Eight Pages from a July Diary

The Dawn of Reason

2008-05-31T07:19:00.002-07:00

A little while ago a very old man lifted a corner of a dirty curtain that hid a very old window. A brilliant shaft of light pierced through, filled the room with a million different hues and blew the old man away. He now sits alone on a hill picking out little stars from his long white beard.

I stopped by and asked him why infinity never tired of waiting.

He picked out little stars from his long white beard and scattered them on the ground. I looked down and saw the little stars changing colors. I noticed I could not see any blue. And I wondered why blue was the most brilliant of all colors.

I asked him what the space between in and out meant to him.

He shrugged his shoulders.

I then asked him why blue was the most brilliant of all colors.

He asked me if I liked fish.

I needed some time to think about this. So I reached into the space between in and out and placed everything that I found there in the palm of my hand. I then held out my hand to the old man and asked him to tell me what he saw there.

He looked at it for a long time. He then stared away into the distance and tugged at his beard. He suddenly stood up. He threw back his head, flung both his arms high into the air, and with a long wail, blew up into a thousand and fifty two pieces.

And left with my doubts about infinity, the color blue and the space between In and Out which I now held in the palm of my hand.

Storm Wind

2008-05-31T07:19:00.001-07:00

A single tiny light flickers
Upon the quietly dancing wind
A few errant drops of rain
Float lazily to the ground.
The skies open, violently brilliant
Scattering untamed thoughts, now aflame
Majestic, the storm rages while below
Invisible mortals sleep on.
Hair windblown, thoughts aswirl
A silent goddess, draped in white
Watches, as eternity slowly sways
And topples lazily to the ground

Crystal Vision

2008-05-31T07:18:00.001-07:00

I look down on the room below.

A solitary wineglass, black stemmed, stands on a little red patch, alone, and empty. A shaft of light angles in and fills up the glass. The light spills over and bounces off tiny particles of dust that lie carelessly scattered around the glass. A flight of stairs lined with brilliant green ferns, leads down to the room.

I walk down the stairs, lit by sunlight spilling off the ferns. I cross a floor that rustles with shadows from curtains hanging in hazy patterns across the walls. I reach for the glass, now filled with sunlight, and pick it up. I walk back across the room, stardust clinging to my heels. I slowly climb up the stairs lined with diamonds that wink wickedly in the light spilling in with increasing intensity.

I look down on the room below, filled with swirling shadows that refuse to stand still. I wait there glass in hand, as the shadows wash over me. After what seems an eternity I raise the glass to my lips and I notice that it is empty. My mind wanders away slowly and mingles with the dancing shadows in the room. The wineglass slowly crumbles and sprinkles onto the floor..

White Shift

2008-05-31T07:17:00.000-07:00

The night creeps in
Across a vast wide expanse of white
Fragile cobwebs sway lightly
Speckled with the dust of everyday life
A brilliance bouncing off the webs
Lights up reflective thoughts that roam the night
Wandering slashes of gray appear
Following the moonlight clear.
A little marionette, wrapped in strands of mystery
Dances with faceless silhouettes that float on by
The brilliance fades, the light dims
A rustle of silk and the expanse shrinks
Marking the night with its despairing thoughts
Leaving the marionette crumpled and lost.

Haze

2008-05-31T07:16:00.001-07:00

Moonlight and
Lazy swirls of mellow gloom
Drift silently through a vacant void.
Genius wakes slowly
And melts into a velvet shadow
A silent shape crawls into the night
Perhaps to hide a wasted thought
Mirrored vaguely in somebody's face
A hazy reflection, that floats away
To be gone and gone and gone.

Reason Revisited

2008-05-31T07:15:00.000-07:00

The old man materialized again for a brief instant holding in his hand a huge globe. He held it high over his head and then smashed it down on the ground. It shattered into little pieces and a bright light again filled the room with a million hues. The color blue stood out in all its brilliance. I watched as it danced wildly around the room bouncing off the walls and off the ceiling. It swirled in every increasing circles and finally mingling in with the other colors, shot out of the window. I closed my eyes to the warm glow it left behind. Suddenly infinity did not seem so vague anymore.

Pencil Gray

2008-05-14T06:20:00.000-07:00

Melting shadows climb a gray cliff
Of papered curtain that curls up above
A craggy ledge devoid of surface.
Face to wall,
A little conscience edges along
One precarious step at a time.

An Encounter

2008-05-09T09:34:00.000-07:00

An empty sun hangs over a vast expanse of desert land.

On the hot sand she sits, cross-legged, with beads around her neck and large rings on her fingers. She stares off into the distance as a fire rages behind her. The heat waves bounce off her hair and slam into me. My eyes hurt from the brilliance in her eyes and the wicked glint from the jewels studding the rings on her fingers. My head pounds as my ears fill with the clanging of loud bells. I sit down across her and my thoughts vaporize. The air suddenly goes cold and the sky turns black. Time freezes as the raging fire is now a blazing splash of bright orange against the black sky. She looks hard into my eyes till she can see the very depths of my soul. I look into her eyes and my mind reels as I race back in time to the dawn of civilization and then back again.

She reaches down and grabs a handful of sand. She runs the sand through her flaming hair.

"Wisdom Persists", she says.

The fire rages with an orange fury as she walks away into the black sky.