The Triumph of Life, Love, and Being (Part 1/2)

[austintorn@aol.com]

The Triumph of Life, Love, and Being

by

Austin P. Torney

(Part 1/2)

——— THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE, LOVE, AND BEING ———


— 0 —


—— INTRODUCTION ——

The significance of the golden braid of life, love, and being is unveiled through the consummate enjoyment of existence by Peter and Angelina. It spanned centuries of spiritual rebirths, for it was a love so strong that it could never die, for, it was/is the ultimate relationship.

Escaping from a monastery-abbey that engulfed itself in the flames of ignorance, such as the one in in the book ‘The Name of the Rose’, they, our ever returning couple, salvage a mysterious book of quatrains that guides them through the joys and follies of the human condition as they live out its words, for the proof of all writing is to live it. So close in thought that they need not even be named at first, our couple takes a picaresque journey through the first part of the book to solve the difficulties of life as they are encountered in their travels through the forested countryside. Subsequently, they evolve from their spirits to meet again a hundred years later, close to our time, to meet the challenges of the modern world, yet, as always, remain ever immersed in the lushness of life and love. They appear again, futuristically, in an enlightening glimpse, to tell us where the human race may be headed.

Next, the mysterious book of quatrains is laid open for all to read. See:

http://www.toequest.com/forum/philos...ains-text.html

Furthermore, the secrets of the mind and the universe are revealed, as well as the lore and legends of nature. See:

http://www.toequest.com/forum/blogs/...1851&entry=230

http://www.toequest.com/forum/blogs/...1851&entry=210

http://www.toequest.com/forum/neuros...aves-text.html


Every vein in this book is loaded with ore, as Keats recommended to Shelley, and that’s how life should be—a constant celebration of all that is good and worthwhile. I leave it to others to instruct via tales of failure and tragedy. Seeing life as lived well is, I think, a more inspiring and memorable learning experience, for I always favor the positive approach. I write of universals—of those things that endure—of the magic of everyday experience, for the afterlife happens right now!

I am indebted to Percy Shelley, for his romantic appreciations and his investigation of all living things, to John Updike, for his intricate observations of daily life, to Umberto Ecco and Giovanni Baccaccio, for their monastical inspiration, to Hal Foster, for tales of knighthood, and especially to Omar Khayyàm, for his nowness of existence, and to the muses, for the inspiration to write my own quatrains, not to mention my own dreams of what life could be. You will sense my tributes to them all. Writings are the summation of all we read, know, live, and dream.

When I was young and unlearned, I ran breathless through meadows and forests, fast pursued by the stings of wind and rain. On and on I wandered, wild without rest, searching for a haven from life’s dull pain. The storms chased me till I could go no more; I stood helpless, backed up against a door, but, fell through it before any harm could reach me, cushioned by all of the dreams supporting me. I had found the library. It was a garden, half as old as time, in which poets and writers could live and write their words and rhyme—while the nightingale created the rose by moonlight magic from their thoughts sublime. The literary scenes unfolded before me, such as music often approaches and surrounds, and builds on the vibrance which in one is—to fill all that lives with beautiful sounds and visions. I brushed aside the webs of gossamer—life’s rites and rituals, as came to life all that mankind should remember: my quick thoughts fell, condensing into dew, while living dreams unveiled more than I knew. I wandered down memory’s path, aglow in the soft beauty that it hath. I saw Johnny Keats kissing Fanny Brawne, as he spoke more than words but less than song, and Byron, endowing form with fancy, and Wordsworth, penning his thoughts to Lucy, and Shelley, my favorite poet, plumbing the depths of mystery; I read them all—now they’re a part of me. Deeper still I probed, looking in on it, and heard Mrs. Browning reading a sonnet. Poetically, I took them all in, even the shadowy Emily Dickenson. So there I rested, near Vassar Library, up against a tree, savoring the feeling of their poetry, in the garden where all the flowers used in Shakespeare’s plays grew together in a living bouquet. And there before me, beneath the rose tree, Old Khayyàm, yet alive through his quatrains, wrote his verse, looking younger than I am, and lived the proof of his philosophy of life, the writing of which was but secondary. All this I remember, and much more, but I shall not write as I have before, for living and feeling must come first, and now I’ve a garden I won’t ignore.

What of the actual writing process? It is much like nature: The sun fills the waking and breathing world with the fire of imagination. In poetry and romantic prose, the sun is the power behind the mind; the moon, planets, and stars are symbols, too—even the weather and the seasons. Sometimes, the intellectual beauty is bright, and the ideas gush from the eternal flame, or from the living of life—the only way to fully answer the question of “what is life”. Sometimes, inspiration fails when the shadows of clouds dim the clarity of thought; then we wait or regroup. Eventually, however, quenchless, boundless, ever bright and burning, the mind’s light searches every dark cavern, probing and imagining, its beam alighting upon the earth or high atop cloud mist, and melts, with heat, energy, and desire, the fog of lone reason and pure passion—burning it away and so dissolving it with the love of life, earth, mankind, and star—from which comes adventure, friendship, delight, joy, success, triumph, and lasting gladness throughout the sun’s journey into the night, when stars shine on mind, for suns they also are! I so much felt that I was actually there in the book when I was writing it that I forgot it was just a story.

The moon fills the sleeping and breathing world with the icy coolness of chaste reason unaffected by deep burning passions, although sunlit to glow in a wan light. However, reason, unsteady as the variant moon, often does not rise in the night to guide us, but deserts us in our darkest times; we are alone on a black cloud-bound night! Darkness drains our lives away, sometimes, and sickness consumes the spirit; the mantle is heavy lead and life’s last glow seems upon us; our eyes are as craters gone dim. Death’s ebon form seeks us out and covers us with his cloak. “Come away with me,” we hear, as he cools our burning brow; “I offer you quiet peace.” But then a sudden strength comes upon us, in our waning crescent wisp. In night’s cold shadow we say, “Un-hold the soul, Moon Reaper, we shall fully shine once more!” Such are the cycles of human emotions.

Else the moon hides in the bright light of day, or is lost behind an overcast sky, but, moonless nights take us beyond reason when the stars excite us with their lights. Yes, inspiration returns with the stars—a thousand ideas beckon from afar—thoughts wink like lightning bugs on the pastures of consciousness; as starlight, they stab the darkness of naught, until star-like Venus rises near dawn. The goddess of romantic love and passion, she captures us within emotion’s swell, while comets flash and confuse the wild sky. Do we make decisions intellectually or emotionally? Venus will talk to the moon about that in our story.

Yet, soft and warm, the night caresses us in its own way, with its gentle darkness and quiet stillness. We beg her to yield her dearest secrets, to reveal the full truth of what lies behind, as Shelley inquired. Much we already know from twilight dreams, and from universal poems unveiling truth and beauty, but, we ask, within our deepest soul, to know the mysteries of the universe, to find the causes, the significance, and the ways to live and love, think and feel. Above us, fires burn the stars away; below us, the Earth turns under our feet; within us, unworded dreams haunt the soul; around us, night pours blackness on the ground. So, we ask from the rulers of the night, not immortality, nor youth, nor birth, as Shelley says, but only that we retain some cosmic presence within us, joining in its rhythm and resonance, to live knowingly. Now we sense the sweep across our heartstrings, for we’re undistracted by day’s bright noise. NOW, in a moment of awe, we appreciate the love and goodness that can be. Such is the intent of this book, the awakening of a wonder that grants the urge to enjoy life. After reading this book of life, I would hope that the reader would run right out and live it.

Rising slowly from the cold dark hollows where the night airs fell and soundly slept, the restless wind left her secret bower, and, gaining strength, lovingly surrounded and caressed the willow trees, which wavered and swooned in her wake, as she, that ever curious spirit, flew by in a cool breeze from the west on her undulating wings, and spread the incense of the morning to nature’s world of growing and living things: She woke the flowers from their slumber by drinking from them their blanket of dew, then told the tales of the joyous forest to the birds, who soon carried them aloft, thence into my ears—the songs of streams flowing freely, and stories of a glowing sky that promised many sunny hours to come in the dreams of those who felt her passing, and, so, sleep was washed from languid eyes as they sensed that new dawn arriving—as if some transparent veil had lifted—when she gently stirred the embers of the last watch-fire and whispered softly to them that the stars had gone and day had begun. We sense anew the adventure of life. We enjoy it since we know it and love it. We do not merely live life, mind you—we are life!

Such, intellectual beauty returns, borne on birds’ wings as song into the dawn. Imagination now soars past a day, and into the season of spring’s fast growth; the shade is deep and cool, like the ghost of winter passing—gone but still remembered in the cool nights of spring. To be alive is the pinnacle of billions of years of evolution. We are the Cosmos. Our view of life is changed forever more. Where we are after our death is the same place we don’t exist before our birth.

The summer returns now, from spring’s only kiss, causing the rose to bloom and mark its start, and its rising tides fill up the free spaces in our winter spirits, as we roam at ease, drink the sweets in every flower, and feel the balm in every breeze; for, we must thread the lovely web of life about us, drinking up deep droughts of life’s delight. Life through consciousness is all there is.

— 1 —


—— FUMES FROM ANCIENT TIMES ——

A man and a woman, feeling young again, were walking through a fertile valley in the year 1870, traveling toward the misty mountains and beyond. He carried an ancient book that he’d salvaged as the monastical village had burned to the ground, and she carried but a single red rose. Together they softly hummed the melody of the Pachelbel Canon, each of them singing one of the canon’s fugal voices, for they lived in two-part harmony—as equal partners in life and love: They were, at once, free yet attached, playful but serious, stable yet changing, thinkers yet doers, adventurous though not foolish, poetic as well as prosaic, and reasonable but passionate.

“We’re free now!” she said, playfully nudging him.

“Yes, we’re free at last,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.

A smile of love passed between them, for even though they were now quite homeless, their life together had become a celebration, and thus they happily walked on through the valley in the dark by the light of the setting moon. False dawn came and went, and soon morning twilight glowed in the east. A familiar nightingale sang in the branches, but just as quickly flew away. Whither and whence it flew, they did not know.

Although the day’s tide had not yet broken, he, nevertheless, opened their precious book—a mysterious book of poetry that had been sealed for over ten centuries in the secret chamber of the library of the old monastery. The tome was written in some foreign language, in verses of thirteen syllables in four-line stanzas. A small bottle was encased inside the front cover; some of its spirit had apparently escaped when the book had been opened, for they had been captivated by the fumes—it was the perfume of ageless rhymes from ancient times.

“It’s written in Persian,” she noted, having handled many foreign books in her role as editor for the abbey.

“It’s the library’s most valuable book,” he said, having illuminated many of the monastery’s great books. “It was the only one I could save.”

They watched, amazed, as the book came to life. The words of the Persian poems began to move around the page, sometimes briefly changing into English—even whole verse-sentences jumped about—then, soon after settling down, the words would again juggle, changing back and forth, darting around through the verses of each stanza to form new lines, but lines which merely stated different aspects of the original concept. It was as if this magical language transmogrification was attempting to preserve the entire original poetic scheme throughout the whole translation process, including literal meaning, rhyme, rhythm, melody, and meter; however, this didn’t seem to be working, and it followed that something had to give, and that ‘something’ was that which is usually lost in the translation.

Finally, out of apparent desperation, the Persian verses jumped right off the page and splashed into the bottle of perfume, wherein they redistilled themselves, leaping back out and on to the page, where they recondensed and recomposed themselves into Victorian style verse—into quatrains in which only the essence of the original concept of meaning was preserved. The lines were now ten syllables, rather than thirteen, but the verses were still in groups of four per stanza, and the correct lines still rhymed, although the rhyme words didn’t always have quite the same meaning as before. Yes, something had been lost, but something new had been added, too—something somehow better, although still within the spirit of the old.

“What are you?” she asked of the book. “Are you alive?”

The book replied, “I am the book of life, a conscious dream, a living philosophy—I live forever through my words. On my pages you will find all of man’s joys, follies, sorrows, and wisdom. Read me and my ideas will come to life! It is by experiencing my words that you shall know them. Yes, the arts may enrich human experience, but they’re certainly no substitutes for the living of it.”

“What is your name?” he asked of the book.

“My name is a question—a mystery that you have to solve, namely, ‘What is the name of the Rose?’”

They looked at the book for a minute, deeply inhaling its perfume. The aroma cast a charm upon them, granting them an indescribable joy that was quite beyond all sense and thought.

( It was Persia-fume )

The stars began to take flight. Night’s cup had seemed empty, bottomless, and cold, but daylight was about to refill it with gold, and as they walked they began to see the light, for the sun was rising. They felt the touch of that dawn as its freshness washed over them—it was a sweetness and a serenity that crept all through them, like the mist that drifts into a valley and fills it fresh with moisture. Day had begun, and therefore some refreshment was anticipated. Reaching up to a rose bush, they bent down a branch and drank the dew from the roses, beating the sun to the treat, then stooped to pick some breakfast strawberries from the trail side.

What is the name of the rose?, they had wondered silently until they each had spoken it aloud to the other, although without answer from either one.


They strolled into a forest of floral colors that were lush and soft: lavender, crimson, and ever-during green. It was spring, and the leaves of the previous autumn had made a multicolored carpet on the trail. As they walked, so many ideas cascaded over their minds—thoughts suddenly loosened by the inspiration from the exertion of their outdoor experience. A light rain was falling and it seemed to excite their senses and jog their thoughts even more.

“Walking is good exercise,” she said. “I am feeling energized.”

“Yes, it seems to give back much more than it takes.”

“Walking is as easy as falling forward makes!”

“Oh, yes; breath deeply. Relax, let your thoughts flow up and out.”

“OK. I am doing it. My thoughts are becoming clear. Alertness tingles in my senses. Oh, I am becoming so wide awake. Now I know that I love this world and everything in it.”

“Breath in all that’s good, then breath out all that’s bad. What do you feel?”

“I feel peace flowing into me—it’s warm and wet and glad.”

“And it’s spreading throughout your body and into your spirit?”

“Oh yes, oh yes, dear yes. I’d say that this is the best life I’ve ever had!”

“I feel it too. It’s like an eager sap rising in the veins, for I’m inspired by the warmth of spring.”

“Because you’ve lived through winter’s chills,” she remarked, in the voice that they usually used to start a rhyme with.

“To see another spring of daffodils!” he continued, adding “Now I remember it all, and I am basking in the sunshine.”

“Like sparks from the smoldering embers, we rekindle our fires from the eternal flame, from that light divine.”

“I wonder,” he said, thinking back to the book’s questionable name, “could it be that a rose is a rose is a rose?”, like Shakespeare said.

“No, for that answer would be much too easy.”

With that they moved on, noting a movement in the bushes, for a man was trapped therein. Upon investigating, they saw that he was snared in a web of promises that weighed him down, for he was a person who had always put things off, one who had always waited for tomorrow. They showed him a page from the ‘Book of Quatrains’ that they now carried as their ‘bible’. The web then collapsed, freeing the man. He looked down at the writing on the ground under his feet: it read ‘NOW!’ in big letters. The revelation hit him like an hourglass, one made of the heaviest welded brass, and a great relief of realization washed over him. They could hear him muttering to himself, “There is only today! Why fret about other days if today be sweet? Stretching my present row to distant calendar columns by all my tenuously made vows is what created the complicated web of promises in the first place—a trap that took away all my ‘nows’. ‘Now’ is the time! I must seize the moment or lose its momentum forevermore!” The man went running off, seemingly weightless.

He and she, the harmonic subjects of our story, wandered ever onward along the path. Love was in the air and filled the space around them. She turned to her partner, reached for his hand, and spoke softly amid the splendor and grandeur of the forest, “It’s a fine season. What a time for us to be outdoors in this wondrous world.”

“Never wait!” he said. “The only real time we have under our feet is NOW! That we have just seen a demonstration of.”

“These lovely moments,” she added, “are giving me the time of my life! I savor each one, and then comes another just as sweet.”

( NOW! )

Holding hands, they walked through the dense woods filled with shadows and mist. An old witch suddenly sprung up behind them, she being the specter of fear and all that was worrisome. “What is your deepest fear?” the witch asked of the man. “Hell, death? Which shall it be? How about Heaven? Is that it? Chose one.”

“I banish you,” said the man, “for death is merely the natural end of all living things. What has no death has therefore no life principle! My turn to live would never have come if it were not for the deaths of those who came before me. As for Heaven and Hell, those are only conditions that we create within ourselves: We turn our souls inside out to create a Heaven from the terrible image within. Hell arrives when we make our own difficulties in life by not using common sense. However, I do have one fear, although just one alone.”

“What is that fear?” asked the witch, her hopes suddenly rising, although her form was already beginning to fade away for the lack of his anxiety.

The man’s partner answered for him, for she was his opposite twin and could think his thoughts, “His one and only fear is that of not living well!” And with that answer the specter of fear vanished like mist unrolled on the morning wind.

(NO FEAR )

They moved on bravely now, continuing to hum the two-part Pachelbel canon, its soulful music sweeping them ever onward, upward, inward, and outward as their voices blended and parted, weaving in and out.

“When does the rose bloom?” she asked, seeking some general botanical clues to the book’s mysterious and questionable name.

“The rose blossoms on the summer solstice, arising from the only kiss ever given to the arriving summer from the vanishing spring, a kiss of which spring dies in giving, by the way.”

Before she could ponder this, they came upon a cemetery and therein stopped cold and abrupt, for there was an empty grave in front of them. They jumped right into it so that they could better read the gravestone’s inscription. It read:

The Last Remembrance


En-graved is “THE END” of your earthly sigh:

Six sides ’round you: five are dirt, one is sky.

Shov’ling, Death talks to you at last and says:

“What were you doing during all of nigh?”

