There is an ebbing of spirit;
The part that marvels at a sailor’s sunset
or finds solitude in the noise that crickets make.
In the coming twilight I will perform a life sustaining
walk past rolling leas and century
old farm houses. My arms and legs will
function like the involuntary beating of a heart.
I do hope that one day soon
a resolute spirit will resurface;
one that yearns fascination, like those
that come and flutter their powdered wings
seeking but a brief respite from the darkness,
one that can laugh along with a farmer’s
children at the morning bus stop,
one that can acquiesce to the
fading light of days.
– William Greenfield…
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A frail man with a shock of hair and transparent skin shuffles across a red stone courtyard in the heart of Andalusia. Amidst a cluster of buildings, he knows he must find the Citadel, and is drawn right, right, and then left. A Nasrid archway crowned with an arabesque leads to a long, dimly lit corridor, ending at a wooden door strapped with iron. As he lifts his fist to knock, rusted hinges chirp, and he enters an impossibly tall cylindrical room lined with shelves overflowing with parchments and books. As he slowly scans the rows of writing, a soft swirling sound fills the room, a deep song of distant voices that covers his skin, enters his body, spirals within, and finally fills his heart. At that moment the light switches in a pulse-beat to a hot white.…
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She found a finger swimming in her split pea soup. It was fraternizing with the carrots and onions, acting as if it owned the crock it swam in. She insisted that the finger jump out immediately. When it refused, she bit it, only to realize that it was her own – it throbbed for a while.
She found a foot on a warm sandy beach in St. Thomas, so she invited it to join her in the tranquil sea but the foot wouldn’t move. She watched it from a distance still hoping to find a way to persuade it, but she couldn’t. Much to her dismay, the foot sank deeper and deeper into the sand until it was swallowed up – it didn’t leave any prints. …
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The moon shines through silver-gray clouds. My sister huddles beside my bed.
“It’s all right.” She wipes my tears. “Life offers something unexpected and surprising underneath the rocks.”
I smile, staring at the lights across the hillside. She knew Dad would leave. It’s a pity, the way she gets used to these things. First there was Mom, drifting in and out of our lives. She always said when she got in touch with who she was, she’d send for us. Personal happiness was the most important thing.
Then there was Margaret’s accident. She’d gone to Alice Cooper’s Billion Dollar Babies tour, when he played Philadelphia. She got hit by some Vietnam vet after the concert.
She was in the hospital for a month.
I stole Dad’s car to pick her up, even though I didn’t have a license.…
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I was working in a movie theater as an usher. To the uninitiated, who think that the main vocation of an usher is to keep order – probably as a carry-over from going to movies as a kid – their primary duty is cleaning up: the theaters after the movie, restrooms during the movies, the lobby of fallen popcorn and wrappers. With my foot I was holding a theater door open as patrons were exiting after a show, my two hands holding wide the mouth of a plastic trashbag for them to deposit their refuse, if they hadn’t already on the floor. Out of the aether she from the lobby side emerged and asked if she could put a wrapper in
“Sure.”
She did so, and departed. …
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