HERESAY EIGHTEEN

Time Is Now

Between here and eternity, speaking as a candidate, I might speak of a persimmon orchard. Saying the word sounds mellifluous, bringing with it an agricultural appeal. The fruit is attractive enough to model corporate logos. And I have a plan. Give me a million dollars.

Well, so that didn't fly. But time, it has been said, certainly does.

Let's begin here. To one side is the past, on the other the future, and we can tell how long it takes to get here. Next, take some convenient span – weeks, days, seconds. Shrink it by stages – microseconds, nanoseconds – all the while measuring until getting to the instant of now which, regardless of mathematical dogma, goes to zero, the moment when time goes away. This is the moment when, rapt in your experience, you might say, “Oh, where did the time go?”

Out in the orchard we might find another explanation. Listen there for the falcon's swoop, tune your ears, it's always been here. This bird can turn on a whim, careening like the side shows that happen in Oakland, and flies where? Fun trails its orbit, falling in bits like a tangerine peeled, leaving a heap that from the right angle might seem a mute oracle, synchronicity.

Meanwhile here on earth we're spiraling down towards a sixth extinction. The laws of nature, misapplied, are driving climate change. A reassessment of our actions must take place while there's still time to find better sources of energy than burning fossil fuels. And will this happen while our president, and his associated overlords and minions, try to convince everyone this is all a hoax? The choices we face are difficult, and one of them is obvious.

The snow plows skidding over ice bring a memory of green ferns curling. Somehow the trees have not forgotten. The polar vortex in self contained contortions gives birth to frigid children that played once around the great lakes, the humidity of placid water holding its breath, harmless jokes and laughter suddenly released, all unaware of summer's short respite. How could there be anything but a spoke wheeled wooden wagon selling beer? The plow's judder, according to nobody's plan, scarcely imagined, coming out of the blue, then a line of squalls and showers, then heat breaking records, then the rush of tornadoes. Evacuations. Short rations. Empty food store shelves.

Fast forward to a better place in time? It will be here in a moment, in fact it's here. Scatter some flowers. A few are blooming now, thinking of spring. Sang Bill Evans:

Where what you think you know

You can't be certain of

You must believe in spring . . .

The song fades. I am amazed at the relevance of it. Our eastern States, 30 degrees above normal some of them, suffering huge tornadoes. Australia is ablaze. There is an article on 60 Minutes showing Venice sinking, flooding under rising seas that are being blown in by increasing winds. The news in just this one evening rivals a B-grade Sci-Fi movie. Not entertainment.

If enough people who aren't directly affected admit what's happening, if suddenly the climate hoax strikes everyone as the biggest lie yet and the truth sets the atmosphere free from excess green house gasses, still the oceans are full of it, and will not release the heat they're storing any faster than they acquired it. The longer we wait, the more it adds up. Disbelief in what is actually happening is indeed mindless. We are at the zero point, out of time we never had.

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