50 (re-do)

To prize what we have is a deep and heavenly instruction. He refuses to listen to recorded music because it's not real. What he has is silence, an American kitchen without dishwasher. Asked to listen to what is farthest away, then to what is here, my student notes an ensemble of pens on paper. To pay attention is not to consume it. Not to pay ransom. To sit is not to be terrorized, but to witness being it. It means too much; I could be terrorized by it. He read the boy's autopsy in a fancy suit, standing beneath the boy's graduation photo. There's art in the coroner's attention, but not in being paid to read it out. When I got home, Bryant was in the kitchen, crying. He was watching the old Hawaii 5-0 when he saw his sister Susan, dead these 40 years. Sangha thought it odd to see Tortilla, dead three weeks ago, beside my chair. They're present, if not in fancy clothes. Radhika laughed when I told her what a birthday suit is. She thought it included shirt and tie.

--17 March 2015