The Gardener
Santa Clara, CA 95051
theroot_
There has been some talk lately of using our brains for creating passwords that are impossible to hack. No two brains respond to a given stimulus in exactly the same way; each thus providing a unique kernel. My cryptic writings thus gain a fine patina.
I feel my mind poking up through a heap of dead butterflies in the realm electric. Though under the heap surprises lurk. Well and good, I guess, until the electrodes are attached. I'm already encrypted. So we'll access the archives, calling up an orchard, a ladder, bald and shiny on top, surely . . .
Faded dull red postage due stamps are there, as old as solid cast irons that stored heat from a wood stove. Those were reliable signs chiseled in marble when things were things. But members of my touring company, my cast of memes, are uninterested in attics, cobwebs, books with cherished goblins, mysteries and fables. The journey is always new.
A bell hop waiting in the wings is my guide. He sports a top hat, jauntily, impatiently at an angle. On cue, on point, legerdemain, he is poking around up there, on the top shelf amongst original curlicues and vestments, postage due reminders. Sign here. Vestiges of my stories are so old they seem somehow new again. Time has collapsed, landing on a down feather pillow. They're up there, absolutely, just flip the lid and sunflowers will billow through the morning dew. He trundles through the orchard handing out apples.
[In the cave the pundits come and go, speaking of
philosopher kings, murmuring Plato, whose
blinding light through the opening shines, making
shadows glow --
now particles, now waves. Depending.]
Glass-steel towers now pirouette, soaring over owl feet, over white and brown mice that run hysterically laughing out the door, waving at bats pinned in the shadows, an orange nailed to my brow. They hurry past, accidentally discovering hand prints stenciled in ocher. Right there by the opening of the cave, a historical spot if ever there was one, and the line of anthropologists taking notes. Clipping fingernails.
Knotting ropes, trailing bread crumbs in a flurry of decisions, I toss a bouquet of very large sunflowers, not yellow ones but russet red, with Washington in his curly wig. Mind you, I have never trucked with government delusions. It was obviously a wig. So let's be clear. Regardless of the fashion for cast iron things, I never wore a belt while swinging out in the crown of a tree, way above butterfly wings, or on a monkey-free day singing, ole'! Olly, olly, oxen free! Let the Linotype chatter down below.
___0___
It's not hard to skritch together an oat meal testament. It's not an uncommon thing. Pause under the blue sky arch. Tarry. Near the echo by the hard hats, knit hats, all covering a certain roundness, more or less. Oat meal is the real deal.
And after anthropology comes philosophy, the mortar board, a distinguished gown. The view from any tower, ivy or steel, is lofty, missing the ground of being below. Without silence, words rule. Truth is arguable until experienced. Without corn, no popcorn. Humor is russet postage due, laughter is gold, take your pick. Oat meal is the real deal.
Then an enormous earthquake, a 600 pound bee slurping honey and, Oh! A rhinoceros! The village fountain bubbles.
It can all be seen from an orchard ladder, a dose of courage, a drop of honey, a hat waving Hee-ya! Butterfly dust everywhere.
That galaxy in the mirror – anyone can lift a conch shell from the beach, listen in, and hear a quill pen skritching in Australia. And then there's the Arctic Circle, with curious bears loafing around, and the grape vines stunted this year. Anything said, as the standard warning goes, will be for the salary of lawyers who have court orders, drilling for oil. Several are snickering now, uproariously. Hear? It's understandable, given the circumstances.
Down below explorers drill through their hats, which is total balderdash because ultraviolet is the wavelength of dragons no one can see, though close enough for gardening. So Make It This Time, the embroidered hats shout. This Time the hats proclaim, saying the bears have a secret language, talking mostly to themselves anyway.
Kick it up an octave or two, all skritched and screeded in ancient, dusty webs, overlooking pansies with their black hole eyes. Gnats in a breeze. My dove friend is on the cable wire, perched in dreams we share, following nothing in particular, we hear a rhythmic roller coaster lugging dormant terror up high over flurries of red balloons. Time does not exist. Catch it on the fly, that moon in hiding. Even moss needs its sleep. Trees, waterfalls and dragon flies flit to and fro, and things once understood have become apples rolling off on their own, over the edge.
[Politics: A protest riot is news. A peaceful
demonstration, not so much. Peace squad rioters
rake in the bucks, which brings us back to the long
view of values.]
I know, and others know, a dimension beyond the usefulness of five-sense laws, or the rule of scientific law and its properties. What is beyond calculation is beyond reality, we are told.
Quiet here, in light of the silver polished moon. A small white butterfly flits along kissing flowers. On the creek bank opposite, sunlit shadows waft the smell of clay. The bell hop tips his hat.
Purrrfect!
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The Gardener
Santa Clara, CA 95051
theroot_