in my head. The wicked aloneness. All the music. Sleeping in a thin bed which floats on the dreams of compassion.The way bees find themselves walking on the ground – something other than expected.

How many brain cells come and go? Who is hearing the rain? “It is I,” someone in old China said, “alone and destitute.” Thoreau in the woods – “Simplify, simplify.” There’s an osprey on a pole eating a fish. A fish with cousins and sisters, at home in the ocean’s movements. “Obladi, Oblida.” It goes on, it stops going on. Splish splash only 45 seconds ago, freedom not being just another word.

What is better than the stars in the sky? Coffee? Rock and roll? Slow dancing? As Abbie Hoffman once said at the end of a talk at Salem State College – “Answers, anyone? We all know the questions.” Like I read in a new book this morning – “The Landscape beyond landscapes.” Or The Rascals – “I think I’ll go outside for a while, and just smile.” The faintest of grins.

P.S. My scraped head. My swollen heart.