A little girl soon arrived with a withered rose and said, “Those who live must learn of death so that all the better they may live. Run along now, you two, before Death himself arrives with his shovel, for you are standing in a grave site. Which of you is ready for him? Behold my rose as you go and note my eternal youth—for that which never can die must be forever young!”

They hurriedly continued on, a bit shaken, but feeling much more alive. “One must be aware of death in order to live life more fully,” he surmised.

“How then shall we live?” she asked.

“Let us live each day as if it were our last.”

“I can improve on that,” said she.

“How so?”

“Let us also live each day as if our life had just begun!”

“It shall be so.”

“May I look again at that living book of philosophy,” she requested.

He handed it over to her.

“It has words with matching pictures in it!”

“Or perhaps it has pictures in it with matching words,” he countered.

“I am neither,” the living book said, “yet both, for the pictures and the words offer mutual support, reflecting each off of the other, thus building and spiraling in the mind’s eye into a more complete perception of the poems’ ideas. The words appeal, at first, to the logical, intellectual part of the mind. The pictures appeal, at first, to the passionate, artistic, and sensual portion of the mind. The two mind ‘images’ then merge into the wholeness of truth combined with beauty. The intellect can ‘sense’ without the senses, while the senses can ‘intellectualize’ without the intellect.”

“It’s a rather thorough experience,” she commented.

Enlightened, they gave each other a warm hug and continued on.



A nightingale was flying by.

“Look, it’s the bird!” he exclaimed.

“And someone is chasing it.”

The wingéd creature was carrying an hourglass. The bird was evidently one of eternity’s livelier moments, one that had resisted or es-caped capture. A man was running after it, but the bird never landed—-it just flew higher and higher and then, finally, disappeared altogether.

“That was my momentary bird of time,” said the running man. “One of eternity’s moments was within my grasp. I had seized it, however, I had then decided to wait until some later time to view it, but, in the meanwhile, it flew away! That bird stole my time; now I am running after the moment and trying to recapture it. But the bird never lands!”

“Time flies!” she said to the bird chaser. “It’s gone to never-never land! The moment is lost! The bird is flown.”

( TIME FLIES )

They stopped at a rosebush to inhale the fragrance, noting that the rose was certainly the most beautiful and famous of all the flowers.

“Perhaps a rose does smell just as sweet by any other name, just as Shakespeare also said,” she wondered aloud.

“Could be, could be; perhaps the rose’s name doesn’t really matter.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

From a mountain top, they looked back to take one last glimpse at the monastical village off in the distance, where it could hardly be seen. They stared at it fondly for a few moments as he put his arm around her. He spoke to her as they sat near a little stream where the water ran over and tinkled around the rocks. “I spent many long days in that monastery trying to unravel eternity’s deepest mysteries, but, alas, the only thing that I learned was that the secret of the universe was far beyond the sensibility of my existence. It was way beyond mere physics—it was metaphysics! Yes, all was just a mere shadow, dim and faint, of some ultimate and unknown perfection. And, for some time, I chased those flitting shadows—as just as quickly they fled away before me at my slightest touch.”

She smiled and held him close, “The realization that it was a lost cause, my dear, was the knowledge which freed you from that vain philosophical struggle! Now, for you, life will no longer be senseless, for you are free to enjoy the only reality that impinges on your six common senses—the mind being the sixth sense since it makes sense of the other five. No more chasing of faith’s phantasms for you!”

“Yes, I’m free at last,” he cheered, “free to directly touch all that is real. No more will my thoughts attempt to reach beyond the limits of my own mind; no more will I speculate on mere faith alone, no more reaching for faint shadows of dim phantoms of reflections that are so many levels removed from reality. Now, and only now, can I fully sense the one and only reality that penetrates my rationality.”

“Yes; see the clear water!” she exclaimed. “Hear it rush along. Taste its purity. Feel its coolness. Smell the freshness. That’s real! The greatest taste is of reality! Life’s sensation is the main attraction! Ah, we’re back in touch with the world now. Too long have we given up our time to excessive worry, hurry, and scurry. The senses are the only means by which life enters into us. Follow to where your senses lead you. Deny them not. We are the receivers of all that is.”

“Yes, I’m drinking-in the pleasures of creation now! In the stream I see a face I know; it’s that of yesterday’s summer wanderer—it’s my own—free again to shine on the world we own.”

“I am with you, always. Together we’ll enjoy the continual feast presented to the senses and to the soul by life, art, love, being, mind, and nature.”

So it was that they roamed at ease, savoring the balm in every breeze, drinking the sweets from all the flowers, kissing under every tree, and enjoying all of earth’s favors. They walked on, following the water’s flow to where it led them—going with it by not struggling against it—becoming it.

( Real-ize )

A spectral vision appeared before them, a brightness that shone like the sun. “I am Dame Fortune—Lady Luck shining upon you. In turn, I visit everyone who lives in a state opportune. You two have turned your chance meeting into good fortune. You are lucky—others don’t see me when I come, or they ignore me; some refuse to take a chance on me, for they are busy going nowhere; and many are just plain unaware. Of course, then it is awhile before I come to visit them again. Farewell. Good luck.”

They bid her fond farewell and sweet return, and he and she walked on through the strange land, the place where all things were possible, but where all ideas had to be lived before they could be written.


She looked at the red rose that she still carried, and said to him,

“It’s for you. I give this rose to you.”

“I will surround the blossom of your flower with unselfish love,” he answered.

“My blossom unfolds over you, as does your own around me.”

“We’ll refold and enfold each other.”

“I’ll enrapt you, like the words of a poem,” she answered. They again opened the mysterious book of poems, which soon came to life.

“What is the name of the rose?” he asked of the magic book. “Can you not tell us now after all we’ve been through?”

The book replied, “There is much more to come. I shall answer you as time wears on. It all has to do with the life of the rose, though. So you shall see.”

They walked on, eager for the quest, entering into the innermost bowers of their flowered spirits, savoring there all the flora within. They could now understand much that their speechless memory had devoured, all that life’s drudgery had stolen and overpowered.

They hiked up a slight hill whereupon they saw a woman sleeping in the middle of the path. There they stopped and looked, and he turned to she, his rosy partner, saying, “In my mind I see a flame that’s growing dim, it’s the depressed spirit of the sleeping woman.”

“Tell her,” she said, “tell her! Bring her alive.”

He whispered in the woman’s ear, “I am Life. Long ago I found you sleeping in your mother’s womb, and one day I shall have to leave you all too soon when you sleep in earth’s silent tomb. Now I find you newly abloom, but sleeping away the time in between those longer and deeper sleeps. I am whispering a lovely dream in your ear. Wake! Live! Life is a dream come true. The rose abloom withers all too soon.”

She laid the rose on the woman’s chest as they continued on. Looking back they saw that the sleeping woman was now sitting up and clutching the rose.

“Her flame is growing,” he noted, “for she’s now looking on the bright side.”

“The woman probably thinks that she had a vivid dream, a phantasmic reality, so to speak” she said.

“I always listen to my daydreams,” he noted.

“Yes, me too. Daydreams pierce the noise of consciousness to tell us of that which is best for us.”

“Daydreams are full of thoughts promenading on parade before our eyes.”

“Wishes and fantasies cascade freely over the mind, directly pre- senting themselves to us as our very own suggested ways to live.”

“Well, by merely aspiring to a goal, one is already halfway to the realizing of it.”

“Yes, and all that we now have together was once a dream, no less, that was loved into being.”

“Because life grows from the visions that we contemplate, those that we orchestrate.”

“Yes, but one must act quickly on those ready-made plans that daydreams present.”

“True—because by dusk the phantom shapes may fade.”

“Well, if beliefs are halfhearted, then so’s life.”

“Let our dreams, wishes, and life become one and the same!”

“Pay close attention to your innermost desires, wishes, and dreams. Deny not the desires welling up from your soul—for it is your duty to fulfill them.”

“It guarantees happiness, for then you know exactly what you require to be happy.”

“Come along, sweet-dream!” They moved on, musing in a dream world of their own making.

( DREAMS )

The Bird of Time flew by once again. The bird chaser could never catch it, for the bird lived in a perpetual ‘now’—a constant sunrise in which it flew forward into the future. One wing of the bird was black and the other was white. As the bird flew overhead, a checkerboard pattern formed on the ground all around. “What can it mean?” she wondered aloud.

“I think I’m starting to catch on,” said her partner. “The wings of Time are black and white, for one is the day and one is the night—for fluttering ‘round the night flies the day.”

“Yes,” she said, “I know too! We are all players on the checkerboard of days and nights, as on a calendar, until...”

“...until the game ends and we’re put back in the box of nonexistence” he finished.

“But in the meanwhile I thank Destiny for at least letting me play the game!” she shouted happily toward the sky.

“Of course, my dear. We’ll make a game of that which makes as much of us!”

“Let’s play!”

“I’m game.” And so they traveled on, ready to make their moves.

In the midst of a scenic meadow they were surprised to see what looked like a very large pen walking by. “What are you?” she asked of the large pen.

“I’m the artist’s pen,” replied the pen. “I am finally free!”

“From what?” he asked.

“I will no longer illustrate the written word. From now on I will draw whatever I see or whatever I feel. Then writers and poets can describe my sketches with their wondrous words! I say write what is real!”

“I get it,” she said. “The proof of writing is in the living of it, especially philosophical advice. Live it, feel it, and then write it.”


Next they ran into a living poem, a companion of the artist’s pen. “What are you?” he asked of the living poem.

“I deal with ever enduring themes, those which are universal to everyone. As you can see, I am structured, intense, rhythmic, and melodic. I am a unified body of sensation, thoughts, and passions. I translate all that is felt, though often only very roughly.”

“Are you essence or existence?” she asked of the living poem.

“I am both—I am the form and the idea. I am an object that is born from one’s profoundest visions. I am the image in diction of feeling. I am, at once, both the container and the contained.”

“You’re an expression of all that is difficult to express,” he added.

“I am truth fleshed in living words. I express thoughts that would otherwise go unapprehended. I lift the veil that separates mind from soul—and thereby show the proof of the hidden beauty. I am life’s image drawn in eternal truth.”

“You are immortal then” she said.

“Poetry makes immortal what is best in life by freeing images in our spirits that are deeply impressed. I arrest the vanishing notions, clothe them in words, then send them forth, fully dressed.”

“How do I know if I’ve written a poem?” he asked.

“Well,” said the living poem, “use the highest powers of language and wit to translate your soul’s nature into the poem’s words. The reader will translate the words back into spirit; and then, if the reader’s soul responds, you’ve written a poem!”

He and she tried to write a poem about love, for that was the greatest thing, but they couldn’t get it to rhyme. Finally, in desperation, they came up with the following:

The Trouble with “Love”

Only a few words rhyme with the above,

Like the overflown “dove”, the heartless “shove”,

And the ill-fitting “glove”. Alas, “love’s” rhymes

Remain unheard of, or aren’t well thought of.

They walked on, feeling but a little bit more poetic.

( WORDS’ WORTH )

Suddenly, someone came running down the trail, at a withering pace, then tripped and fell.

“Where are you going so fast!” they asked him together, their words in unison.

The quick-walker picked himself up, gazing afar. “I want to see what’s down the road!”

“Down where?” they asked together, like the two voices of the famous musical canon.

“Way, way down there, where the next trail blazes!” They all looked, but the misty trails in the distance all seemed to blend into a hazy maze.

“There’s a new road out there somewhere,” said the harried hiker. “I’ve got to hurry up and get there so I can follow it. I’m in a dither and I must go hither, thither, and whither.”

“And when you get there, what then will you do?” they asked, again in tune.

“Why, I guess I’ll hurry up so I can get down the road even further.”

They looked him in the eye and said what was begging to be asked, “Why don’t you stop and smell the roses? This pace is withering you!”

The inspiring revelation hit the quick-walking man like a thunderbolt from the sky, so he sat down, no longer in a rushing mood. “I am a fool,” he said. “All around me is the beauty that this moment calls her own, and I’ve been looking right past it. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. What sense does it make to live a life that has no time to live? Serenity will never find me unless I slow down to smell, hear, feel, see, and thus savor life’s loving caress.”

They left him, he having said in his long slowed down sentence all that they would have said, and so they walked the morning away, marveling at its beauty.

( S l o w d o w n )

The winds of May were making love to the flowers, moving them this way and that, to and fro, nurturing them. Spring seedlings reached for the light of day, drinking deep droughts of sunny delight. The woods were bursting with the joy of life’s bouquet.

“Perhaps Beauty is the name of the rose,” she wondered aloud.

“Perhaps.” He pointed to some flowers along the trail side and said, “Many fine flowers are beginning to grow from the ground that we share. There’s the tulip, the lily, and the rose—all growing together!”

“What does it mean when they all grow together?”

“Well, the tulip is a very dependable sign of spring; one can always count on it. So, tulips have always stood for truth. The lily is often white, so it represents purity and goodness. As for the rose, it is the symbol of beauty. These three combined together—truth, goodness, beauty—are extremely meaningful when braided—for they make up what we call love, giving it its strength.”

“We’ve grown our flowers with care.”

“Yes, and so the storms can never scatter them.”

“Love is not an easy thing to grow. It takes effort.”

“That’s good, because if love were easy then it wouldn’t be worth as much.”

They raised a cheer, slapped their hands together, and soon moved on, again refreshed by the ancient book’s insight and knowledge.

( Love = Truth + Beauty + Goodness )

She winked at him, putting on the perfume that they’d found encased in the book cover of what they now called the Book of Quatrains. The name of the scent was printed on the bottle and was called ‘Omar’s Enchantment’.

“It’s delightful,” he said. “I must savor it. It smells like a mix of incense, wine, and roses. Oh, my, it’s stimulating my inner spirit.”

“It’s sublime,” she answered.

“It also has hints of sandalwood, jasmine, lotus, and saffron.”

“It’s some sort of an elixir.”

“It says on the bottle that the ‘fume’ therein has escaped from an interment, and that it shall forever take the passerby unaware. Oh, I’m already affected by it! Let’s stop here.”

“Yes. Let’s have lunch,” she said. “There are ripe apples on the trees.”

“And there’s clear water in the stream,” he said thankfully.

“Oftentimes, back in the monastery, when the wine in my glass was as red as the blood of Christ, I longed for the water from the wayside stream instead.”

They paused at a cliff high along the riverside, pushing some leaves around to make a cushion on which they could lay. Here they ate lunch and held each other close. They sun was warm on their skin but not hot, for the land and the water were trading light breezes. They pulled out a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, and of course the book of verse.

“What page are we on,” she asked as they embraced sweetly and truly.

He opened the book. “It says, This is Heaven on Earth in every way!”

“That’s our page!” she said, as they became intimately close, resting in each other’s arms afterwards. She fell asleep and had a dream that she was toiling away back in the old working world of the abstract. There she floated aimlessly, for there was nothing of any substance to grasp onto. She was lost, for her roots no longer reached nature’s soil. She was a flower in the dream; she was the rose! She was dying; she was floating aimlessly. She then awoke suddenly with a start.

“What is it?” he said, alarmed.

“I was dreaming of a world I once knew, a world in which abstractions and generalizations were king and thus ruled all else. It was a world in which people no longer cared for their fellow man. I was a rose that was lost somewhere between heaven and earth. Your rose was about to spoil for lack of nourishing soil.”

“You’re here now. You’re safe. It was just a nightmare. It’s over now.”

“Yes, I see that it is. Here, we’ve reconstructed the world that our dreams require.”

“We’ve remolded it much closer to the heart’s desire—a world body—”

“—full of currents, scents, textures, and subtle delights.”

“I, too, dreamt a lot during the winter, when I was wrapped, thought bound, in a cocoon.”

“Me too. My imagination and memory were king!”

“Now the mind can rest while the senses reign, for spring has returned and all of our winter dreams have taking wing!”

They walked on, feeling rather sensational.

“This is so wonderfully simple. We have all that we need—the simple things in life are truly the best; they are of the most value.”

“We have health, friendship, love, happiness, nature, and adventure. Mix them all together and life’s recipe is complete.”

“Yes, out here we’re unspied by Care’s eagle eye!”

“We’ve left Misery far behind.”

“And Stress was left somewhere.”

“It’s back in the lair with the serpent Despair.”

“Here we have peace. We can hear the sounds of our inner selves.”

“Those are the voices of our inner choir. One can hear them well when one is not bombarded by clamor and noise.”

Such, they continued on, singing the Pachelbel Canon.

Off in the distance they could see a wisp of smoke on the horizon. “That’s all that’s left of the monastical village—of my monastery and your nunnery,” he said.

“All things arise, and then all things pass away, for life is transitory, volatile, and impermanent.”

“Flow and change are basic features of life; in fact, they are life.”

“Pain begins when one resists the flow that is inherent in the pattern of change.”

“Yes. Empires come and go; Sultan after Sultan rises to the throne, but, after they’re gone, the summer still blooms with the rose, and still the water in the river flows.”

“I had a dream last night, too,” he said. “I dreamed that I was living on another planet. I was out walking at night with a child, examining the night sky and explaining the names of the stars. Suddenly the Earth blew up, possibly obliterated by some great calamity; it thoroughly exploded in blazes solar. The child then said to me, ‘Look! Oh, look! Look at the pretty shooting star!’”

“Such is the relative importance of the Earth in the scheme of things.”

“How insightful we are becoming since reading this Book of Quatrains!”

They flowed thoughtfully onward along the trail, coming out into yet another arid region, ever hoping to find another village someday that they might call home. They soon came upon a Sphinx that was weathered and worn; it was crouching next to an oasis.

