Beneath a Chalice

There is a way the butterfly - a swallowtail - appears to fall into the faint pink morning glory rising from tangled forsythia near the barn. One watches and thinks again of the dream from a few night's back - in which one asks why is experience subjective and realizes instantly it is not.

Combing through deadfall apples in tall grass, thinking of winter waffles covered with melted butter and warm sauce. Another night of poor sleep, this time owing to dogs howling at a distance, triggering a neural interstice that says "check on the livestock" who, as it turns out, are sitting quietly, only mildly interested in my visit. And yet the moon does seem to pass through the sky and sink into the horizon and reappear hours later opposite. Stars do not sustain the darkness, nor is darkness what makes them possible. When Ramana Maharshi died, why didn't the inclination to write about him also die?

And so one begins at last to see the way in which metaphors and analogies only cloud what is otherwise clear. How else could we long for what we cannot have? All you need to know about the image is that it is always a reflection.

Children's voices rise softly next door after their parents fight about money, finding their way back to what passes for normalcy (in days and nights such as these). We pause when the church bells ring, then carry on with what we were saying which, hours later, is forgotten. Bright yellow lilies near the barn, as big as two hands cupped beneath a chalice, make it hard to pass without stopping. Time is what fills up with what appears, that's all.

Glancing at Patchen, that lovely line from In Shadings of an Obscure Punishment that goes "I watch my life choose its own awakening." Hugging a woman with wet hair and no regrets. Driving past Sawyer Farm where wild turkeys graze just-mowed fields where forty years ago our cows summered to come back pregnant. Of course a heart cannot break.

Your father is still dead but fathers are not dead and you too are a father. This is what Sunday looks like when you know there is nobody watching.