A Grand Slam

The Visit

The old man sat hunched over the table, going over and over the tattered map that had been folded and refolded more times than there were miles left to travel.  He tried again to click the lamp up another notch when in reality it was his  dim vision that was lacking additional adjustment.

He had made the long journey here but instead of visiting with me, inquiring how I was doing or asking what was going on in my life, he  sat the whole time silently studying  how to make his way back home.  When he did speak it was to ask if the 95 would be backed up at rush hour. 

"They're all backed up." I said.

The small red lines running across his straining eyes seemed a perfect reflection of the back roads and mountain passes looking back at him. 

I wanted to snap a photograph of his weathered hand lying across the eastern seaboard, complete with the frayed cuff of his flannel sleeve.  This was the image that would stick with me; it was the same hand that provided stability to my first bicycle, though it was now ever so slightly quivering as he worried about again driving in traffic.

I wanted to ask him why he came.  What was the point if only to sit at this table planning his return trip, but I didn't.

I snapped the picture.



ZC

Remember to clean your brushes

I was passing a storefront that seemed to be in between shopkeepers.
The previous one, I assume, had either retired or given up the struggle.
The new one, I expect, is excited about the prospect of running their own shop.
How fun must that be, decorating, setting out your items for sale,
 improving upon the displays and then






waiting.

Its different than no turns left

At The Library

Occasionally I make feeble attempts at reading philosophical works; never sure what I'm hoping to find but somehow still driven to explore.  I was quick to abandon The Republic, by Plato, and now I'm finding Immanuel Kant hurts my brain.

Obviously these are not paths I'm to be taking, but why then do I find myself drawn to them?  What can I possibly be in search of?  I have long since accepted the basic realities of society, the harsh truths of politics as well as the inadequacies of time itself. 

I seem an unfinished canvas hoping I'll one day back-up far enough to see the whole picture, yet being the canvas it remains impossible to back up from myself at all.

I experience being at the library as if I'm riding in a crowded foreign elevator, surrounded by odd languages, casual as well as pressing topics being spoken, all the while watching the descending numbers of time ticking floors off of my life.

Perhaps it is my personal race against time that keeps me searching, looking - hoping to find that one perfect philosophy.  And just maybe it poses the right questions, twisting my Rubics brain into forming the right answers before I reach the bottom floor.

Here's the thing...

These are not buttons.

The numbers are just painted on.

Weeping Willow

Twas the Fall that killed the summer

when leaves fell like tears

through chilled waves of despair

Winter’s breath upon the air-

Don’t paint the child’s playground

as a still-life void of glee –

and weep not as the Willow

for again it soon will be

Young buds now ride the school bus

so fast to grow and be -

in Spring will crowd the branches
of the stately family tree.

zc