STREET

           

It’s the late summer there and the steps that go up and up eventually meet with the patio where the patrons talk and listen drink and sometimes even sing. It’s an old building, the top windows not broken but faded, bordering on dirty. Yet, the place is saved by the energy of the air, the cleaning vibration or gaze of the moon, the whistles of the traffic and general hum that comes from the vastness of the sky and night. Yes the street like a river, and it actually leads to a sort of river, - well at least a Lake. That lake is a bit too stagnant. The people are not bad per se, - but their talk, though they think it is profound, is prosaic. The general mind is interested in the latest gossip, the place someone went, the band, the whatever, - and it’s not a sin, - it’s just a bit unconscious. But who cares? It’s just all beings in the night. One had gotten too rowdy and had to be escorted out, - and the police came, then afterwards he showed up but was apologetic, - his words met with cynical stares by the ones he had troubled. There is a graveyard down the way, but it is far and far away,- sits on a hill,- I wonder what the spirits think as they roam around the town under the soft streetlights, out and about,- ? Can two spirits, like two persons, find romance? - I never heard that question posed before. But…why not? Doesn’t it get lonely by the tombstones and nigh flowers up on that large summit? – Can’t a soul have some fun? - Even in the phantom form? Who knows? The rinks, the shops, and even most of the restaurants,- they sleep,- one light on, chairs on tables,- tip jar asleep,- a few pennies and nickels in their still, dreaming, turning, sometimes talking to one another,- ‘When we gonna get outta here?’ Ha. And the flowers, the flowers by the little lake, and the bees- where do the bees sleep and what do they dream of? It’s getting late. We are older now. Do you know some of the people we knew could be dead? - To think! Fans blow air in houses, - the suburbs wait, just beyond, - and Rumi, though a name on a page, - knows things, knew things, is not just a name of a page, - but is around, - and Jesus too-, as in ‘Cleave a piece of wood, I am there.’ It’s the universal consciousness, - it’s the divine oneness, - it’s all and everything and not and nil and nothing. It’s the night, a candle on the table flickers, nobody notices really, - the autumnal air wants to arrive, - and I can just feel and know it. The patrons, once sober, and then buzzed, are soon enough drunk. One sways, the other dances. One talks too loudly then, - explaining the way things are, - though things are, however they seem, not a certain way, - not really ever perhaps. A woman gets up and stretches, a police car drives past, then a truck with a modified engine. Maybe a bat goes past the roof. Once we saw bats silhouetted against the late dusk sky, - oh, - in a ravine, behind where a ghost came to see me, - but that was long, so long ago, in another time, by another street, during other days and nights and seasons so.

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