“My name is Aquavita,” said the Sphinx. I am all that remains of a once great empire. Look around and see that nothing is left. Read what is engraved on my nameplate.”

It said:

Aquavita


Time on its stream brings all sweet things to us;

Time is the drink that quenches human thirst.

Water of life—we drink time, it drinks us!

Time on its stream bears all sweet things from us.

“Look at the imprints in the rocks,” she said.

“These are fossils,” he said, having studied the natural sciences by secretly reading the forbidden library books while illustrating them; “they’re hundreds of millions of years old.”

“That’s sounds like a long time.”

“Long enough for death to have chosen the life path of many a species.”

“And here we stand” she said proudly, “on the shoulders of all who have come before: we are the smile of eternity, wrought from many eons of hardship! We’re so lucky!”

“We’re alive; it’s all ours! Nature has made it so! It’s quite a treat!”

“I won’t waste it—for how I could never live by any other style but to smile!”

They walked on, happy and reveling in the present moment atop the miraculous pile of those who came before, thankful for all their wiles.

“We’re here! It is now! There is no time like the present!”

“And there’s no present like the time,” said the magic book, joining their conversation. “Revise your calendars! Invest in today, for the future contains a severe interest penalty if the certainty of the moment is held mortgage for the Deed of Futurity. The calendar contains only today. The days are no longer numbered! Strike off dead yesterday and unborn tomorrow. Now is the time of your present comprehension. Now is when you have reality’s attention. All else is not here. The past exists only in your memory, the future only in your imagination. All creation takes place in the present.”

The book then went silent and they knew it had finished. “What then is tomorrow?” she asked her partner.

“Look to the eastern horizon; see, it’s but a dim glow” he said; “tomorrow is just a faint gleam from afar. But, what is yesterday?”

She looked at the smoke and haze in the west and said, “See, yesterday is but a cold ash.”

They found a wide log and sat on it to rest awhile. Again they began to hum Pachelbel’s Canon, adding words to it from a poem that they both knew, thereby creating a song! It went something like, Where and when will we touch again…

“Why do people love songs so much?” she wondered.

“Because songs can touch one’s spirit deeply and thoroughly.”

“But how?”

“There are wordless rhythms in what we call the soul. Poetry, in a rather approximate way, attempts to translate the soul’s rhythms into words. Melody, on the other hand, being already wordless, plays directly on the heart’s strings. A song, being a poem set to music, causes heart and soul to blend into one grand and glorious experience.”

“Yes, and it all seems to flow so smoothly.”

“Music, like life, consists of what I would call a ‘smoothly rolling now’.”

“I feel that I know your meaning, but, please explain further.”

“Well, the total effect of music comes from the smooth transition through past, present, and future—thanks to a correspondence in memory, sensation, and imagination.”

“Go on.”

“Memory recalls the past few musical tones that have come just before the ‘now’. Sensation lives ever in the ‘now’ and therefore savors the present tones. Imagination looks to the future, anticipating the coming sounds.”

“Ah, I get it. The delight is such that none of the three could produce alone!”

“Yes, and similarly, each one of life’s moments contains eternal reward, for both the past and the future are smoothly rolled up into it.”

“We live in the paradisal ‘now’, wherein each moment is eternally vast.”

Moving on, they came to a sign giving directions to nowhere:

NEVER LAND


Take the road of “Eventually” toward “Someday”,

Turn back at the fork of “Maybe” and “Perhaps”,

Pass the winding path where “It could have been”—

Then you’ve arrived in the land of “Never”!

Next to the sign they saw a disembodied frown staring at them. “What are you?” she asked of the frown. “Substance or vision?”

“I am Regret. Once I was a being full of life. The child in me was warm, playful, and bold—then vanished, ere I knew, leaving me cold. Only the regret remains.”

“What happened?”

“Well, in my youth, when I heard the sounds of life so clearly, my hopes were alive and my dreams readily became real, and then, imperceptibly, I seemed to get sidetracked, having been swept up into the mainstream of the mindless masses. Soon I gave up the good things in life and began working on all sorts of useless endeavors and got involved in disputes, not even having time to learn or read books anymore. Before I was even aware of it, the echoes of the sounds of my earlier life that I’d once heard as life’s call clear and plain had disappeared completely, and, ultimately, as in the modified story of the Cheshire Cat, all that was left was the frown of regret.”

They looked at each other in all seriousness.

She said, “Let us never wait, for death disposes of joys put off too late!”

“Life’s familiarity often prevents us from marveling at it and enjoying it. To live, one must realize life’s meaning, and then some.”

( RE GET / REGRET )

They walked on, more aware now, soon encountering a young man walking toward them. “He looks just like you,” she remarked, “though he’s much younger.”

“He sure does! Ho, it is me! It is my younger self.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because, once, when I was his age, I met my older self, although I didn’t believe anything that he told me at the time. I was stubborn, I just wouldn’t listen, even though he knew my name, my history, and my future.”

“Look, here comes your younger self walking up to us right now.”

As they passed on the trail, the older self said to his younger self, “Hello, my younger-self-same! Do you know my name?”

Said the younger self, “I know you not!”

“I told you,” he said to her, “he doesn’t know me.”

“Well,” she said, “at least you’re older and wiser now.”

Soon they encountered a very old man walking toward them. “He looks just like you,” she remarked, “although he’s much older than you.”

“It is me, of course. He is my older self!”

“How do you know this?”

“I just have a feeling. Remember, I am wiser now.”

As they passed on the trail, the older self said to the younger self, “Hello, my younger-self-same! Do you know my name?”

Said the younger self, “I know you, yes, I know you very well; you’re my older selfsame!”

The old man passed them and walked on, rejoicing. “He knows me!” They could hear him saying this over and over to himself.

( SELF-HELP )

Just then the now famous Bird of Time again flew overhead. They saw again the same man who had been chasing it before, but now he was just sitting inactively by the wayside.

“I’ve been thinking,” said the former bird chaser, “should I live today? Or should I wait until tomorrow’s well is full. Perhaps I’ll sit here and ponder it awhile, although, perhaps, I will live today.”

She leaned over and whispered to him, “Even today is too late, even to sit and think, for the wise just lived yesterday to the brink!”

Leaving the desert, they stopped at a stream to catch some fish, and, after eating them, relaxed and laid down on the riverbank. He kissed her on the cheek and said, “I have such peace with you.”

“I am safe and warm with you, and completely at home,” she added.

“I am in Heaven,” he said.

“I wonder what the mythical Heaven is really like?”

“Well, as a metaphysical question, I can’t really answer it, but, I can describe what some legends say it is and then I can talk about some things that we do know. From the myths I’ve heard, Heaven is a place where you can have anything that you want, where your every wish and dream comes true, where you’re always surrounded by love, and where you can live forever in a state of perpetual ecstasy. I realize that I’m not describing it very well—I’ve almost made it sound rather decadent, have I not?”

“It’s a fair description, and it is perhaps decadent,” she said; “it may or not be so; there’s no way we can know; however, while we’re here on Earth, if we live in life’s glory, we can have the same! No need to wait for that dim promise of beyond, for that distant drum cannot even be heard. Well, enough of that for now, but let’s talk it through later tonight. How about another subject, meanwhile.”

“Here’s a romantic puzzle for you,” said he, “Tell me, how much is one plus one?”

“Well,” she surmised, “I know it could not be two—because if the question was that easy you wouldn’t be asking it of me!”

“True. What do we two add up to?” he hinted.

“Now I know,” she said. “Before we met, we were each as one, isolated each in our vocation and studies, but now we’re worth much more together than we could ever be alone—we add up to even more than two because we are each an input to the other, sharing our minds, hearts, souls, and senses; that synergy accounts for the extra quantity of living! And it doesn’t stop there, since, as we each improve, we can give that much more in return to the other and to the world! Then we’ll add up to even more!”

“It is proved, my dear. QED. Two is greater than one plus one!”

( 1 + 1 > 2 )

“Well, it never would have happened had I continued on the way I was going. I never had time for life’s beauty; I couldn’t even read a verse, or so I thought. Also, I was too busy for friends. You might say that my life was lost in the living. Now I’ve simplified it—I’ve started anew—I’ve re-versed it!”

“And now, my partner,” said he, “what more could we ask for? We have it all!”

She looked around and nodded, “Yes, we have sunshine, breezes, love, adventure, water, the good earth, friendship, food—all of the elements are there. Our worldly life is a mixture of earth, fire, water, and air!”

“Earth is a garden, an oasis in space, a world of boundless beauty and grace.”

“One might search the heavens in vain for the equal of the Earth, but never find it anywhere or anyplace.”

“You’ve discovered me at a good time,” he said. “In my early years, I was all caught up with technical things. I was then quite the stern classicist, droning onward toward some sort of mechanical perfection. Then I swung too far in the other direction and became an opiate romanticist, so to speak, drowning in my own amazement and stupefaction.”

“Didn’t we all,” she sighed.

“Then I eventually learned that the path was not this way or that, but in a joined direction, one that combines both romanticism and classicism.”

“Ah, yes,” she said, “all things are interrelated and melt into one another; nothing can really be isolated and completely separated from anything else.”

“True, the Yin is in the Yang and the Yang is in the Yin, ever turning and blending in its cyclical rotation. That’s rounded life for you!”

“Most importantly, we are here now,” she said triumphantly.

“Sometimes I visualize myself as old or sick, looking back at better times. I then tell myself that I’d give just about anything to have the good times back. Then I laugh and smile because I know that I’m pretending, for I am indeed young and fine!”

“And,” he added with a rhyme, “you’ll never again live this life of thine!”

They meandered on, fancying that they were not alive, but then smiling because they were. The hours were fresh and mild, like cleansing showers, and so the partners could retrieve all of the wingéd hours that time had devoured. As they walked, the peace of the forest was shattered by the sound of some people bickering and quarreling in an all too common way. He and she approached the noise; the people just stared at them.

“Save your breath,” said one of the fighters, “don’t tell us what to do!”

“Don’t meddle,” said another. We’re having a fight.”

“That’s funny,” she said. What you just said to me is the same as what I was going to say to you. Save your own breath. Don’t expend it on fighting. Fighting will sap your energy and will forever undo love’s promise. Your breath is dear and your breath is precious. Enjoy all that life can give ere comes death. Yelling drives people away; soft and gentle voices, whispering even, brings them closer. Tell them more, partner.”

He continued, “There are large worlds of life to live in. But, here you are, trapped in a little tiny cell of arguments, resentments, and animosity, wasting all your breath therein. Stand back and realize life’s total space—and note that quarreling occupies but a small place in that which can be accomplished by the human race.”

She added, “Well, if you’re not busy living, then I guess you’re busy dying. All the world’s riches cannot extend the power which drains the cup and withers the flower. What would be the price of your wasted breath, purchased from the hand of death at the final hour? Loving is what this life is all about. To have it is to live all out. Then why, oh why, do you not seek it out?”

Somehow, fighting didn’t seem appropriate anymore, so the quarrelers stopped doing it.


The love-intimates continued on down the trail, now and then reading verses from the mysterious book of lively poems. They soon ran into another problem, however, a very unhappy looking person.

“How are you?” they asked together, becoming inseparable now even in voice.

“My life is hell!” answered the complainer. “Well, we don’t want to hear about it,” they began together, then taking turns speaking to him.

“Don’t dwell on your problems, but instead, concentrate on the solutions.”

“Spend time on actions, not on complaints or on mere intentions.”

“Go out and make your life well.”

“Life is no more than what you make of it!”

“Then, after you’ve built a Heaven out of Hell—come back and tell!”


They ambled along the path, now pretty much ready for just about anything. They soon ran into yet another hapless person, one who seemed to be searching for something. Curiously, he was riding on an ox and chasing butterflies.

“Where are life and love?” said the ox-rider. “I’ve been looking all over the place for them.”

“Well, what are you looking for in particular?” she asked the person.

“I’m looking for life and trying to capture the butterfly of love.”

“I’ll take this one,” she said to her partner. “There’s nowhere else to look for life’s impact except in what you are doing now and where you’re at. You must experience the wonder and mystery of life in every single act. Chasing too intensely after life, romance, or butterflies is a lot like riding around on an ox looking for an ox. Life and romance are all around you. They’re right here! Relax, be still—then love’s butterfly will alight on you—for that’s the touch that romance is made of. As for life, it grows in the various cracks of the day from the seeds that you plant along the rocky way. Like an artisan, you can mix your work and play, all the while nurturing yourself and others with love; then you can continually harvest life’s bouquet. Therefore, make some investments.”


They moved on, feeling more lively, and so it was that they tasted a life that was sweet without the sour, as they whiled away the hours, for their souls had met through love’s great power. They stopped to look at some roses, and were rather surprised when one of the roses spoke to them, saying, “I am the rose and I am here.”

“You’ve just arrived?” they asked the rose.

“Yes. It is now and I am here,” said the rose.

“Where did you come from?”

“Once I was buried in the soil. It was my darkest hour, for the world around me was cold and lifeless. I was only a seed then. Then, some spirit, which I can’t begin to describe, started me to bud, and, as a wild flower, I burst from the soil, becoming radiant, alive, and full of power as you now see me! I prospered—even the weeds could not touch me!”

“What shall we call you?” she asked, hoping for a clue to the book’s questionable name. “What’s your name?”

“It’s not that easy,” said the rose, “you must learn my name through living. I cannot just simply reveal it to you!”

Satisfied, they walked on, living in the here and now, for there was nowhere and no-when else.

“What could be name of the rose?” he wondered.

“’What’ could be the name of the rose.”

“‘What’ is the name of the rose?”

“Maybe, but that would be quite a funny name!”

“Unless it was sort of a trick question.”


They ran into a person carrying a large clock. “There are not enough hours in the day,” the clock-man complained to them.

“I’ll handle this one,” he said. “What are you spending the time of your life on?”

“The same old drudgery. Usually nothing that’s new. There are too many customary obligations.”

“And what do you do during the rest of your time?”

“Well, nothing really that I ought to do, but certainly there are lots of rites and rituals that I must attend to.”

“So you feel that you have to do them?”

“I guess so. There are many routines in my life.”

“Or ruts. When will you do what you really want to do?

“Oh, someday, I guess—there will be many days in the future.”

“So, let me get this straight: you put off your life, acting as if you have forever, then you complain that your hours are too few!”

They left him behind, one of those hopeless cases who knew very well what the situation was, yet did nothing to change it.

“It’s so frustrating sometimes,” she added. “You can lead ‘em to life, but you can’t make ‘em live.”

The two walked down to the waterside. Warm breezes were blowing from the west. The sun was low and so there was a wealth of diamonds sparkling on the water—a glitter path. They filled their cups and raised a toast to the zephyr: “To nature! May it ever run through us and we through it! Life’s love runs deep on a summer afternoon. May we ever float on its currents.”

For dinner they ate the nuts and berries that they’d collected, along with some rhubarb and guavas. They also had a few clams from the river. Night was falling. Soon the planets came out, just ahead of the stars, as they always did. “There’s Mars and Venus!” she exclaimed, pointing. “Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and Venus is the second.”

“What a pair they are, he answered, “for Mars represents war and Venus represents love.”

“And here we are on the Earth, the third planet, situated right between those two opposites of love and war.”

“Here on Earth we live in a perfect state of balance, although it is a rather delicate thing. We’re a blend of war and peace, passion and reason, sobriety and drunkenness, adventurousness and foolishness, violence and forgiveness. That is our life! Oh, it is such a tenuous state of awareness.”

“We must walk the tightrope, balancing there between the foolish and the reckless. It’s the point between up and down, the point between night and day, like that of half light dusk or dawn.”

“Indeed, the greatest blunder in this life is to continually fear that you might make one.”

“I love it! Your passion is so reasonable in this state of awareness.”

“And your reasoning is so passionate!”

“That reminds me of a poetic joke I heard, from the poet Byron, though I’ve extended it slightly” she said, “but, as you know, there is some truth behind all jokes. This is sort of how it goes:”

Let us have wine, lovers, song, and laughter;

Water, chastity, prayer the day after.

Such, we’ll alternate the rest of our days—

On the average, we’ll make hereafter!

“It’s funny, but true—a real golden mean.”

“By our nature we’re all a mixture of both ‘good’ and ‘bad’.”

“Yes, there is a beast within us, but it helps us to survive. It is the reason that we dance and dream, the reason that we feel and live with zest. It makes us push and try and climb. Without this beast within us, life would be so boring.”

“We’d be perfect angels.”

“But—we wouldn’t be us.”

“So—all’s right with the world—just the way it is.”

They laid back and looked up at the night sky again. “Look there,” he pointed, “the moon is in a conjunction with Venus.”

“I can hear them speaking. Listen.”

The moon, representing cold chaste reason, said to Venus, with logic cool “Quench thy inner fire, fool, lest it destroy us and all the heavens with it.”

Venus, the goddess of love and passion, answered, “I only know WHAT I feel, not WHY! So—I must be the one to rule!”

“Don’t confuse me with feelings,” said the moon.

“And don’t you confuse me with facts,” said Venus.

“I guess we can’t always understand each other,” the moon finally admitted after a long pause, having reasoned it out. You have feelings that I could never understand. I have reasons that you could never feel. Let us try our best to temper each other, and then let’s take it from there.”

“Otherwise, some of your decisions would be heartless,” said Venus.

“And sometimes your actions will be illogical,” answered the moon.

“But I’ll still do WHAT I feel is right,” said Venus, “and sometimes you can tell me WHY, although it may not always matter.”

“OK,” said the moon, “we’ll try to work together. Peace to you. Perhaps I am beginning to understand this thing called feeling. Perhaps, emotions play a big role in making decisions.”

