FUSION
Would anyone notice or remember that path through the oleanders in Stanford's dream? It had some history.
In those days, before it all went to seed:
“They say the mountain is hollowed out.”
“Can't imagine it. The wizard hums from dusk until we fall asleep. Must be
an echo.”
Solar panels went up after that, and when the grapes had been harvested, the hill slept quietly.
“Ah, but didn't he ramble, didn't he burn? Our legend.”
“Now just look at it. Even the walnut trees. After the grapes are gone, they
have weddings.”
“We'll take back that song about the willows.”
“Let us pray.”
Such were the traditions, and the yellow blooms of wild mustard, remnants of that good cheer. Bits and pieces of the hill had hummed from memory, but history be damned. If the hill won't hum . . .
“What place is there for our beloved wizard?”
From streets of leaves over Paris sidewalks came the violin, as an aroma of bagels thick from a brick oven, Stephan Grappelli.
“We knew him, didn't we? His glimpses of orange on gold. His staff . . .”
“Was a bow. His wand glittered.”
Flaneurs in bland humidity, laziness borrowing the slow pace of funerals, and birds of the clock tower twittering beyond fear. Those days of hollowed out history, before everything went to seed.
we are ants
Said General Curtis LeMay:
“Sam, war is killing people. When you kill enough of them, the other guy quits.”
(The Doomsday Machine, Daniel Ellsberg, p. 263)
World leaders confront their mirrored counterparts, in a last spasm of diplomacy, shouting versions of annihilation, and thermogeddon as we know, will geoengineer a work around for global warming: Nuclear winter.*
*And for those who believe, a trip to heaven.
With most other life going as the dinosaurs went.
Maybe this will scarcely jiggle your trampoline.
Late at night in random sights, I peruse the slab faced jewel. Grab the pen, write fast, the prisms flash in all directions, not to suit everyone's fancy, explanations on the fly, settling nowhere. A pink salmon run of sink or swim that scarce mentions the price of gas, but suffice to say, Elon Musk shot his cherry red electric sports car into orbit. We are saved?
Vladimir Putin is featured on the evening news, with animations. Annihilations? Invincible, world encircling, undetectable missiles with multiple re-entry nuclear warheads. His re-election is assured. While here in Santa Clara, “The Center of What's Possible,” we welcome drought busting rain, if too much for others, flooding over river banks. When will your UPS package arrive?
This ant, bouncing off the rump of an ox, is laughing. There are no aliens. My eponymous ancestor ignored such fawn colors. Putin's grab for recognition is puny next to our 7-11, always on, big brother sun, though it's no laughing matter. Though he who laughs last (or she, MeToo) . . .
Unleash your favored witticism.
Tomorrow it will be full gibbous. Don't be fooled. Don't say there's no astrology. As an experiment (it's OK if you try this at home) just follow your moods, as do presidents. Along with baying and so forth, and a nagging recognition that the Reagan White House was voo doo, gradually the tug of our planetary sibling begs a question: Gravity is everywhere, and measurable, but what is it?
Clearly, it affects more than tides of the sea.
As I turn the faceted jewel, fiddler on the roof plays a vanished dawn. Is this making sense? Don't ask.
Think back to a time when Macy's had self-winding watches on sale. It's all in the wrist. Look carefully. With iPhones there it is, Home screen baiting brick bank displays that flashed time and temperature.
In Menlo Park some years ago my neighbor spoke about his time, the best saddle maker in Portola Valley. Until the cars came. Shedding tears, he explained the intricacies of finely tooled reins.
Recalling my last day atop White Rock beside our redwood graduation grove, I cried with him. Going down the hill to leave, I said, was a descent into hell.
Not knowing what kind of hell, but hell for sure.
We had been told we could see it, the A-bomb test in Nevada. And over the mountain ridge a sudden glow appeared, sort of interesting. Though it would be down into hell, the only thing I would miss would be those times alone in the forest.
Only now, as I write, this comes to mind:
The trail started behind our Pueblo, branching off an access road that went by some scrub brush. There was a raised platform. On occasion, Prof. would have us gather there. He warned us about the dangers of smoking, of coffee, poison oak. Once, to our astonishment, he ate some, explaining that's how he got immunity.
Just behind was the real lecture.
Oh, and hearing a radio program from San Francisco, sponsored by W. & J. Sloane, with better music than anyone ever played at Montezuma Mountain School for Boys.
And now, on these imported streets, are cork screw monuments in spiral planes, expressing the derivative with respect to profit.
