Fate

December 12, 2018

Who can know the ways of fate? Her designs so intricate, so convoluted, none can predict any outcome. Her cunning so complete, we watch in awe as she plays her cards, one after another.

You observe her toy with others’ lives and you are mesmerized at the guile she brings to the game. Then, when least expected, it is your turn and you find yourself in that carnival atmosphere. Fate now hawking you to play her rigged game beneath the weak lights of the illusionist’s side show. Three-card Monte or the shells? What is your pleasure?

You choose the shells.

“Good choice,” she says with a wink and a smile. She IS beautiful. She moves the shells with long slender fingers; these are beautiful hands meant for manipulation. The shells stop.

You look up into those eyes, eyes framed by luxuriant, shining dark hair. A few strands caught in her mouth, she brushes them away and with a flicker of the lashes says, “choose.” She knows you have fallen under her spell. You have already lost.

Beck – LOSER – Cover by the Cleverlys

Explorer

December 28, 2018

Who, having become an explorer of the soul, can reach a pinnacle and turn his back on that prospect? New terrain excites the curiosity indwelling us all but the geography of the mind and the anfractuosity of the soul conjure the fears of the mariners of old and many scan the charts and take heed of the admonition , “there be monsters here.”

And so, reefing our sails, we content ourselves with the safer maps of our own cartography and do not venture into the waters that are the reflecting pools of our true identities.

Candlelight Christmas Tree

December 31, 2018 7:33pm

As evening fell, I retired to the basement, lit a candle, sat before the fireplace and watched the fading light outside. My mind filled and empty at the same time. I observed the dark crevices of the stone fireplace. My candle threw shadows of the andirons on the sooty black of the fire bricks. That flame was steady; it never flickered or wavered for a moment. It illuminated the small Christmas tree in the corner with all its old-time ornaments and no light but what that candle showered upon it. On a stool made by Grandpa Bob sat a Bible that belonged to my Aunt Hazel. Beyond that was the spinning wheel upon which I once planned to spin the thread to make my own reenactment clothes.

I wanted to understand life. I think to fully understand, you must suffer. There have been many lessons in this field of study and none easy. The observer of my life would be in disbelief. Seeing the comfort, stability, and security, he or she would be incredulous. “What have you endured”, they would say. “Your family is healthy and whole to this day, you have all you want, you have suffered no privation or disease. Show me your pain.”

But it is in our minds that we suffer, as much or more than in the body. The pain there is sometimes inexpressible and almost unendurable. If we calculate by some emotional abacus the totality of our joy and our sorrow and then you ask, “was it all worth it”? How will you answer? Sitting in the candlelight, these are the equations that cross the synapses of my mind and then settle into the dark pools of my soul unanswered. The great mathematical paradox that is never solved as long as we reflect on the meaning of life.