All now became so very quiet. Starlight stabbed the utter darkness of night, causing new ideas to wink in their joined mind as sparkling thoughts from the eternal flame, as all the while the Cosmos played rhythm to their merged and singing souls. The night winds began to blow, so the lovers nestled deeper into the leaves. “Hold me, it’s getting cool,” she said when they were under their cloaks, using them for blankets. He held her snug, his front against her back, until they were warm. Then she turned and kissed him. “As long as love’s kisses can live,” she said, “neither age nor wear on our life will show.”

He sighed, growing younger, for their love was very beautiful. “We are wealthier than the richest Sultans,” she said. “I pity the poor Sultan. Even with his power and status he’s not as free to live as we are.”

“Yes, we are poor but rich, free yet home, famous but unknown.”

“And the poor Sultan is stuck on his throne.”

“And I am immersed in the boundless stream of your love, whereas the Sultan has only his paid-for-love harem.”

“I’m realizing you now with my whole body, mind, heart, and soul.”

“They work well together, don’t they?”

“Of course, they were built together and so they weren’t meant to operate separately.”

“Love is reason enough for all that we do.”

“Through love, all things are possible.”

“Let us talk of love. Let us say what it is and glory in it,” she re- quested.

“The truth of all truths is love,” he offered. “What is the ultimate source of love?”

“Perhaps its source springs from Heaven above?”

“I don’t know, but its rhythm resonates within us, in depths un- heard of.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere deep, beneath all our words and thoughts, some- where in our unsounded fathomless deeps.”

“What is love?”

“Love is giving—with no motive toward getting anything back in return. There’s not even a hint of ‘taking’ involved in giving love, because, for sure, ‘taking’ is the opposite of giving.”

“Of course; I will graciously receive whatever is given to me, but I will never take it. I will never ask for it. I will never demand. I will never enclose you in a cage. In fact, I will enhance you so you can give even better love to all those of the world.”

“Let us give kindness to everyone in turn.”

“Yes, because if you keep your love, you will have nothing.”

“And if you give your love, you will have everything!”

“Love is more than just words of sentiment—love is action.”

“One small lovely action weighs much more on the scale than an infinite number of sentiments!”

“Sharing and caring are the reasons for giving.”

“Love grows for friends and lovers when they let it flow freely, beyond any confines. One wants their partner to be fulfilled in every way, even if those pursuits take that partner away for awhile.”

“Unconditional love can never bind—it bonds.”

“I give love to everyone in whatever way is appropriate.”

“There is a lot of love which can be given. Love never gets used up! It is boundless.”

“I, too, have found that the capacity for love is infinite. Arithmetic theory does not apply to love, for when love is divided amongst the many, it is not diminished in any way. Sure, the time spent is diminished, but not the love—I can still fully love! In fact, each love seems to grow to exceed the entire lot. That’s the paradox.”

“There’s no good reason to ever withhold love. Why consign someone to cold oblivion by not sharing your love with them? Of course, some must do otherwise out of tradition and moral method, or from bonding and commitment, and that is their choice, but I say ‘why not share’ what is left.”

“Why indeed. Give all the love you can give, and then some.”

“Yes, since the sum of love’s parts exceeds the whole, one can keep on giving and giving love, never the less.”

“And, with a such many faceted life, one improves, and then one can give more love thereafter as a more complete person.”

“Yes, life is more like a vast mosaic done than a focused beam of the sun. There are many parts of the collage.”

“That’s because few lengthy pleasures are lent to us. We must therefore build a stained-glass window of small ones.”

“Yes, every piece of the puzzle is just as important as every other, for together they support each other and make up the entire picture, a masterpiece. It takes a lot of pieces to fit around all the sides of a person. No one interest can match one on every side.”

“A complete life sparkles like a diamond. Each facet of the diamond contributes its view of the world and adds to the lustrous effect.”

“Friends and interests are glints and gleams of reality’s sparkle.”

“Each face of the diamond enriches the view of the other faces.”

“All of the facets reflect off each other, combining and then building into the overall brilliance of life.”

“Which makes you a more rounded person.”

“Which in turn adds to the luster of your individual pursuits.”

“Which therefore makes the diamond even brighter still, and so forth, and so on—it is self perpetuating, and of infinite growth.”

“Love is the key to everything.”

“Reason and passion merge into love when truth, goodness, and beauty make their rendezvous.”

“Love is made up of truth, goodness, and beauty—all three are clearly seen within.”

“They’re intertwined as the eternal triad, woven into the perfect romantic braid as its weft, warp, and wave.”

“And yet they’re each different aspects of the same ALL.”

“For example?”

“When a deep truth is intensely known and stripped of all its clothes, then what is left is beauty.”

“Beauty is the reality of truth’s meaning. Is this the name of the rose?”

“I don’t know, but beauty blooms, as it were, like a rose from the soil of truth.”

“To know beauty, one must also know sorrow, for if you’re alive enough to experience beauty, then you’re also vulnerable enough to be exposed to its opposite twin of melancholy.”

“If we lived as figures in a painting, then we would never have to face death or sadness.”

“However, that may not be so great as it seems, for what is deathless is also lifeless, as we have seen.”

“True. Once I had a beautiful love with a person. It was painful when it ended. My reason’s light began to depart. Darkness was rising in me, beginning to snuff out my spark.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, I gave the feelings their due. I duly visited the shrine of sorrow. There I found, inseparable from truth, the beauty that had given rise to my sadness. Upon realizing that, rhythms soon rose from the depths of sorrow. I began to sing and celebrate the very song whose sweetness had broken my heart.”

“So, the haze couldn’t stop the brightness that it veiled?”

“No, it couldn’t, even though a dark fog had sunk and swelled all through me.”

“Your love, beauty, and joy flowed like rays of sunshine?”

“Yes, and burned the mist until warmth prevailed.”

“You’re a positive thinker.”

( Love = Love / Infinity )

Still awake, they looked up into the night sky. He began to formulate a poetic theory of life. “Somewhere out there, deep in the vast darkroom of the endless void, is the eternal light from which we flashed into being—exhibiting all of our color and grace. Like a prismatic lens, we strain the white lights of the stars into the rainbows of our lives, as the poet Shelley has alluded to.”

“And here we shine! We’ve come a long way from the stars, from stardust.”

“And all those stars burning out there, they are the fires of home!”

“Some legends say that the stars are goblets in the sky, placed there so we can taste Heaven’s drink when we die.”

“We have many myths and legends, but, while we talk and hope and dream, the stars shine on, heedless of where we lie—after we die.”

He looked up at the stars and began to wonder aloud. “The one metaphysical question that people have always asked is, Where did it all come from? But, there are no simple answers.”

“First, let us think of what we know, or even what we think that we know: Either matter is eternal and it has always existed in some form or potential, or it somehow sprang into being out of nowhere. Both propositions are equally difficult to answer. All that we really can be expected to know is that we are here. All else is merely conjecture and is therefore before and/or beyond thought—being merely aforethought and afterthought.”

“But, people keep thinking about it and sometimes they fool themselves into thinking that they have found the answer to the ultimate question,” she noted.

“How do they do that?”

“Well, they beg the question by proposing a mysterious solution which, though seemingly satisfying at first, only introduces a deeper question that is larger than, although similar to, the original question.”

“For example?”

“Well, because the Earth is so complex and because its life processes are not all readily understandable, some people believe that Earth and life must have a Designer.”

“The Earth couldn’t just simply be here without any such Designer, meaning a Being?”

“Well, it could be, actually. What I mean is that it could have been formed by natural laws from the eternal matter that you mentioned before, but people still feel, or perhaps strongly wish, that the Earth should have an origin from a Designer. After all, effects do seem to usually have causes, do they not, though a Being raises similar questions?”

“Well, either matter could have formed itself or it could have always have been around!”

“True enough, but people feel that this could never have happened, for they reason that all things must have a divine source. God is their solution, the beginning.”

“You mean a creative deity? A super being?”

“Yes, and the other nice thing about their solution is that it gives them something to look forward to—a divine destiny in Heaven, a reward—something that is quite desirable, of course.”

“That solution is a gigantic step, but an understandable one.”

“Yes, but people still have a tendency to assign divinity for what they do not understand. Thousands of years ago, the gods were said to have resided on the highest mountain tops of Olympus.”

“Until people climbed those mountains and saw no gods there.”

“Yes, and so then the gods were relegated to more distant and Heavenly realms, such as the sun and the moon, but were not found there either. But, we’re getting off the subject.”

“Well, I may believe in laws by which the universe naturally operates due to the interrelations of magnetic, electric, and atomic forces and such, but that’s not the God to which you’re referring to, of course.”

“Right, I’m referring to a conscious super being called God, the supposed creator of Heaven and Earth. You’re referring to the life principle that is part and parcel of all that exists, the very force of existence itself—a force that’s eternal, although we ourselves may not be.”

“So, God created matter and energy and all that is?”

“So they say.”

“But where did God come from?”

“Well, either he always existed or he was created from nothing.”

“Or both, since it is said that he made himself.”

“But, of course, now we’re right back to the original dilemma.”

“Ah, they have begged the question!”

“Yes, they’ve answered the question by proposing a more difficult question.”

“True; to summarize: They weren’t willing to accept that all the matter and energy of the universe could have formed itself or always have been, so they said that God created it; but then they easily accepted the fact that God, who is way more complex than the universe, formed himself or always had been!”

“Right, the solution to the larger problem is exactly the solution that they refused to accept to the smaller problem in the first place. A needless extra step was introduced, an extra complexity.”

“However, after all this we still don’t know where the universe came from.”

“True, all we really know for sure is that we’re here and that there are laws and forces and life principles which have and may continue to allow the universe to operate in the consistent and stable fashion that we can know and see.”

“Well, we’ll just have to listen to our own intuition.”

“It’s all we have to go on.”

“Is the super being, if there is one, good, bad, or indifferent?”

“It is assumed that he is good, but there’s no reason he couldn’t be bad. But, again, it’s merely conjecture to ascribe human emotions to a being who may well be above all that. Some religions say that’s he’s both bountiful and vengeful, that his love is conditional; that is, either we obey his laws or he’ll punish and torture us in Hell. And that he destroys life, as in the great flood”

“And that he allows the Devil to exist to tempt us?”

“Yes, maybe, as they say or invent, so we can earn our place in Heaven.”

“You mean, or rather, some religions say that God shaped our human nature, and then introduced temptations to our nature, and then intends to punish us merely for being human?”

“So they say, although you’ve pointed out the absurdity of it.”

“Anyway, the gods of all religions don’t have the same character.”

“How do religions know any of this stuff anyway?”

“Well, the founders of many of the various religions claim to have had divine inspirations, either by direct contact or through visions and visitations with God himself. Unfortunately, God told them each something different; thus the existence of the Mormons, Lutherans, Moslems, Jews, Catholics, etc. There must be hundreds of religions, all claiming by divine inspiration that they are the one and only true path to Heaven, and that all the others are false, or so they heard from the voices in their heads.”

“Well, since they all contradict each other, how do we know which is the right one, if any?”

“We don’t; it’s hard to sort it all out. There’s Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and some other prophets—telling us of places like Hell, Heaven, purgatory, nirvana, etc. These are all major differences in beliefs!”

“And some eastern religions don’t even mention God. They’re based more on the idea of a life principle being ingrained in all things, below, not above.”

“And some western religions say that God must be adored and glorified and bowed down to. But again, this may just be one of man’s own emotional inventions from what he’s used to.”

“Well, if I were a god and ruled above, you could take away all of my powers but love!”

“That’s very ingenious and generous of you—but, of course, love means generosity. We have no use for an unloving God”

“And then there are the Polynesians, the Indonesians, and the Melanesians. They have elaborate superstitions and beliefs in good and evil spirits and how to get a higher place in Heaven.”

“Which isn’t really too different from most religions today, actually.”

“Yes, but doesn’t the end sometimes justify the means, for most religions advocate goodness. Jesus preached that we should give love and kindness to our fellow man, just like the Buddha taught. And the Virgin Mary was a good person, though some religions don’t believe in her.”

“Yes, those are good policies for anyone to follow, anytime, regardless of religion or belief. I live them. You live them. Jesus was good, but his father wasn’t.”

“Religion is good for certain borderline people; it can nudge them toward the way to being good. Unfortunately, it can also blind them, brainwash them, and bias them.”

“How so?”

“Well, when one believes in something very deeply, one tends to become intolerant of those with other beliefs, even good ones, because allowance of other beliefs seems to lessen the credibility of one’s own belief.”

“Then so it is that Moslem children learn at a young age to dislike the Jewish people and their culture.”

“Yes, that’s part of it. It’s the differences between cultures that starts wars, and there have been plenty of religious differences that have caused wars.”

“Such as the Protestants vs. the Catholics in Ireland, the Sikhs vs. the Hindus in India, the Jewish persecution, the Wars of the Crusades, the Shiites vs. the Sunnis in Persia.”

“So, like anything else, religions are neither good nor bad but humans only make them so.”

“One is free to believe as one chooses, but there will always be some know-it-all evangelist trying to convince us otherwise.”

“Maybe we should put all the evangelists, preachers, and solicitors in one room and let them all talk to each other.”

“At first, each would be convinced beyond a doubt that they were right.”

“Yes, they would, but soon they’d all see that the others were convinced, also, then perhaps they might realize that that their beliefs were arbitrary—being dependent mostly on their parent’s religion or region of birth, and realize that they, if born elsewhere or under other circumstances, might espouse different beliefs.”

“Well, my dear, you’ve come a long way for a nun.”

“And you, for a monk.”

“So, perhaps Heaven’s promise is bereft, but I’m not distressed. I can’t know all the secrets, so I’ve dismissed the dream of immortality, although I certainly wouldn’t mind having it. For now, I live life with gratitude and accept whatever is left.”

“Me too. I’ve said my good-byes to faith’s dream of forever. I am, of course, much too philosophical to be bitter. Like you, I am resigned to it. I, too, accept, with hunger and joy and pleasure, whatever is left of the dream.”

“People like to wish and dream and believe that they are more than they are, that they deserve a divine destiny, that they are special among all creation. It’s only natural to desire something good, although greedy, perhaps.”

“Of course, but the ultimate humility would be to know that there may be no divine destiny, that we are all just fancy electrochemical organisms, and very much a part of the natural organic world.”

“All I know is that we’re an expression of some life principle or life-force that comes from some mysterious source. This I can know because we are living. Whether the force is conscious or not, or what it’s like, I do not know. All I can do now is flow with that force.”

“Me, too, for when I go against the flow, there is only pain and suffering. Instincts, intuition, and natural urges must exist for a reason. So, I listen to them.”

“Rather than struggling against the way things are, one must become the way things are, giving oneself to the moving whole and flowing with it.”

( Myth-takes )

“Well, here we are—living a loving relationship.”

“Back in the monastery I though a lot about our developing relationship. Once, I stayed up all night thinking it out, but getting nowhere. Then it suddenly came to me, and I found serenity and delight, for I had discovered that only the heart can know what is right.”

“Men and women cannot exist in isolation. The nature of one makes necessary the other. One cannot have the mountain without the valley. Then, when men and women join in love, there is wholeness again. So, the laws of celibacy are artificial and go against nature.”

“Follow your natural urges. It’s not natural to suppress a natural urge.”

“Yes, it takes a strong desire to overcome desire. It’s paradoxical and self defeating.”

“Come to me!” First they touched then embraced and held each other. They began to merge, snuggling into the other’s being, blending in ways that seemed to completely transcend the physical plane, as if they could both occupy the same space. Mind, heart, soul, and body were all of a oneness. They drifted in the blackness, floating through the universe, suspended by their love. There was no past, no future; there was only NOW.

“Where does the rose bloom?” she asked.

“In loving hearts,” he answered. “Which roses last the longest?” she asked.

“Roses last when they grow steadily and slowly, for, if their growth is too quick, then they will wither very fast.”

She opened her cloak to take him in to it and they embraced lovingly, longingly, and thoroughly. They felt the unlimited power of the universe. She felt that she held the entire cosmos within her. They were weightless, warm, and together, drifting up through the forest. There were no reference points, no walls, no rough edges. They became one as they floated heavenward, drifting through the clouds.

“You have enclosed my universe,” he said, “yet it is still boundless.”

She replied, “You have filled the universe that I enclose.”

“I will fill that emptiness with my fullness,” he added.

She said, “I will empty your fullness with my emptiness.”

“What ‘is not’ is equally as great as what ‘is’. We are equal partners in life and love. The monk and the nun cannot live by bread alone.”

“Yes,” she added, “celibacy is a crime against nature. One might as well stop eating, breathing, or any other such natural function.”

And so it went…they spoke of the philosophies gleaned from the learnéd books of life…and from the Book of Quatrains…

“When opposites are balanced, the edges of all things dissolve; time and space become as one; all dimensions are transcended.”

“Yes, everything melts into everything, yet remains as itself.”

“All is of a piece, yet, all is interconnected and related.”

“Yes, all things are interrelated; opposites are merely different aspects of the same phenomenon—like a tear and a smile, light and dark, man and woman.”

“As equal partners, men and women may achieve a perfect balance.”

Soon he was saying what she thought and vice versa, and now they were speaking as one, like voices merged in the Pachelbel Canon.

“The tide of love supports us and carries us along with it.”

“We are carried together down the mountain stream to rejoin the sea, for therein lies completeness. Life is a diamond, a rainbow of many colors.

“Human beings need each other, especially in nunneries and monasteries.

“Body and spirit cannot be separated, for they are integral parts of the human—they must operate in tandem to make the being human. They are inseparable. It is as the flower drawing life’s spirit from the soil.”

“A man and a woman are drawn together by the same urge that’s between root and flower, leaf and soil, breath and wind, sun and water, star and planet.”

