RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,231
(Heaven means a tomorrow?)
Maybe it was, oh, 18 days
back, when I was rudely
interrupted by the plague.
I can't precisely say, since
one of the points which
moved was a specific
point of focus, the pinpoint
of which was mostly lost
in the frenzy. I need new
time to re-generate a life?
If that is so, I will do so;
though not to 'change' the
life I had before, but to
better its work.
-
Quarrels are fraught with
factions, and the factions
embroil each other into a
rollover pattern of false
progress. Shylock's Globbo
was but a servant to task.
Because no one chose to
benefit him, he was simple
to be, yet hard to exist.
Perhaps 'manana' from
Heaven means there will
always be a tomorrow?
-
There's a genial chivalry
to the things we can be.
The last scene I left, in the
previous chapter, was the
one of my father meeting
a hot-dog vending chum
under the old westside
highway. It was a scene
from another world : those
men are gone now, as is
the very place and time
and feelings they inhabited.
The structural apparatus of
that world, as it existed, is
long gone now; as are the
definitions and references
once embedded within. All
scorched and scoured, that,
too, as if a Covid of its own
time had swept its fire through,
and burned into the piled-pages
of that ancient reference book
composed, then, of war-memories,
men distorted and twisted from
their experiences, and their
frustrated shapes and dreams
of a hard, solid world of metal
and glass and fear. As I look
back now, I think that in my
entire childhood every one of
my friends had one of those
men for a Father. We've buried
those oldsters at our own peril,
and lost a world.
-
If I myself were to rise right now
from the dead, my apparition
would be no different than that
of a spoiled Marley, or a rotten
Scrooge - carrying locks and
chains, and trailing the white
dust of years through impossible
pages of the present. The small
candles glimmering everywhere
from the walls would try to lead
me through some other form of
dark. Even in this most modern
of days, the meanings and the
definitions of today's world
would entrap me -- I'd need
to avoid all of it; the advancing
coarseness of fat people prancing
with their toys, the dance of cars
and medicine across people's faces;
the sickening glee of false holiday
cheer, with all its attendant lying
and greed. This lion lies down
with the lamb? I'd rather die.
-
In my delirium, I learned many
things, things spoken to me,
twice-over, from a creature in
a raiment of words: "Scientists
speak of matter being formed
via the arrangement of molecules.
Mystics go a step further. Letters
are powers of their own. Their
rearrangement gives us insight
into the relationship between
seemingly different words and
concepts. Their numerical
significance, their 'gematria,'
must also be understood, for
words that share the same
numerical total have a kinship
comparable to seemingly
unrelated items that share
hydrogen, oxygen, or other
basic elements - it is this
mix which gives a unity to
the certain characteristics of
reality, and by which we
recognize our universe
and our places in it."
-
Take this with you, and walk.
I'll be back. [The wise man
treasures life. The fool
pursues sin, and is soon
snared by death].
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