He's walking through the shopping center and in one of those kiosks off to the side, he sees a stand selling pearls straight from the shell. But it's not the jewels that caught his eye, it's the girl selling them. And he's reminded of the Chinese poet, Yuen Mei, who wrote:
My beautiful lady goes to see the flowers,
and a flower, she forgets, is she;
Would they not come to blossom in her bowers,
should flowers intelligent be?
But though she's pretty, with sadness shadowing her commercial smile, he continues walking by because his heart belongs to another. He turns, takes one last look then thinks, "now there's something you don't see everyday: a pearl selling pearls."
Monday, July 25, 2005
Friday, July 8, 2005
Tired of Talking
and she was tired of talking so he told her a story. . .
about a prince in gilded armor who stormed a mighty castle and fought his way to the top of a high tower. All along the way he traded bits of gold (a shield, a breastplate) for his life, leaving a trail of blood and amber in his wake. After he had vanquished his last foe, he opened the door to the room atop the spire only to find a frog who forgot how to turn back into a princess no matter how much he kissed her.
about a boy who gathered pebbles in his pockets along the long and windy path to an orphanage where the ungrateful cared for the unwanted. At night under his linen sheet he would care for his little stones, giving them names and histories and legacies. Stone nations clashed and warred - epic tales complete with subplots where topaz Romeos wooed pyrite Juliets. The boy grew into a man who manufactured the first marble and his son was the first to throw a taw, collecting a grand army of ducks, starting a fad along the way. The man died a millionaire and was burried under opals, glimmers, and rubies.
about a chimpanzee who, by feigning animal ignorance, tricked NASA into letting him man the first spacecraft launched into orbit. Once airborne he dismantled the computers, took control of the ship and flew to a planet populated by hamsters. He leveraged his superior intellect (and opposible thumbs) to organize the rodents and ruled over them. He used his power to teach them to grow and harvest bananas, but he was a benevolent anthropoid and didn't tax them too heavily.
"So?" he asks.
She smiles and kisses him on his cheek. She gets into her truck and drives away leaving him with these stories in his hands, barely able to contain them. Chapters, characters, and footnotes fall through the cracks between his fingers. They hit the ground and the sentences fragment into a meaningless jumble of words and letters and apostrophes before dissolving back into the ground.
about a prince in gilded armor who stormed a mighty castle and fought his way to the top of a high tower. All along the way he traded bits of gold (a shield, a breastplate) for his life, leaving a trail of blood and amber in his wake. After he had vanquished his last foe, he opened the door to the room atop the spire only to find a frog who forgot how to turn back into a princess no matter how much he kissed her.
about a boy who gathered pebbles in his pockets along the long and windy path to an orphanage where the ungrateful cared for the unwanted. At night under his linen sheet he would care for his little stones, giving them names and histories and legacies. Stone nations clashed and warred - epic tales complete with subplots where topaz Romeos wooed pyrite Juliets. The boy grew into a man who manufactured the first marble and his son was the first to throw a taw, collecting a grand army of ducks, starting a fad along the way. The man died a millionaire and was burried under opals, glimmers, and rubies.
about a chimpanzee who, by feigning animal ignorance, tricked NASA into letting him man the first spacecraft launched into orbit. Once airborne he dismantled the computers, took control of the ship and flew to a planet populated by hamsters. He leveraged his superior intellect (and opposible thumbs) to organize the rodents and ruled over them. He used his power to teach them to grow and harvest bananas, but he was a benevolent anthropoid and didn't tax them too heavily.
"So?" he asks.
She smiles and kisses him on his cheek. She gets into her truck and drives away leaving him with these stories in his hands, barely able to contain them. Chapters, characters, and footnotes fall through the cracks between his fingers. They hit the ground and the sentences fragment into a meaningless jumble of words and letters and apostrophes before dissolving back into the ground.
Tuesday, July 5, 2005
Echos Of Love
love runs through the corridors of our lives
it fills the once empty spaces
with a kind of chaos of light and sound,
beautiful sound.
there is no substance to love
yet it saturates us, fills us,
makes us more than whole.
and when love is gone
the hallways echo
echo away
the background radiation
does not decay
completely
it remains as the memorial reminder
of what once was there
but is there no more
it fills the once empty spaces
with a kind of chaos of light and sound,
beautiful sound.
there is no substance to love
yet it saturates us, fills us,
makes us more than whole.
and when love is gone
the hallways echo
echo away
the background radiation
does not decay
completely
it remains as the memorial reminder
of what once was there
but is there no more