“Man and woman cannot exist alone; the nature of one requires the other to be complete. When they join in love there is wholeness again.”

“Like the Yin and the Yang, the man is in the woman and the woman is in the man.”

“From the hardness of the world, a man comes to the valley of the soft mountains to be overcome by woman. She is the roundness of Earth and moon, warm with promise.”

“The valley and the mountain each make the other possible; they are opposites, yet they are really one and the same.”

“My words to you are a faint echo of what my heart truly feels.”

“What ‘is’ and what ‘is not’ combine to make wholeness.”

“Love is lived by lovers. They come together, like mountain and valley, rain and river, air and mist, Earth and moon.”

“Yes, they go with the flow and give themselves to the moving whole.”

“Male and female are each the opposite twin of the other.”

“They are—just as we are each other’s satellite.”

“Yes, we are like twin planets, linked and traveling together through space.”

“I am thy co-planet, like Shelley wrote, thy constant satellite, thy paramour of day and night. Around you, above you, below you, and within your sight I whirl about in loving delight!”

“My heavenly love, I am your pearl. In a magnetic dance I twirl and whirl about you, attracted to you—the sun’s liveliest world. Around you like a necklace I’m aswirl. Wear me as thy crystalline gem impearled.”

“I am always with you. Wherever thou must goest, ‘round and ‘round Apollo, I must turn and whirl, hurry and follow, meeting meteors and dust, traveling far and wide through space not hollow.”

“You are my heart light. Thy magnetic beam, like Cupid’s arrow, injects life and love into my heart for my tomorrow. Henceforth, I shine with this light I borrow.”

“We are involved. As twin planets, our orbits must convolve, a made-up word. Into each other our tidal motions have dissolved. Around a common center we revolve, gazing on each other from every side. It’s the focus from which our love evolves.”

“Yes, as twin planets, each other’s way we pave through space with the push and pulse of our gravitating waves. We’re captured by a romantic attraction, but not as each other’s slave, for to the sun’s light our orbits are concave. This is unconditional love.”

“Your love echoes in my heart and soul. I align my path with your magnetic lines of flux. I’m your constant paramour. Your world pours life and love on mine. On mine! Oh, it echoes. Dearest twin, I must be thine, must be thine, be thine… ”

“Your love echoes and reverberates in me. A romantic beam emanates from thee, attracting me, holding me, caressing me, kissing me. Your tidal love washes freely over me, linking you and me for eternity.”

“I feel the warmth. I am basking in your reflected light. Oh, I’m so bright, so very bright in your sight. In the love and light of your spirit bright, I need not ever face the endless night.”

“The vibrations of your electromagnetic waves travel without a sound. They come from all directions to surround, while your affection touches me all around. Now I’m close to you in orbit; I’m love-bound!”

“We’ll bathe in love’s radiance, cleansing ourselves.”

“’Round and ‘round each other, as twin planets, we dance, entranced in the whirl of our romance.”

“Although we’re as different as midnight and noon, we’re drawn close by the forces of sun and moon. As lovers we merge in a sweet eclipse, when world meets world as a kiss on our lips.”

“While your shadow of love covers me, I’m full, oh so full, in the shade of thee.”

“Our worlds overlap; this union is ‘us’. The ‘you’ is in me and the ‘me’ is in thee!”

“Thy heart hast touched my own; no, ‘tis more I love thee!”

“Yes, much more thou art loved; the ‘me’ is now in thee.”

“Thou art the soul of my soul and mine is of thine.”

“Nay, ‘tis more than that: thou art me and I am thee.”

( Eclipse — A Kiss )

They awoke early the next day and again drank the dew from the flowers. She picked a new rose to carry with her. They thought they heard the rose laughing and that they could even see it smiling. The rose spoke, “I am the rose that blows laughing into the world, until my tassels tear and I throw my petals on the garden. Cherish me, for I represent the fragility and impermanence of life. I live in my prime but for just awhile. First I’m flowering and free, but then I am fragile, and finally, forlorn. When my beauty is past, my petals float to earth—and all that’s left is the thorn! But, while I live I am the queen of flowers!”

She clutched the rose, then said to her partner, “Like the rose, we will grow old one day and then throw our treasure back to earth.”

He thought on that awhile. “When I was young, I wildly embraced many causes, including monkhood, and searched for all the answers, but I have no regrets—I enjoyed my life as such when I was young.”

“Yes,” she continued, “me too, for every age has it’s own charm, much like the different lights of morning, noon, and evening. There are always new worlds to explore, and each year seems to get better.”

“Yes, just when you think you’ve done it all, you rise up to the next level, build on what’s been done before, then do everything even better.”

“As for feeling old, it is only a state of mind anyway,” she said as she playfully toyed with his hair.

“Keep playing,” he said, “for the day one stops being playful is the day one begins to get old.”

( Thorns Have Roses )

They moved on, finding the remains of a ghost town, and soon arrived in another cemetery, where they saw a man sitting next to a grave. “What are you doing?” they asked.

“I waiting for this dead and buried man to come back from death and tell me what it’s like on the other side. We made a deal. I’ve been waiting here ten years now.”

“What have you learned?” he asked.

“Nothing. I fear that perhaps ideas may die when the mind turns to dust, that there can be no unique and enduring identity after death without the mind and its memory, just as there wouldn’t be before birth.”

“It could very well be that death is mindless and senseless. No one knows,” she added.

“Well, if no one comes back to tell, I will have to die to find out.”

“We will all die someday,” she said, “so you might as well live your life in the meanwhile. Remember, your warm body full of bloom is worth ten thousand lying in the tomb. Live while you’re still full of life. By these verses let your lamp of life relume!”

The man thought a while. Currents flashed signals through his living mind—as chemicals decoded the impulses in kind. He came to a conclusion and said, “We are all a part of nature, and to nature we must return.” He then got up and went off in another direction. They could still hear him talking to himself. “I sprang from the soil, born to live and die. Then I beheld life’s font and drank it dry. I may not live forever, but my words and good deeds will live on. As for me, I must go back whence I came; I must return to earth and die.”

( Everyone Dies, But Not Everyone Lives )

They walked and wondered about that which could never be known, trying to make something positive out of it.

“I know where purgatory is,” she said playfully.

“Where?”

“It’s on the planet Venus,” she said, “because that’s where sulfuric acid rains down from the skies.”

“Must be. I know where Hell is,” he added.

“Where? Wait, I know. It’s got to be in the sun!”

“Of course, there’s no place hotter.”

“And we know where Heaven is, don’t we?”

“Yes we do, even though it is the world’s best kept secret—Earth is its name!”

They strolled ever onward, feeling rather Heavenly.

He and she were living, sleeping, and eating with their lover, the Earth, sensing all of its charms, treasures, joys, and mirth. It began to rain. Way off in the distance, they could hear people cursing at the rain.

“I never curse the rain,” he said to her, “for without water there would be no life.”

“The universe has our well-being at stake in the general sense, in the long run.”

“But not in the specific sense, because, for example, your home could float away if there’s too much rain. Then the worms will come out.”

“Worms are wonderful too, even though many people hate them.”

“How come they’re so useful?”

“They aerate over four hundred million tons of soil per day. If it weren’t for the worms, there would not have been the plant growth that now sustains the world. No worms, no life!”

“So, we’re all in this together—you, me, and the worms.”

“Yes, there seems to be a subtle, interlinked complexity to life.”

“The Earth is the best of all possible worlds!”

“Yes, all is right with the world, even though it may not seem so at first glance, what with the calamities of nature and so forth, but it couldn’t really work any other way—and so it’s hard to argue with what works.”

“Right, the food chain works, the climate works, everything works!”

“My blood runs warm, like the fire of the sun at noon.”

“My spirit is swept by the swelling moon!”

“Water is in me.”

“The air flows through me.”

Together, they said, in one voice, “Earth’s rhythm is always playing our tune!”

“Earth, air, fire, and water—that ‘s life’s recipe!”

“How is it that everything works on Earth if it is so rare?”

“Well, think of it this way: If it didn’t work then we wouldn’t be here to even think about it—so, it’s not so very remarkable after all!”

“Nevertheless, I propose a toast,” he said, “to life, seeing as we’re here!”

She raised herself up. “I am the cup,” she said.

“Then, as my chalice I will lift you up!”

“And take of me a sup!”

“I’ll drink deep the wine that satisfies love’s thirst.”

“Before the winds of change dry you up!”

“Here, here!”

“Drink me!”

“And here’s another toast:”

Drink the lifeblood of the grapes you’ve sown,

Before pressing time squeezes out what’s grown.

“And the closer:”

Do toast with thy chalice and all inspire,

To life’s red wine I give all that I own!


They walked away the day, making an early camp so they could warm again together. Soon the stars came out. They liked to talk about the stars.

“Lay down on your back,” she said. “Let’s pretend that we’re floating through deep space.”

“Once we were,” he said.

“When we were stardust,” she surmised.

“Time, death, and stardust.

Those three were our birthright.” She noted, “Death chose the wise from the silly, the useful from the useless, the pointed from the pointless. Death sifted the best from the rest.”

“But it took a lot of time,” he added. “Since death was the only evaluator, it took eons and ages of time for us to evolve from stardust into humans.”

“Time, death, and stardust. They write our epitaph as well as our birthright,” she noted.

“Yes, they do. When our time expires, death will come, and only dust will be left.”

“From time and death and dust we came, and to this, that, and thus we must return.”

“Born from stardust, nourished by sunlight, I’ve filled my cup with wonders of delight.”

“Life is a treasure, a radiant gem, a light that I’ll never see again.”

“Your words show me all the more the worth of our love. Hold me, love me, be one with me,” he said.

“Let’s merge yours and mine into ours,” she said. They embraced under the stars. Endless flames burned in the sky as they snuggled by their inner fire.

“When I see the stars, then I know that all’s right with the universe.”

“They are eternity’s running lights; look, they shine, even through the blackness of the fathomless night!”

“It’s as if good had conquered evil; for darkness can’t even quench the smallest light. Even a mere candle can vanquish the night!”

“They say that twin genii split day and night, and wrong and right.”

“The candle lights up and fills the darkness!”

“Starlight is the origin of my being.”

“A star is the soul of the universe.”

“The sun is our soul and life star.”

“We are sparks from the stars. We glow bright for awhile, then flicker and die.”

“Your light shines now, reluming the flames in the black of night.”

“We are magic lanterns shining—our spirits are the lights in there.”

He looked deep into her eyes. “From what bright star came the gleam in your eyes?” he asked.

She answered with a question, from Blake’s poem, “From what distant sun came your smile’s light?”

Their hearts answered for them. Soon they were ready to sleep. “Embrace me, starlight!”

“Hold me, stardust!”

“Goodnight. Sleep well. Say a prayer of sleep.”

“Each night my genie comes to fill my urn, pouring sleep into me until day’s return. I dream of the beauty of night and the bounty of day. As the day follows night for all eternity, fulfillment follows all for which I yearn.”

As they were drifting off to sleep, some voices filled the blackness of the night. It was some sort of celestial debate:

“I’m the darkest,” said the Shadow to the Night.

“No,” said Midnight, “compared to me you’re bright.”

“You floodlights!” said Starless Space, “Stop your fight! The darkest plight is the lack of love’s delight.”

( Love-Lights )

After a good night’s sleep, they awoke, like dewdrops, all agleam, fresh with the delight of some remembered dream.

“We are the creative principle, aren’t we.”

“Yes, it is embodied in us. We live by our intuitive strength.”

“And this intuition—‘it’ seems to know all, which, I suppose, is why they call it intuition in the first place.”

“It is the light within. It is a form of the life principle.”

“It’s an inner creative source. It may even be eternal. It is our awareness, our consciousness. We hardly even see the sea in which we see”

“So, I’ll live from my intuitive wisdom and act spontaneously on it, rather than get labored down with conventional reasoning.”

“Yes, because what really ‘is’ is completely beyond thought.”

“This is my idea of how creativity springs from the unity of the heart, soul, senses, and mind: The wonders of life bring love to the heart and cause it to take flight, so to speak, as all the while the soul whispers unimaged things to us through its own language, which makes them unimaginable—but they are ever in our subconscious; and all this, if we let it, streams dually into our senses and into our intellect, merging there, taking us to a point quite beyond joy—for that’s when imagination freely enlightens the mind. This is what I call creative unity.”

“All is interrelated and interconnected.”

“Life’s oneness is a constant sensation.”

“It’s beyond intellectual concepts.”

“It occurs on a much deeper level.”

“Since it defies description there’s not much more that I can say about it!”

“Follow the water to where your mind leads you.”

“Do what your senses tell you.”

“Sail on the wind of your soul.”

“Flow where your heart takes you.”

“In us the cosmos has achieved consciousness!”

“We’re the Cosmos itself! We’re a conscious form of its life principle.”

“I believe so. We are the universe come alive.”

“We are magic lanterns shining.”

“From the light that never dies!”

“We are the triumph of life, love, and being!”

“We are the smile of being, the joy of the universe’s creation. In us the Cosmos has come alive. It has reached consciousness from it’s primordial matter and energy.”

“We have arrived! We are life from stardust!”

“And we live but for one of eternity’s heartbeats.”

“We owe all that we are to time, death, and the stars. Truly from the stars cometh our help. Stars are the creators of matter—this is why they shine.”

“Death is the evaluator, the chooser, but it takes time.”

“Billions of years.”

“Our spirits have waited to catch light, life, and rapture from Heaven’s smile.”

“Oh! what a joy to be alive.”

“Yes, now we are alive, and our minds interpret the one reality into the many colors of the phenomenal world.”

“Our lives, like a prism, strain the white radiance of eternity, like Shelley said.”

“While we are here we can take a glass of water from the well, we can enjoy the breeze, we can sing and laugh and love with our friends.”

“We can enjoy everything and everyone.”

“I will live for truth, beauty, and goodness—love.”

“Yes, for their own sake. Love, for its own sake.”

“The stars are eternity’s love lamps.”

“They represent our good deeds, which even the death of night cannot quench.”

“My star’s light is the origin of my being, the source of my matter, energy, everything.”

“Permanent, reassuring, unquenchable—it’s my speechless soul, my self-winding mainspring.”

“Energy and matter are interrelated. The void pulsates in an endless sequence, for a field is present throughout space immense, out of which all particles must condense, occurring where the field is extremely intense.”

“Atoms are just energy bundles. They are knots in the fabric of space. Yet, matter defines the structure of space.”

“Again the Yin is in the Yang, and vice versa!”

“I have a theory: perhaps from out of nothing came the paired pluses and minuses of energy. The positive energy became matter, while the negative matter became gravity, negative because it takes a force, positive energy, to hold objects apart which are attracted by the negative force of gravity. So, when recombined, all energies still add up to nothing!”

“That’s ingenious. So, from nothing was written our account! And back to nothing we will still have to amount! Ah, but in between those two parentheses, the pluses rain on us from Heaven’s fount!”

( PLUS and MINUS = ZERO )

Walking along the next day, they came to a grove of rose bushes in a peaceful setting. Over in the corner of the garden they saw a grave marker, one that was almost completely covered by fallen rose blossoms.

“What does it say?”

“It says, ‘Here Lies Omar Khayyàm’, and ‘The flower that once has blown forever dies.’”

“He may be the one who inspired our book of philosophies.”

“It says that he has gone to where no one knows, that he is buried far beneath the winter snows.”

He read on silently for awhile. Then he bent down a tulip, pouring its cup of dew onto the grave.

“Why?” she asked him.

“I’m turning the cup so that dewdrops will descend into the ground and perhaps reach his thirsty lips, for this is what he asked people to do.”

“Can he sprout anew? Arise like an autumnal rose in some sort of second spring?”

“I don’t think so, but his spirit has escaped from the ground and has touched us, and his words have echoed on down through the centuries.”

“Then Omar does live again,” she cheered; “he lives in the hearts of his friends! He, a-rose!”

“His poetic splendor lives beyond the grave. He’s immortal.”

It was then that some mourners arrived—the Procession Of The Moments. They all came: sad Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, blinded by grief, led only by their tears and sorrow. “Hail, cheer, and farewell,” they said to Old Khayyàm, “you took from death ALL that life could borrow!”

“What else was said about Omar?” she asked.

“Well, on Omar’s last day on earth, he was sitting in the shade of a minaret. The Bird of Time landed near him, ate a few crumbs from his hand, then sang life’s last song to him. Omar just relaxed, savoring the glow of his last sunset. A shining shape, the Angel of Light, sought out Omar to bless him. The Angel said, ‘Omar, your clay must soon be repossessed; let us drink to your success’, and offered him a cup. Omar took it and smiled, ready to meet life’s last caress. Omar then lay down on the grass, getting weaker. A dark shape arrived. It was the Angel of Death, and to Omar he said, ‘Drink one last drought from your precious cup.’ Omar sipped and smiled, then breathed his last breath. Ever since, and for centuries thereafter, Omar lay where the roses bloomed, then, like a ghost from the tomb, his lamp relumed and his poetic spirit spread like perfume, injecting life and promise into Earth’s womb, spreading the words of the Rubàiyàt through all of this world’s gloom and doom, like the spores of a mushroom. To whom? To those who would taste of life, I presume. And so the simoom continues to blow across Omar’s grave, carrying forth his Persian fumes. And every year the rose gardens sing for Omar, shedding their blossoms at the end of spring. Like the rose, Omar Khayyàm came hither from the earth, blossomed, and showed his beauty, charm, and color in full flower, until to Earth his petals floated back down to wither. Omar, as a tulip, was like a cup, looking up to take his Heavenly sup, then to earth he was inverted, quite used up. The stars, the eyes of night, will often rise anew and look for him, but will never find him again, for he’s bid adieu.”

