Meditation 80

30 June 2020

I have time on my hands, I say to myself, walking up Volcano Road from the General Store. Does it reside in my palms, or on the back of my hands; does it skate across life lines or knuckle creases? Do we make time by hand, or does it sit in the hand like a bird? The shadows of hapu`u ferns on the road are like hands, and so are the ferns themselves. I think about handing things over, like my work, or my job, or my life. Put them in the good hands of my children who use theirs to embrace our animals. I visit them on Facetime, which is a second hand presence. My students think 4’33” is a rip-off; who would pay to sit as time passes? Taxes paid for 8’46”, and so did a human life. Put a timer on your hate, and batteries will run out before the timer rings. She'd known she was a serial killer inside, but not until she stood next to the statue on retreat did she know she was also the Virgin Mary. Radhika says Ted Bundy went to her college and her friends all talk about it. He didn’t last long there, I might add, being a peripatetic killer, not a settled one. She refers to baseball as “handy,” because soccer is called “footy.” It’s handy that, according to the press secretary, the President reads. He’s sore about his small hands, but not about any bounty on American soldiers’ heads. Hand to hand combat gave way to IEDs; the actor reached his arm into a statue devoted to Truth, and it came back without the hand. Bryant called out “I’ll fight you” from his sleep. Muttered something about a newspaper. Turned out the paper fought back, bleeding copiously, and was as warm as my hand reaching out to comfort him. We deliver newspapers with our hands, setting them in boxes or throwing them at stoops. My daily prayer will be, deliver us from this madness. But first I have to google today’s date.

--Volcano