BLANKETY BLANK

Civilization is presumed to actually exist. It would be aware of those who built it. Amongst its putative builders, however, an ongoing dissatisfaction has rubbed the earth raw. There is a persistent itch that will not be assuaged with smoked salmon and Trader Joe's beer. What is it?

Cynical leaders employ surveillance technology, conveniently unaware of what cameras cannot see. To frighten people into submission, they threaten nuclear radiation therapy, a cure relevant to some disease they have imagined. It is an illusion. Can an illusion listen? If the fiction is unsalvageable or unsustainable, why bother? I think those who claim to speak for this chimera are imposters.

Yet there are many creatures, some mute, many incapable of being heard except in their own languages. If just a fraction of the audible voices were heard, the cacophony would preclude comprehension. There is a political and practical need for healing the earth.

The civilized model runs on familiar forms of thought, couched in terms that are constant throughout, as in a mathematical equation. Expectations, prescriptions, exhortations that might be addressed to the United Nations, or a State government, in a trade agreement, or something to be enforced with tear gas or a nuclear submarine. Civilization does not drink polluted water, live in slums, object to cities, manage world population. If I object to preparations for nuclear winter, or fossil fuel stupidity, what court will hear my complaint? In civilization, that is, as we think we know it?

Imagine slicing through a cloud with a sword.

A possible cure will proceed from individuals who realize that, like the earth which can't be missed with a stomp of a foot, the toe bone is connected to the ankle bone, ankle bone connected to the leg bone, right on up to the brain bone which houses an appreciation of all the organs that function together.

The grandeur of a blank page, I suspect, is not celebrated by everyone. With nothing on it, anything could be.

Reluctantly, the first word splashes down. So many equally interesting things that could have been. I did fly a kite once, as a kid, and it was fun. But I had to fly that kite and not a bird, or a cricket, all of which are still possible. The limitless sky was a prefiguration, a rehearsal or premonition of now, and accordingly these antiquated carriages shuttle back and forth, to and fro, there is a sort of equivalence. All the equitable thrill of forever is born in silence, very unceremoniously, inherent in this blank page which is fast losing its virginity. Beneath the ink, however, is the original slate, showing up through cracks and curlicues. So its probably worth mentioning that the effect may be found on a light pole at noon, or an advertisement on TV, -- home of blathersome inanities that are backed by a screen that actually does go blank, under the right conditions. One's mind can be tuned to various depths of experience. A siren on the street can be silenced at will. The mind of a person walking on the sidewalk can be addressed with curiosity or intent, and they will not know why they have turned their head to meet what?

A blank page is a splendiferous thing.