As they walked on, the dust spoke to them: “Tread softly on me, for I was once like you.”

The Bird of Time landed next to them and said, “I am the moment. I am here. It is I that you seek. I am the one you want. You’ve found me. You’ve come for me and I am here for you.”

That night the partners lay peacefully together, again talking before they slept. “I think we know now the whole story of the rose,” he said.

She picked up her rose and brushed it ever so slightly across his cheek.

“Why the rose is so red?” he asked.

“It’s the blood that the living earth has bled.”

“Tell me the life of the rose,” he requested.

“The rose,” she began, “rises in the joyous spring as a sprout from the dirt in a glorious birth. On the first day of summer it blossoms, as spring vanishes, from spring’s only kiss to summer. Then the summer rose blooms and laughs with the mirth of a long season somewhere between happiness and contentment. Golden autumn slowly creeps into the scene, and then the rose withers, its petals falling back to enrich the soil. Then comes winter, shutting the scene. That’s the life of the rose. The flower that once has blown forever dies.”

“What then, is the name of the rose?”

“We are the rose.”

WILD ROSES


I cultivate wild roses in the spring.

Do I try to tame them, breed them, subdue them?

No, I encourage roses wild and free—

The wildest plant’s the one that’s most alive.


Her leaves are coarse and brown at the edge,

For they contend for life near tree and hedge.

I develop wild roses in the spring—

Such we taste the first sweet breath of summer.


I hold thorns in my hand; I hurt, I bleed.

But I don’t let go; I hold her tighter.

The winds come, the rains fall, the storm passes;

The breezes caress her—she blossoms forth.


Now she unfolds to all, and so discloses

That there is new life among the roses.

WORTHLESS AND PRICELESS


The poet works only for love,

And for nothing more.

There’s no profit in coin,

No wealth below or up above,

No fortune told,

No living made.


The poet writes only for love,

For there is nothing else:

Just a few readers, and

No business worth speaking of.

Yes, I know that I’m no bard,

And that fame is only met,

If at all, in the graveyard,

Where, far beneath,

I cannot grasp the laurel wreath.


As a poet I write much of love,

Of it’s worth and wealth

Measured in goodness

And beauty seldom heard of.

Without promise, the poet writes on,

And knowing well

That there shall be no award;


But ever on the poet writes,

And lives, and works for love,

For he’s found that love

Is its own reward.

— 2 —


—— META-TIMES ——

This is ex-Brother Peter, named at last, writing from a quiet balcony alcove within Vassar library, where here I am oft mistaken for a saintly Irish monk since I usually sit in the warm light of a stained-glass window while illustrating and editing a long treatise of non fictional philosophy called ‘The Triumph of Life, Love, and Being’. All is so peaceful. As I look up for a minute, I am comforted by the stacks of old books, by the worn-out tapestries, and by the marble floor in the study court below, all so much reminding me of the monastery. Memories cover me like a warm blanket as it all comes flooding back.

I turn back to my work, but not before a smile from my partner across the table gives me the energy to continue the illustrations. Yes, my co-author, ex-Sister Angelina, sits quietly near me and is still being mistaken for a nun. We are working at a large table in the glow of the window’s prismatic colors, bathing in the radiance of our saintliness in the sacred and blessed mood of the library nook. We’re putting a few finishing illuminations of gold into our manuscript, for now that the story has been lived and proved, it deserves to be written, edited, and illustrated. I ink in the gold leaf while she checks the pages, just like in the old days, which I shall explain shortly.

The library is a peaceful relief from adventuring and romancing. Talking is expressly forbidden here, just as in the monastical village, so we whisper ever so softly and sweetly to each other. But, I am getting way ahead of myself, dear reader, so let’s pause and start at the beginning. It’s all coming back to me now. This is the story of how ‘The Triumph of Life, Love, and Being’ came to be—of how it was born in the labyrinth of the library’s maze of passageways, wherein I had quite an adventure some time ago. I’ll tell you about it now…

…I approached Vassar library one day, walking on the blue-eyed flowered grass, passing under the overhanging branches of the old trees. Looming up ahead of me were the library towers, complete with turrets and gargoyles. The walls were made of stone from Italy, and there was a large stained-glass window. To me, Vassar library was built much in the tradition of a castle or some great monastery. The library was much like Camelot in a way, too, but I thought that perhaps my imagination could do better than that, and so I began to relax, letting my mind wander freely as I entered the spacious cathedral-like lobby.

Once inside, I looked up and saw the huge tapestries hanging high on the walls, those grand and glorious scenes of the past. From the lobby I walked up the stone steps that had been indented and worn smooth by centuries of studious feet. There were also stone railings, like altar rails, and many old pictures, plus balconies, spiral staircases, and secret alcoves. The nook was silent, blessed, and gracious, the perfect place to write and do research.

The library has a hundred rooms, and fifty or more connecting passages—no one really knows how many. I started down one of the twisting hallways and went through many levels of rooms, not really noting where I had been. I switched on the lights as I went, but I didn’t realize that the lights were automatically turning off behind me after a minute or so—they were on a timer to save electricity. So, I continued walking along, between the stacks, and down the stairways, entering older sections of the library which didn’t quite line up with the newer ones. Soon I was lost and completely disoriented! Then the library closed, and to my surprise all of the power went off, for the library had been shut down for the Easter holidays—I was trapped inside in the dark.

I wedged open a door that was automatically closing. I didn’t panic, although I certainly allowed myself a few quick pulses. I looked around for clues and saw a map on the wall, but it was too dark to read it; however, when my eyes became adapted, I could see the dim outlines of the shapes of the rooms on the map. Off in the distance I could hear the electronic clicks of the security locks slipping into place in the treasure rooms and in the rare book rooms. I walked between the stacks, guiding myself along by tapping on the books with my hand. I came to a moonlit window and opened it, but it was much too high for me to jump from. I looked out and around at the exterior of the building, trying to get an idea where I was in relation to the exits.

I picked up a book and looked at its call number to get a better idea of where I might be. The book was ‘Beyond Metaphysics’, by Aristotle. I’m sure that it contained the answers to all of life’s most difficult mysteries, because, after all, I knew from my language studies that ‘meta’ already meant ‘beyond’; but alas, it was too dark to read the book, so I put it back, meaning to take it out when the library reopened. It must have been the library’s most precious book, for it had been presumed lost centuries ago! Imagine going beyond what was already beyond physics! Oh, Aristotle!

It was not totally quiet—the library boilers and vents were making gurgling sounds—at least that’s what I’d hoped the noises were. Yet, there was also sort of a weird stillness all around. I wouldn’t say that I was scared, but there seemed to be a lot of creaking noises as the library settled in for the week with the heat off. I left the windowed area and went down what I thought might be a familiar stairway, but the door at the bottom was locked. I looked through the door and could see the rare book room. I went up two more levels and looked through another door and saw the main art gallery with its sculptures and jade jewels on display. I’d better not get caught in there with some alarm ringing, I thought, so I retraced my steps and went around in circles for awhile, unfortunately returning again and again to rooms that I had been to before.

I had to find some of the more critical junctions. It was pitch black in the library’s interior, so I marked some of the intersections by putting books on the floor—that way I’d know by tripping over the books if I was returning to rooms that I had visited before. Still, it was all rather frustrating. If only I had a candle! But, of course, fire was forbidden in the library.

I could see nothing, but I heard a new noise and followed it. It was just a drinking fountain, slightly dripping. At least I had water. Good! I wouldn’t die of thirst. There was a school recess coming up, and the library had been completely shut down for the next fortnight. I could be in here for a long time—cold, blind, hungry, and homeless. Although I was getting tired, I walked on a bit further. I found a another window, dimly lit, but again it was still too high to jump out of. I sat down and rested against the books, one of which poked me in the back, so I took it out and chanced to read the title as I was putting it down: ‘Letters between a Saintly Irish Monk and a Holy French Nun’. I opened it and read a few pages. As I fell asleep, that book was on my mind and I began to dream about it…

I “woke up” in a scriptorium. I was a holy monk in a monastery, studying philosophy and illuminating books. At least it seemed to be so. My imagination was running wild. There was a convent next to the abbey. The nuns worked on the books first, then sent them over to the monastery for illustration. I dealt mostly with Sister Angelina, although we had never met. She sent me the books, with further instructions enclosed therein.

Both of us worked on books of philosophy, which traveled back and forth between the monastery and the nunnery. As we worked on them, we often secretly read them and thereby learned of many glorious ideas. We started to discuss the books and their philosophies through notes and letters to each other. I was surprised when it first happened. A note fell out of the book that I was illustrating—obviously it was from my friend the holy nun in the convent.

“I have a long list of books I want to read. I will probably never get to the end of it. I usually read several books at the same time and since I still maintain my monastic habits and since have nothing better to do at night, I read.”

So I answered her: “I too have been reading all the books given me to copy and illuminate. Some of them are from the forbidden section of the library and I’m certainly not supposed to read them, but I still do. I am learning a lot. Much is being withheld by our keepers.”

Her next note read simply that “Time flies like a bird.”

“Yes,” I answered, “the wings of time are black and white, for one is the day and one is the night.” That was a philosophy from a book of quatrains that I was presently illuminating. We began get to know each other by all the notes that we concealed in the books.

“I was delirious to hear from you. I thought that my note might go to a wrong monk but I hoped that it would be sent to you. I can’t believe that it worked out that way!”

And so I replied, “I was thinking about you last night, and about how wonderful your notes are. It really made me feel so good to hear from you. Life is much more enjoyable now. Thank you so much.”

“I am really happy that you are enjoying life. We live only once so, I believe in getting the best out of life.”

“I was as delirious as you were when I received your note. It gave me energy! I was walking on air for the rest of the day—I still am! You made my day!”

“I am glad that my note made your day. After all, if we combine a lot of days, it comes out to a whole life.”

“Your vision of life’s celebration is one that’s very similar to mine.”

“I almost forgot to tell you. There is this wonderful love song—it’s in French, but the music is beautiful, which will help you enjoy life.”

“Thank you so much for your attention to me. I don’t really know just what magic it was that prompted you to write, but I feel an excitement all the way into my heart. Well, as always, I’ll listen to my intuition in my everyday actions. I’m not going to question it—I’ll just enjoy it.”

“I feel much better now and I would like to keep the friendship with you. I don’t know about you, but I very rarely feel this sort of chemistry!”

“We will make good friends: me as a saintly monk and you as a holy nun!”

“I got your last note and was hysterical reading it. I don’t know how you would be as a saint, but I will qualify for a nun very soon.”

“I like your idea about combining days into a whole life. Indeed, life can be had and found in every single act. Minutes, hours, days all flow and blend together into the moving whole. Nothing is really separate. Please keep your philosophies coming. I love them. I will try to live them!”

“I’ve been rereading our notes—we write as if we are in love. If I did not know these holy people, us, the way I do I would get an impression that they are in love. Of course, perhaps it’s only platonic love, but there seems some indication of some other kind of interest. Ignore me here, I am fantasizing a little.”

“I enjoyed your fantasizing very much. Of course we are in love.

Each time we write a note we make love to each other. It’s an unusual love because we never touch, hear, or even see the other. And so it’s a very pure love—a love of heart and mind and spirit. Naturally, it’s hard to separate the body, since nature didn’t really mean it to be separate, as I’ve come to realize.”

“COME TO ME!”

“Lord save us both from damnation!” I could hear the Pachelbel Cannon playing in the background; it was the greatest hit of the 17th century, a tune that would never be outdone. It flowed and resonated with the sounds of my spirit, for I was feeling so peaceful that I could hear the haunting sounds of my inner chorus playing my favorite song of love, emotion, adventure, and romance. Oh, God help me!

Soon a life was to be made from the days. The monastery was connected to the nunnery by a door which had been locked for centuries. I could feel the spirit of Sister Angelina on the other side as I illustrated the books. Now and then she would slip me letters under the door. A few days later I would write to her, slipping my notes back under the door and under a loose stone. This proved much quicker than sending them with the books.

We never saw each other, and we had never met; we communicated only by the letters and notes. We never spoke to each other with our voices, for there was a code of silence in the monastic village. After a while of this, we discovered that our inner selves were somehow speaking to each other directly. Then I could sense her disembodied spirit drifting through into the monastery—she seemed to be with me as I worked. I transcended the walls of the nunnery and she could feel my presence there—it was a very comforting feeling.

That night, I lifted my wine glass at supper, looked at it in a sort of a symbolic way, then remembered something I’d read in a book. I am the wine glass, I thought, filled fairly full with my human nature. Who would punish me for using my given nature in a good and loving way, for being human! It’s as if my glass is precariously tipped yet I must somehow not spill the wine! Why restrain the very nature that I have been born and blessed with? I thought awhile, as daydreams began to pierce the noise of consciousness…I still thought somewhat like a monk was trained to think, but I was progressing past that…I was searching, analyzing, feeling, perhaps close to being truly human at last…finally reaching the only conclusion was philosophically reachable:…I am my own golden chalice to life’s dripping blood! I will drink life’s bountiful wine! Oh, what a ‘wicked’ thought! I wondered further, Shall I repent my thought? Oh, but how can I repent when roses bloom in loving hearts? Perhaps then it is best if I continue to give love to her.

That day I received a note from her with a picture of a key in a lock. That night, I took my note as usual and put it under the locked door that connected the monastery to the nunnery. As I looked through the keyhole I could see that there was a key in the lock on the other side. How would I get in? Try the door, fool! I turned the handle but the door wouldn’t open. How would I get the key over to my side so I could unlock the door? Should I even be trying to open the door to the nun’s convent? What was I doing? Settle down, I told myself, think, think, THINK!

I thought it out: Why should the monks be separated from the nuns? All were people first and foremost, with the same natural and biological urges for companionship that all normal human beings have. God made men and women both. It was as though the invention of one had made necessary the other! How could a mountain exist without a valley? How could day and night be separated and not kiss at twilight when they met? How could the Yin exist without the Yang? How could men exist apart from women? How could one exist without the other? It’s love, I thought, it’s love that makes for completeness between a man and a woman. Monastical segregation didn’t seem to follow natural law. Perhaps it was just another invention by those who continued to blindly walk the beaten path of traditional morality with many a weary footstep, chained to regimentation. It was time to begin thinking for myself. Ah, the forbidden readings had been a dangerous thing indeed.

I removed an old illustrated newspaper from the shelf and slipped it under the door, then I poked a pencil through the keyhole until the key fell out and onto my newspaper. I carefully slid the paper back under the door—now I had the key! My hand trembled as I turned the key in the lock. The lock creaked and groaned with noises that sounded to be so loud as to give me away. It was only my imagination, of course, but my ears hurt with every grind of the turn of that ancient lock. Bits of rust streamed out of the lock and made a small pile on the floor. I was praying that the key would not break off inside the lock and so I turned it ever so cautiously. At last the door opened and I was into the nunnery. The lights were off in the corridor, for no one was ever expected to use it. I could tell that she was nearby since the scent in the air was similar to the perfume that she’d put in her letters. I heard a whisper: “Brother Peter?”

“Yes,” I said, “I am over here.” It was so dark that we could not see each other. But we touched, then embraced and held each other in the dark. It was also very much of a spiritual holding. Physical time and space seemed to fade away into some sort of a mystical experience. We floated in the dark, snuggling into each other’s being, blending in many ways that seemed to completely transcend the physical; it was as if we could both occupy the exact same physical space. Mind, heart, soul, and body were all of a oneness. We drifted in the blackness, floating through the universe, suspended only by our love. There was no past, no future; there was only NOW. She said, “This is such an incredible wholeness.”

She opened her habit to take me in and we embraced lovingly, longingly. I felt the unlimited power of the universe around me. She felt that she held the entire universe within her.

We finally returned to the door that led back to the monastery and stopped there for awhile.

“My spirit has escaped from its eternal tomb and has sought out yours,” she said.

“I am happy that it has found me and touched me,” I replied.

“Farewell for now; I must go back to the monastery tonight.”

“Farewell, my saintly monk; please come to see me again.”

“Goodnight, my holy nun; please write.” I returned through the door to the monastery. I smiled to myself because I now knew that love was reason enough for all that we did. At dinner I drank my wine, ate my food, breathed deep, and enjoyed the experience of being alive in every way, for she had given me the key.

We continued to visit each other through the secret door at night.

During the day our notes and letters continued…

“I am reading ‘One Thousand Years of Solitude’ now. When I finish, I’ll share my thoughts about it with you.”

“You are becoming quite a source of inspiration to me, a wellspring of ideas.”

“Have you read ‘Decameron’ by Giovanni Baccaccio? He’s a 12th century Italian writer. Most of his work is dedicated to the life of nuns and monks in monasteries. I read it when I was younger and more innocent than I am now. I will reread it again to get into some of his spirits.”

“I think I’ll make up a little illustrated book for you, using some words from our notes and some pictures of nuns and monks that I have.”

“Perhaps we can leave here together someday, somehow, but, these are only little dreams that I have, very far from reality, but I have to admit that I will not settle for less.”

And so it went for some time, until one day a great tragedy struck the monastical village: The library, the monastery, and the nunnery had somehow caught fire and were burning up! The fire had started in the library when a candle fell onto some dry scrolls. Something about a scuffle to reach the forbidden books. Soon the entire library was engulfed in flames and was filled with terrible black smoke. The fire had then spread to the monastery, and was well on its way toward the nunnery. Everyone started to panic and ran every which way in the black smoke. All but me, for I had gotten used to finding my way in the dark from all of the times that I’d visited my friend the holy nun. So it was that I crawled along the floor under the smoke and found my way to the nunnery, unlocking the connecting door, then going straight to her room in the dark, as always.

