Monday, April 22, 2013

Perspective On Randomness

Crows are perched atop the entranceway to the park.
Bensons Park, just down the way a piece.
There you can see the sculptures for free. Quite a lark
when you think about it; walking and art and peace.

Luckily I had on my light fleece,
as the wind picked up a notch.
I walked around astounded,
carefully tip-toeing in places so as not to botch
it and step on the flowers, who, pounded
into the ground, would never again rise up to greet with petaled smile,
yourself or your lovely but unusually quiet niece.

The flowers graced the sculptures like rain graces a birdbath.
Here we frolic freely, not concerned at all with any aftermath.
We are here and here now, not a moment ago or one hence
we sit right next to a gardener who is hoeing near some old rustic fence.
Oblivious to each other's presence, we were caught up totally in our own
existence.
Just breathing, in and out, like some mystic clock, with no resistance,
we had entered into that state long sought after.
And now, that it had been reached, all that could be heard was laughter.

We arrived at this point in space and time through what seemed randomness.
Like we had been just wandering around in some ancient, impenetrable
wilderness.
The branches and limbs of life hitting us in our faces,
putting us through our cosmic paces,
running us in circles as if we were at the races.
Circle or not we somehow ended up at the same place we already were.
Had we ever even left?

Left this two block long snippet of paradise here on Earth.
Paradises of which there was these precious days quite a dearth.
Our lifes becoming bereft
of all that we had always valued, will always cherish.
Here just blocks away for my local Parish!

Almost nightmarish
in its coincidences and flights, brief ones, around
and through these experiences, on this Earth on which we are bound.
As we wander next to the ever-present marsh
and see, once more, the cattails reaching upwards
but being blown by the wind right and leftwards,
threatening to burst the seed pod and send life into our needy world.
Around our bodies and our minds, seeds of hope floated and swirled.

The crows, through it all, had remained vigilant and stoic
while we wanderers had to be nearly heroic
in order to maintain ones weak grasp on this life
in the midst of so much beauty and...parkness
here in the ebbing light as the world shrinks back into daily darkness.

Nearing the crows, alas, I spied the reason for their starkness,
their quiet, yet vigilant, stoicness.
They were not real, these crows!
Just another sculpture, they.
There, even with a piece of hay
in their mouths, all in too-perfect rows.
But what does that mean, "not real"?
Had they not just been observing (if not governing)
my entire afternoon?
The very thought nearly made me swoon.

So, enlightened about crows as well as a little more about this life
I looked to make my way back out of this park.
But looking for the way out became quite full of strife
as I could not find the way here in the growing dark.
Was there even a way any more out of this park and back to my wife?
Had I ever even been outside of the park?
Perpetually here on this crow-observed lark.

Maybe it was the effort to leave that was wrong to begin with.
Why not just stay?
And, just for chewing, look out for that sculptured piece of hay
here at the end of another wonderful day.
Who is real, us or the crows or both, and what is real.
Had I ever even had a meal
or had I forever been standing here by the blessed marsh, all full of zeal?

For I had the marble-like pleasure of being both real and not.

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mindbringer, 21 April 2013