PLANCHETTE PEN

Footnote: Consider that having got this far, you are inoculated with the spirit of mathematics -- in a world where mental effort often calls up the aroma of burning leaves.

I wonder, upon seeing a ripple, exactly when it began. Seeing it creates a current event now. Now and from now on both depend upon when now is. Next consider: where does a ripple end? It must begin somewhere. But until seen, how will we know exactly where to look? Tomorrow's ripple is today's glassy lake. Yesterday's glassy lake is today's ripple.

Close examination proves that everyday facts are hard to pin down. Delving into the tip of a pen, we discover a molecular structure. Continuing into its subatomic realm, we discover that all is in ceaseless motion. Vibrations of waves moment by moment have no definite location. Waves sometimes are manifested as particles, depending on the method of measurement.

Glassy pond/ frog lumps in/ splash! Where does the ripple go?

What do we get when I let this write itself?

A footnote. The tail wags the dog. Intelligent readers are scoffing. The assertion is absurd, as believable as dirt. But on the other hand, nothing here calls for a suspension of disbelief. Between these extremes is the ripple effect.

Robin's wild idea, when my neighbor put out some walnuts on the fence. Then a couple of years passed.

Something that writes itself is toppling over gravestones, improvising jazz during a solemn procession, ignoring the parade route, seventy six trombones falling into a fugue. One cannot decide what's to write itself. It has to come around on its own terms.

After retrieving the meltdown out of a trash bin by the apartments, I took it home to photograph an illustration for As The World Burns. The candle had served its first purpose. Getting it out of the wrought iron stand uncovered a mounting spike. Upending it, with the spike shoved into the ground, turned up the bowl shaped base. Robin noticed, and chirped. So it learned its destiny as a bird feeder.

During a very rainy winter, robin and I developed a friendship. Come spring we were meeting regularly at my small cedar round table. How could anyone not like this bird with delicate spindly legs? And as the weather warmed he began showing some interest in my toll house cookie, carrying off crumbs to the youngsters, who also began showing up, so small. I began to feel they were my children, too. It didn't take long to figure out what they really liked, which was the bits of walnut on my toll house cookie. Soon I took to following my neighbor's lead, putting bits of walnut up on the fence.

These thoughts are their own granpa. Cause and effect have taken a tumble. After eighty years or so, finally the accident of dropping a spoon is met with just letting it fall. No charging bull to snort after it. Equanimity is simply the calm observation of this other way of life.

This way of writing ignores notions of what a word is. Conjure a brood of existentialists milling around a pedestrian crossing, conflicted as to whether to cross or not, whether to obey the myriad commands of machines. Let them brew. While they keep their minds busy, I just wait. Something will come down the pike. I'll be the first to know. Perhaps the only one.

Sometimesits chosen metaphor is the Ouija board. Since I'm feeling sort of literary, let's call this thing in my hand the Planchette Pen. Words come into my mind. I write them down. We proceed. When it gets like this, Twinkie knows.

From some depth of this house I've never discovered, where she goes for private cat time, she eventually emerges. It will be time for sleep.

She's such a good cat. She also decides when I should wake up in the morning. You might suppose our dreams are brought along in separate boats. That would be the sort of confusion (to cross or not to cross) that is aimless, leaving one adrift. There is a phrase so real that I have difficulty remembering it: Chaos is neglect. It is a talisman that dropped into my lap after opening the stage to the larger part of “me.”

Life goes on. I like the way Charles Fort put it – We are lived.