Sister Angelina was dazed but alive as I carried her from her room and out of the nunnery. I had also managed to save one book from the library, the one I had been working on, the old ‘Book of Quatrains’. We stood outside for awhile and watched until all the buildings of the monastic village had been reduced to glowing embers.

“What will we do now?” I wondered aloud.

“Like a spark from the embers,” she said, “We will rekindle ourselves from all that is divine within us, from all that our eternal love can remember! We still have our inner lights. I am concentrating on it; it is growing brighter. We are alive! We are free! We are renewed!”

“Well, it looks like your thousand years of solitude are over. We’ll have to live out in the world on our own now; our yesterdays have now truly been reduced to ashes; there’s nothing left of our life here.”

“We have each other,” she noted. “And I see that you have managed to save a book from the library. What is it?”

“It has an unreadable main title, but is subtitled ‘The Book of Quatrains’.

Unfortunately I was not able to save Aristotle’s greatest masterpiece, ‘Beyond Metaphysics’! It was the only copy in existence—and now it is lost to mankind forever.”

“Is it not still a sin for us to continue to give love to each other?”

“Yes, in terms of our moral tradition and man-made law, the giving of love has become a sin, and so we have denied our human nature and all of the natural feelings that have welled up inside of us. Throughout all of history there have been many sins written into the rule books, some of them quite laughable. In the monastery, I was studying many such religions and crazy cults—there are thousands of them. Start one tomorrow and you can have an immediate following. Lately, my mind has been opened through my studies of the natural sciences and the intuitive philosophies that we have been discussing.”

“Yes, it feels right to give love,” she said confidently. “But how can you love the world and me as well?”

“I have found that the capacity for love is boundless. I love you, the earth, life, books, and our friends.”

“Live it!” she answered. “I feel that it’s right to give love.”

Why hoard it?” he questioned.

“That’s selfish. But what about natural desires?”

“It’s difficult to suppress desire; it’s almost self-defeating, since it takes an even stronger desire to resist desire. Now I go with the natural flow, for when I try to go against the flow there is only suffering.”

They began to walk along the road. They turned and looked back at the smoldering ruins of the Abbey and the Convent.

“It’s gone,” they both said in unison with each other, used to sensing the other’s thoughts.

“What is that flower you’re carrying?” I asked of her.

“A rose—I don’t know where it came from!”

“Perhaps it has bloomed from our love.”

“I am your rose,” she said.

“Where does the rose bloom?” I asked.

“In loving hearts,” she answered.

“What else do you know about the rose?” I asked.

“It’s considered the most beautiful of flowers,” she said. “It is the ultimate representation of beauty in nature and life.”

They continued along the road. . . and to the beginning of this book, ‘The Triumph of Love, Life, and Being’.

Back at Vassar library, I awoke the next day and used the sunlight to guide my escape from the closed library by simply walking out of the front door, for it was locked only to those on the outside.

When the library reopened, I returned and tried to take out the book, ‘Beyond Metaphysics’, by Aristotle. I was shocked when both the card catalogue and the reference librarian told me that there was no such book! “Oh, my! The secrets I could have learned from that rare book!” Then I smiled, for in my hands were all my letters to and from Sister Angelina.

I turned to ex Sister Angelina and smiled, as we continued our work in Vassar library editing and illustrating the book that we had lived and written. I handed her a large stack of papers containing comments and various corrections.

“These are your comments, followed by my comments:”

“The paragraph about a book on page 2. (The last sentence ‘the arts enrich human experience, but they are no substitutes for the living of it’). You will be surprised, but I often think the same about the arts. Some people try to live through art (I have a friend like that), but it only happens when a person has no life inside and therefore is looking for a crutch to help living.”

“I agree. One has to get ‘out there’ and live through life, rather than, for example, just reading about it. Hemmingway, for example, went out and both lived and wrote, thus turning a passive activity such as writing into the active activity of living. The arts can enhance and improve real life and vice versa. I would dry up without real life contact. I could never really live life entirely as a monk.”

“Page 5. A paragraph about a witch and the man (‘what has no death has no life principle’). It’s very true. Because life seems to consist of beginnings and ends. A wonderful thing in life is that everything always changes, things begin and end. And what helps us in living is the knowledge that bad will change into good. It will not always happen that way, but the unknown gives us an opportunity to hope so. So, when we are ‘on a bad road’ we hope ‘for death, the end’. Like when a person is very ill, we hope for his/her death no matter how selfish it might seem. Let me know if you disagree with me.”

“For example, the figures in a painting live forever in a perfect world, but know neither life nor death, neither happiness or sadness. (What has no death has no life principle.) Given that change is necessary, and indeed change is life itself, then a willingness to change seems to make life easier. Bad can change into good if one wishes enough for it to happen. When we’re on a bad road, that’s part of life, too, and such life can also be lived for all it’s worth, bad as it is. Something bad just makes the next good thing seem even better.

Still, there are times when life is not worth living, as you say. But, again, I think that the valleys only serve to make the mountainous heights more glorious. The alternative is to be fat, dumb, and happy—and quite lifeless.”

“Page 7. ‘Perhaps a rose smells just as sweet by any other name, just like Shakespeare said’. You have to educate me on the matter of Shakespeare. In what of his works did he say that and why?”

“I’ll have to look it up. The saying is something like ‘A rose is a rose is a rose, but smells just as sweet by any other name’.”

“Page 10. The meeting with a pen. The pen refuses to illustrate the written word, in other words, what somebody already created. It’s not a total expression of imagination for a pen, since it is using something that was already created by a writer or a poet. I feel here you are just describing somebody who is coming out of a closet with its own desire to create. Am I right?”

“Normally, words are written first and then the illustrations are selected or drawn to match. I do this in my books, too, but sometimes I pick the pictures first and then try to write words to match. This is not so easy, since one must pick a set of pictures that can work for a unified story, but when it works, it works great. Anyway, yes, the pen has come out of the closet and is now free to create—free of the burden of conventional story telling. Like Hemmingway, the pen is going to create and live first, then let the writer’s pencil write about it. Ideally, living and creating soon become simultaneous.”

“Page 12. A paragraph about a man who finally takes time to think about his life. I like this sentence ‘what sense does it make to live a life that has no time to live?’. I think it pertains a lot to many, many people who are creating responsibilities around themselves to keep busy. As a result they’re still not happy and are not noticing how their life is passing by.”

“People think that they have to do certain things. Rush, rush, rush. Busy, busy, busy. No time to think. No time to live. Not enough hours in the day to celebrate life. This is their epitaph:

THEY WERE BORN;

THEY WERE BUSY;

THEY DIED.

“Page 14. ‘Flow and change are basic features of life; in fact, they are life.’ I think that Aristotle said that one can’t step twice into the same waters.

“I didn’t know about Aristotle’s saying, but many writers like to make the analogy of time and change to the moving water of a river.”

“Page 16. A conversation about songs. ‘A song, being a poem set to music, causes heart and soul to converge into one grand experience.’ I agree with you. Sometimes a song with wonderful words and music can really turn the soul inside out.”

“Music is a natural high and can really bring forth deep emotion and profound feelings. I have the Pachelbel Cannon with words on it. It really gets to me. What a great invention is music!”

“Page 17. She said, ‘let us never wait; death disposes of joys put off too late!’ That’s my philosophy of life. I am just like you, I never wait. I live today, not tomorrow, because there might not be any tomorrow.”

“There is only now. This is one of the most difficult concepts for many people to incorporate into their lives. Some never do.”

“Page 19. ‘Two is greater than one plus one!’ These are great words. I have the same feeling about marriage—two people developing themselves together and creating something big of their life which is one now.”

“Of course this is true in friendships as well as in marriages.”

“Page 20. ‘There are large worlds of life to live in.’ You are so correct! We can spend it in arguments, resentments and animosity like you say, or we can spend it admiring a rose.”

“Every day I see people boxing themselves in a corner with petty grievances and insecurities and small thinking. But life is just waiting to be lived in a much larger scope. They should stand back and look at the big picture, then plainly see that their quibbling occupies just a very small space and that they are several orders of magnitude removed from the potential of the human race.”

“The same page. ‘Spend time on actions, not on intentions.’ You have to forgive me, but this sounds like a cliché to me.”

Yes, this is a cliché. Although clichés contain great thoughts, they have lost their meaning because they’re no longer heard word by word. So, one must reword clichés in such a way that they can become new again. Typically, great thoughts will be reinvented again and again by people, simply because the thoughts are great and worthwhile. I try to turn clichés into real live demonstrations that will make more of an impact, but I goofed on this one you mentioned. Somehow I should demonstrate that one action is worth many good intentions.”

“Page 22. ‘When will you do what you really want to do?’ This paragraph pertains to the subject of living life or observing life.”

“Start right now. How many people are going to do something ‘someday’”.

“Page 25. ‘Love is giving, without any motive toward getting anything back in return.’ I agree and disagree on this issue. On a philosophical plane, you are right. But in reality I don’t think it can always happen because human beings live on the ground, not high in the sky and therefore sooner or later have a need for feelings in return. Some might feel differently because some may already have a permanent feeling of love. So some do not need to ask for anything in return from any other friendships that they have. They could feel very differently if they were alone. You can object to this if you would like.”

“All I can say is that if love is not given freely and unconditionally, then, whether one realizes it or not, one has placed definite conditions on the giving of love. Next come demands, possession, imprisonment, cages, requirements—almost like a business investment. If you force or encourage someone to love you by conditions, then what have you really gained? How do you know that the love is real? One may feel special by insisting that the spouse stay home and not go out any more like s/he used to, but this is just an artificially created way of feeling special. But, not to worry; unconditional love has a way of coming back. And when it doesn’t, then it is—at least—a gift. I think the confusion here, mine included, has to do with the difference between needs and wants. Needs are those things universally required by all humans, such as food, shelter, clothing, and love. Wants are those extra things like toys. Naturally one may also give love out of a basic human need to receive love and be in love. I’m just saying that love should be gratefully received, not TAKEN or manipulated by conditions and demands. So, the satisfaction of human needs is only natural. But love is only meaningful in the long run if it happens naturally. Love is giving and caring and sharing. I would still give love unconditionally even if wasn’t receiving any love. Although I would still look for love. Love is a great thing! Isn’t it amazing that people don’t spend much time seeking love or giving love?”

“Page 27. ‘I gave the feelings their due. I visited the shrine of sorrow.’ I like this idea about feelings that pass.”

“Feelings pass, but mourning is sometimes necessary, although time heals.”

“Page 30. ‘Allowance of other beliefs seems to lessen the credibility of one’s own belief’. At first I disagreed with this statement, but then I thought deeper and now I think that you are right. Your statement can also explain the fanatics who live in religion.”

“Yes, the fanatics are not open to other’s beliefs and are very intolerant. In beliefs based on faith, superstition, and old writings from divine vision, remember that only a hair breath separates belief from non belief. Those same people, if brought up in a different religion, would be just as fanatical therein. Catholics think that Jesus was God. However, other religions don’t. No one really knows. I knew a Methodist lady who wouldn’t go to her daughter’s wedding because she married a Catholic. Sounds silly to us, but it’s serious to them. Everyone thinks they are right, but as we’ve seen, given all the various religions and their contradictions, most religions are not too likely to be in the right. Religion is still a good crutch though.”

“All in all, I had a great time reading the work. Sometimes you repeat ideas, for example: living now and not waiting until later appears several times, but in general, it’s very touching. I like the way you composed it: two people spending time together and at the same time they are meeting all these other people and objects. Also, the part about religion is very interesting.”

“I repeat certain themes, in slightly different ways, so as to make a deeper impression. Most people, when presented with a thought, might realize then and there that it’s a good idea, but then later go right back to the way that they used to live, just out of habit. But, when they can see and read the same idea over and over again, a positive visualization begins to grow in their minds to obtain more of a foothold. It’s not a simple matter to break a pattern of living. We tend to get conditioned by the world, and, little by little, imperceptibly, a facade builds up around us until we become brainwashed. So, repetition is a way of unbrainwashing. The ideas I’m suggesting are not complex; they’re just little common sense notions about the human condition that I’ve observed in myself and others. Philosophy can be enjoyable. The trick is to present it not as a lecture, but in an enjoyable way. I remain the monk who loves you.

— 3 —


—— AGELESS TIMES ——


Young Again

If, by our mid forties we begin to really live, although by then it’s almost too late, then it’s because all prior life was but a preparation: in our thirties there may have been more work than play as we solidified our careers and guided our children through high school; our twenties had demanded of us the unsettling stresses of graduating college, finding a job, wooing a mate, and buying a home; in our teens, although our hormones were flowing wildly, we were often thwarted by the cell walls of study, curfew, and sexual responsibility; only as children were we almost free, but even then the shadow of authority everywhere passed as a dark cloud. Therefore, it is only when we spread into middle age, say at age forty or so, that we finally reap some interest from the dues we’ve paid. We are free to live and write, to fully create art, life, and love—albeit, though, that death’s faint knockings have already sounded in our hearts, and that time’s corruption is seen in the wrinkled skin that we fondly try to stretch baby smooth. A step or two is lost in tennis and age is noted in the graying of the flower, although the root may still be green. Yet, for all this, there is an exuberance that never was, a realization, at last, of the worthiness of life and of its precious pleasures, of the promotion of one’s spirit to a higher plane—the complete removal of oneself from quarrels and worries that suddenly appear so needless, and a determination to live like we never could before, the way we would have if we could have. Yes, the unseen but still sensed specter of old age still looms, but, it is well around the corner—not even an enemy, but an inspiring presence which promotes living, not dying. So, one is reborn. This and that home improvement seems no more to matter so much as does creation, friends, health, adventure, and loving.

It was from such an outlook, with this long view across the years, that Brother Peter and Sister Angelina met again, in another, later life, although, of course, they really didn’t realize this right away—that they’d known each other in some other past, somewhere in time, in a previous chapter called ‘Fumes From Ancient Times’.

She, although lovable, caring, affectionate, and loyal, was separated from a second marriage that just wasn’t meant to be, and he, although happy, felt alone at times—socially believing that all life was in meeting people, for he was a poet whose intensity of observation spread far into life and therefore demanded that daydreams come true—there was a vitality of life that couldn’t be contained. That Peter and Angelina were each fair, well read, honest, spontaneous, and especially romantically adventurous guaranteed that love could build between them, a love that, while aspiring to Heaven like the tip of a pyramid, would stand firmly on its own ground among the shifting sands—its foundation the basis for ascension. This mist of love would envelope them as they fearlessly lived and loved again.

They met in Rhinecliff, a riverside country town that still had front porches with ceiling swings, and tables where grandmothers played canasta, rummy, and hearts. Angelina, an artist, drew Peter’s attention as she sketched dress patterns on an easel in the corner of the wooden porch of the old Victorian home. Peter’s eyes wandered through the scene, and thence upwards toward the center cupola, that lone guardian of the town with its three windowed view of past, present, and future. Angelina watched as Peter’s sight passed along the roof lines to the neatly tiled slate by the down spouts; he felt the warmth of her attention on him and the inevitable culmination of their glances. Following the green drain pipe down past the first story, his vision crossed over to the porch railing, like a squirrel probing for crumbs, and made the steady gaze that neither of them dared to turn aside even out of politeness. There was, of course, a certain attraction born from the fumes of ancient times.

Seeing only three at the card table, Peter irrevocably turned up the broad sidewalk to the front steps of the gingerbread house and asked if they need a fourth. They did, those mothers of mothers, and so they took him in as a player. Not oblivious to the first sparks of young love, they changed the game to Hearts. After he overplayed the first hand and gathered up the penalty of the queen of spades, a glass of milk and a plate of cookies appeared at his elbow, as if from an angel, and thus he was made the acquaintance of Angelina. There was a knowing, even then, of the things that were meant to be, a feeling—although time could not be hurried—that they would soon be one and the same in love.

Peter soon regained his card playing form and shot the moon a few times, for he’d programmed the game of hearts once on a computer, and, although his memory was neither electronic nor photographic, he had remembered the many hints and clues that he’d built into the program—those little signs that meant a lot: the avoidance of a spade lead, perhaps, or the apparently careless lead of a suit that had been led one too many times. The grandmothers were all experienced, though, and so the game was evenly adventurous for all, and after luck or not had chanced on each of them in turn, the game came down but to a few nuances—like bluffs built on prior patterns of play, and Peter placed a close second, a ticket, as it turned out, for tomorrow’s game. After the elder players discreetly evaporated into the kitchen, the porch and its swing were left to Peter and Angelina, whereupon they passed into each other some of the history of their joys and turmoil—during one long autumn afternoon.

After a while, Angelina’s teen-aged daughter, Jean, arrived, the one bright spot from a dark past, for Jean was like the new light of dawn in the east when the bulk of night, like a bad marriage, had gone west. Jean nodded her approval of Peter, done more so by the pleased look on her mother’s face than by knowing anything about him.

The autumnal night fell, like a knell, the sun plummeting into the recesses of the Catskills across the Hudson. The coolness of the air was a hint that Peter should not overstay his welcome. As a good writer, Peter knew that it was best to wrap a up day’s words at a point when one knew what was next to be written—in order to sleep on it and let the directives work themselves into the formulations that would flow without hesitation onto the paper the next day. She, too, sensed this, and yet they needed a magic moment, some sort of romantic beginning—and it soon came with the fireflies, as the couple watched the winkings and blinkings of the females in the grass that were the yes/no signals to the males in the air—those pulses of love flashing in their green and yellow light, the nodding inquiries, twinkling like stars, the mating calls from luminated pods, the tracers pulsing wild, the searching thoughts that smiled—from Angelina to Peter as she leaned over and kissed him—and back came the beacon of his reply: a-light, oh yes, said his lips, as he returned her kiss, and another kiss as well as they stood and embraced in an electric hug, now all aglow, like lightening bugs.

