Meditation 64

26 May 2020

I can't get away from the man in the park, the man who sat planted like a mirrored C on a picnic bench, back bent, chin to chest. I returned; he was gone, white truck gone, blue lights gone. CLOSED reads the sign on the swing set, held up with yellow tape. My daughter kicks her soccer ball against a wall; an older man, dribbling, fakes out no one, stutter-stepping to the hoop. Lilith reads scents on the concrete walk. In isolation, we make causes to mimic effects. Or we get stuck on causes, losing effects. I can't get away from the man in the park. His isolation fails to mime a two person game. He’s effect without cause, cause without name. His hurt is like the post-it note my cat attacks, before he turns to bite his tail. “That’s a heavy story,” a friend writes. Stories end when we arrive at their predicates, but the ordinary stops short, like a woman leaning over a cliff to count shades of blue in the English channel. Her neighbor, who wears yellow pants, is an “alien” from the sky where dolphins swim. I resist her narrative, but admire the ending, love as sure as sonnets. “I’m ok,” he said. Words, aspiration, a flag to wave me off.

--for Jono Schneider