As Peter left, the stars replaced the glowflies, and so he became flesh to the backbone of the Milky Way bracing the sky—and floated up there on the strength of her kiss. Wonderful dreams smoothed the night, and when the new morning called, Peter, too, felt fresh, and knew that he must surely miss a morning’s work. All could wait—the business, the world—all could wait for love, for they were all, compared to love, nothing more than the dull background of an unpainted canvas.

As Peter walked to call on Angelina, he saw the town in a much younger light, and so he ran his hand along a picket fence, counting heartbeats, and began to run like a child—still carefully not stepping on the cracks of the sidewalk, then paused and noted the ants thriving in the furrows, and wondered at a tree that buckled the cement as it ever so gently tilted the walking plane. Somehow a few chestnut trees had survived the blight and had presented him once more with a gift of his youth—of the hidden visions of tire swings hung from a low branch, of a lemonade stand secure in the shade. Out in the street, the back door of the bread wagon reopened once more and released its fresh baked aroma, as a young woman, now a grandmother who played cards, came out with a handful of nickels and dimes, and, like a serf brought into modern times, bought that which for her would take three hours to bake. On the steps of the houses rested newspapers and the ghostly images of the sturdy rounded bottles of clean white milk, compliments of Elsie the cow—truly a vision from the grazings of childhood.

Peter’s youth came flooding back as he walked, and he gave it life:

We used to lay out all of our baseball cards on the sidewalk, trading famous pitchers and batters, and looking up their stats. My friend had seven Mickey Mantle cards, but wouldn’t trade even one to me. My friend’s mother always gave him enough money to buy the whole box when a new series came out. Now, grown up, I play another kind of game in which I juggle workers, go to bat at work each day, make a lot of hits and some errors, and look at stats like stocks and bonds. We played games on these sidewalks, too, like hopscotch, roller-skating, and marbles. My assorted marbles were my bag of jewels. One day I brought to school a cool green cat’s eye, a big blue boulder, and various pockmarked throwaways. Never mind that the marbles got scratched on the concrete, although we always started on the dirt. There was nothing like that long roll and a hit! And on carefree summer days, we’d swim in the public pool, jumping off the high board, or dive off the pool side after a penny, retrieving it from the bottom near the big drains. On the way home, we’d stop for a Green River soda and a movie. What do I do now that I’ve grown old? Well, I do the same kinds of things, for, luckily, I never grew up.

Peter saw a lush garden, lovingly attended by an old lady and many bees and butterflies, and indulged further flights of fancy into his youth: As children, and even now, if we’re young at heart, we’d always pause in play when the first butterfly fluttered by, that fragile ephemeral vision of something Heavenly—a flower floating on air perhaps. This event signaled that our endless summer had begun—that something called ‘school’ was now an ancient artifact of the past. The butterfly first arose from the soul of the pansy, said a legend, one of those inexplicable Edenesque transformations from long before human time, when there was still magic on the earth. The metamorphosis is still rather miraculous, even now, albeit only from a caterpillar. Amazingly, butterflies, fragile as they seem, fly all the way to Mexico, taking their sweet time, fluttering here, alighting there, meandering from flower to flower. One wonders how they ever get anywhere. We can learn from them that there is often more fun along the way than when we ‘get there’.

Peter leaned over the fence to smell a flower and a thousand memories reoccurred:

Each Morning Glory blossom lives for but a single day, and is replaced by another as the next day dawns, each flower in succession shining in its morning glory, wilting in the noon heat, withering in the afternoon, languishing in the evening, and then dying in the night. Their message to us remains: a new day will always come on. There’s a bright flower. I’ve always been intrigued by the Amaranth, for its leaves never fade in color, even long after death, remaining a vivid red for ever and ever. Could it be that some portion of the eternalness of the Infinite has somehow made it into the unfading red leaf of this flower? A snapdragon appeared. You had to know just where and how to hold Snapdragons, just around the crease, then slowly they would open on the unsuspecting person and then SNAP! Got you! There, galaxies of sunflowers. The luminosity was blinding, so to speak, as when we had discovered a field of Sunflowers in the yard of the abandoned house where we weren’t supposed to play. We learned how to dry the seeds so we could eat them, each still a glowing ember of memory, even up to now, of those bright days in the land of a thousand suns. Then there were the elfin goblets. We humans, too, can drink from the little yellow flowers that populate every lawn—those buttercup potions of lively yellow light, the color that is the easiest and the quickest to see; Yellow flowers grab our attention so they can take us into the secret realm of fairies, elves, pixies, fays, goblins, trolls, and sprites. Ah, nasturiums. We called them ‘Nasties’, for they had a real sharp taste, but we were still fond of their colors, and besides, they grew in Grandma’s yard—where every turn of the eye took one back to the times that were safe and secure, for, when we were young, this had been our whole world. Purple crocus was still vibrant, with its golden grains inside, demonstrating the complimentary colors of spring, seen also in the yellow primrose and its romantic friend, the purple violet. It’s the loving sun, as it were, warming the virginal earth with love and life into spring.

And then there were the weeds—honored because the plant that is the most alive is the one that is the wildest—and, therefore, the dandelion is the most ever present flower, although it’s better known as a weed. Of course, when its dried blossom is blown with a puff, it turns into just so much fluff, reminding us that someday we, too, must lie amid the dust. I’d walk down to the stream with my sister and we’d pick the yellow St. John’s Wort and put them in a basket for a table centerpiece. Then we’d pick dandelions and make a salad of some of them while dad made wine from the remainder. We had a strawberry patch and also a grape arbor, too. Following their progress each day, we’d beat the squirrels to the berries, eating them fresh, always forgetting to wash them, and, after driving the birds from the grapes, we’d eat them, too, sour as they were, spitting out the seeds. We had a good cherry tree for awhile, too, until it fell in a storm. I like flowers that are outside of a garden even better. Sometimes flowers grow in strange places, as along a rocky path, and, as such, they give a greater pleasure, in a way, than they could in a whole garden. In later life, I would often think of these flowers when I found pleasure in the midst of a rocky work day, pausing for fun, mixing work and play into life’s bouquet, always stopping to smell the flowers. Where did all the flowers come from and thrive? Legends say that fairies tend the flowers, and that there are invisible, funnel like entrances to other worlds, nearby, especially in flower circles, such as to fairy kingdoms—the small end hard to find at first, but easy to get funneled back out of—worlds that are difficult to tell apart from our own except by their more vivid colors and subtle differences, so—upon entering one, I wasn’t sure where I was exactly, but then I saw a pterodactyl flying by!

Peter walked on, seeing a lake with old broken down vacation cabins all around it, and, since he was in a such a youthful mood, it brought to mind his own vacations as a boy:

Of course we were never ‘there yet’ when we asked it early on in the vacation trip, but, soon we tired of asking and dozed off into a warm sleep, the fight for the window seat long forgotten—and, when we awoke, there it was—a crystal blue lake just beyond the turn, seen through the trees. “We’re there,” said dad. We’d dig the worms at night and keep them moist, get up with the sun, and walk down to the pier to fish before it got too hot for them to bite, then bait the hook and catch them, keeping only the big ones. Skin them and cook them up for lunch and dinner—this is America remembered. Dad was always out fishing on our vacations and caught many fish in his time, although he often came back with none. I went a few times, and my brother Mike more often. I see now that fishing has a little to do with fish but with warm sun, cool breezes, moist air, watery smells, and peace and quiet. We wore our life preservers all day long, even on land. One time, leaning over the pier for a closer look at the fish darting in the water, I fell in and went straight to the bottom, then pushed up with my feet, swimming with the fishes for an exciting instant, then surfaced just like a rocket, my new lifejacket working fine, now all broken-in. All sorts of water craft are seen on the lakes these days, such as wind surfers, jet-skis, and even submersibles. Yes, water has been conquered and we can almost walk on it, well, at least glide on it, but give me a rowboat with my paramour in it with me and we’ll drift under the branches near the shore and have all the adventuring that I need. My brothers and I loved our first motorized rowboat—we had puttered over to that mysterious island five miles out into the lake. There we found—nothing—but we camped on shore and had lunch and felt like pirates the rest of the day, telling no one about it until a whole day later. Our shore house was crudely made out of whole logs, and we used it for for drying fish and towels, and the owners used it for parking the boats during the winter. It had an open front and was a shady place to sit and hang out and tell some stories and smoke—and, oh yes, kiss a girl. Often, we and our vacation girlfriends would take the dirt road from our vacation cottage to the garbage dump at twilight, where we’d watch the bears forage for scraps. However, one night there wasn’t much food to be found—and then the bars turned and looked over at us. Then there were the rainy days. Mother would call out during the storm and say “Don’t you have enough sense to come in out of the rain?” but we liked being in the rain—that’s what made it fun. Nowadays, unless we wear sun block, the sun is considered dangerous, and the mothers say “Don’t you have enough sense to come in out of the sunlight?” Anyway, as soon as the sun came out after a storm, we’d run out to see if there was a rainbow—that shimmering otherworldly vision which seemed to belong more to the world of angels and fairies than to humans, and there it was, always magical, and ever revealing the deep and colorful secrets of ‘simple’ white light. Then the rainbow faded. Once upon a time there was gold at the end of the rainbow, but now we find toxic gases and chemicals there—so, the message for today is an I.O.U. written there, instead of gold, that says we’d better take care of the colors of the sky or nature will be no more. What strange colors lie beyond the rainbow? What unknown colors hide between blue and green? How are millions of colors made from just the three primaries? Why do the wavelengths of light form colors in our minds anyway? Why is the sky blue? Well, I’ll tell you one thing: color was invented in the 60’s—for proof, just look at TV shows made before then.

Oh, those summer days! To keep cool in summer we once carried fans, pinwheels, parasols, and sucked on a piece of ice. We’d leave the sweltering house to make for a cool stream, pool, or glade, but now we have electricity to run motorized fans, TVs, the internet, and air-conditioners—so we stay in the house all day long!

In those really old days, real scandals, not just idle rumors, could be learned of by eavesdropping on the party line, for one couldn’t help but accidentally overhear a few words when trying to make a call—and, if it was more interesting than watching the grass grow, then you’d have to hear the whole story, although it was sometimes difficult to keep quiet. Before we had a telephone, our information was communicated by tell-a-woman! Now, these days, we talk to answering machines, computers, or solicitors, and many think that a cellular phone is a necessity, but I think that life should be taken in easy steps—so, if you’re not there when the phone rings, you’re not there, because you’re doing something else and don’t want to be disturbed!

We looked for bottles to get the two cent deposit, especially on playgrounds, and collected popsicle sticks to glue together into little boxes. Then I got hooked on cigarette packs, sometimes finding a smoke left inside, but my mother threw them all away. Even now my hand still tries to pick them up when I spot one. We took the returnable bottles to the corner market. Larger than a corner store, the corner market carried all that we needed, especially vegetables and fresh fruits over brimming with their natural healthiness and normal color. Not touching the apples, or anything else for that matter, was nearly impossible for a young child, for the shiny red apple called out, “touch me, buy me, eat me,” and so, before the mind knew what the hand was doing, a bite had been taken—and trouble was at hand, but it was crispy, sweet. I ate plums on the way home—they were soft, ripe, and juicy, and dripping down the front of my shirt. I rode my bike everywhere. Once, I rode up and down the steep hill, hoping that my bad brakes still worked, but my brakes broke and so I went flying into a bush. Another time, I fell on my roller skates at the same place. Now I drive my car on that killer hill and have finally learned to be careful there—yes, I’m finally getting over the hill! On Memorial Day, then called Decoration Day, we’d run crepe paper through the spokes of our bike wheels and ride along at the back of the parade after we’d watched it from the curb side and waved our flags. Now, not much happens on Memorial Day—it’s a pretty dead day, but that is only fitting.

I saw a penny on the ground once and picked it up for good luck or bad, heads or tails. And I always picked up a pin—more good luck. And I must nail a horseshoe on a front door. I had a friend who once found a horseshoe all of the sudden—it was very bad luck for him that it was still on the horse’s foot! I saved a lot of coins as a boy, mostly ones that dad gave me, but also traded in dollars at the bank for rolls, finding a few old dimes and steel pennies therein—not yet so scarce as they are now. I found the collection in my basement the other day—the hunt for the 1950D nickel goes on. We used the rest of our money to buy candy and ice cream. We were afraid of the scissors grinding man, but we all screamed when the ice cream man came ringing down the street. After a scramble for loose change, we’d cut him off on the next block, always asking for a piece of dry ice to play with, when he reached way way back into the truck to retrieve our cones. Reading was the our other diversion, after playing, in the old days, since there was no TV. Children’s books were lavishly illustrated, as seen now in the libraries’ special collections. Chromolithographic colors were vivid but laborious to create—yes, they just don’t make colors like that anymore. Then there were the parks, and the graveyards. Rural cemeteries were meant to be used as parks way back when, and so ours became a familiar place, especially the duck pond where we’d give the ducks stale bread, but then run away when the geese stampeded us. Years later I returned with my sweetheart—like a duck that had been away for too many summers. At the park, there were monkey bars for the climbers, swings for the movers, seesaws teeter tottering for the restless, and a sandbox for the diggers—and a refreshing sprinkler to go into afterwards—but there was always some kid sitting right on top of the sprinkler, blocking the spray.

Other hobbies were making model airplanes—we coated them with extra glue, then set them on fire and threw them into the air as flaming wrecks. We did other crafts, as well. Greeting cards were made only by hand, using colored paper decorated with assorted scraps saved from magazines, with some lace, perhaps, or ribbons, writing an original message on it. Nowadays, we buy an expensive, dumb looking card with fluffy words already on it and give it, but in a day or two it is in the trash, for it wasn’t a keepsake. Then there was stealing apples. As soon as we knew that our neighbor was occupied, we’d climb her fence and scramble up onto her garage, from where we could bend down the apple branches and steal some good ones before we got yelled at, for nothing tasted better than a stolen apple, sour as it was!

Autumn was great, too. Who ever remembers the leaves but the child in you who raked them into a pile so that it could be jumped into. Some days later, the by now dispersed pile was regathered for a few last jumps and then lit with a match—ah, the wonderful smell of burning leaves on a cool autumn night.

Peter thought of Angelina as he entered her neighborhood:

I first learned about love from some postcards that I’d found in the attic, old ones showing the formalities of hand kissing, the language of the flowers, and other such courtship rituals. So, when I bowed down and kissed the hand of the girl down the street, inviting her to play in the sandbox, she most readily accepted. Also in the attic, I saw an old sepia print of a young lady. She was my grandfather’s sweetheart, his paramour. He gave her the gift of the spring flowers, the wealth of the summer hours, the colorful walks of autumn, and the winter’s warm fire. The spirit of love still lives in them, calling them back, to/from somewhere in time. He still wears a hat. Men always wore hats in the old days—I can remember trying on my father’s many hats—but women still wear hats, although less and less and not as fancy as before. Now we’re lucky to find any hats, for we must wear many hats in life—and so we wear none. As for dad’s hats, they’re gone—they’re all old hat now.

Peter gazed across the river at the place he worked at:

It was the view that the indians had. The river cliffs were behind the corporation parking lot, just beyond the trees, and offered a stunning view of the Hudson River from on highboy felt like you were floating in the air—and so you’d look and look, for you could hardly take it all in at once; however, the workers didn’t go there much—they were all too busy! Simple pleasures today are as free as ever, like the sights, sounds, and scents of nature, the giving one’s self, riding a bike, going on a picnic, the starry night sky, playing cards on the porch, writing a letter, reading a book, rowing a boat, walking with your sweetheart…Hard to ever get bored, isn’t it?

Angelina had been hurt in the past, though undaunted by it, as she had told Peter that third morning on the porch, hurt by miseries that she’d weathered well, for not so much as a crease crossed her brow. Peter already loved her for her spirit, but, of course, it was too soon to tell her that, so, he listened well and talked well, in these morning meetings, having resorted to going in to work late and working late.

The town was empty at this time of day but for the toddlers and the elderly. This morning the new friends took a walk around the back of the house, passing through the rusty gate, and took a sour drink of rhubarb, spitting out the sour pulp. Peering into the garage they saw a perfectly preserved model-A car, left there when grandpa’s sight had dimmed. In the yard they inhaled the scents of the Marigolds, the flowers that followed the summer lost right up through the final frost, and, finally, they sat on the old garden bench near the birdbath under the massive oak tree. She removed her straw hat, her bright golden curls shining in the shade like a secondary sun.

Between kisses, she related more of her past, the living book that we all learn from, for there is seemingly no shortcut to the bliss of life in middle age. “For a while there I gave up on life,” she confided, “before I found Program and before I knew myself and loved myself for who I was. At first I was angry at the loss of love, which led me to the avoidance and hatred of the one thing that I did want: love and security; yes, it’s a strange paradox, and once I’d given up on life I began to die a little more each day. Other relationships came but there was always fear before and guilt after, the whole scene but a downward spiral from which I could not recover.”

“Me, too,” answered Peter. “For a while I retreated from the game, to the sidelines, where I could neither win nor lose, and lived, if you could call it that, in that gray safety zone which knew neither suffering nor enjoyment, neither victory nor defeat—where the air was unchanging and stifling.”

“I know, Peter, I know. And I’ve learned since then that one must either love or love not—there is no safe middle ground, just round and round, like an amusement park ride, apparently safe in the self-made berm and bunker, but in reality trapped by all the dizzying sights and sounds.”

“So then what did you do?” he asked, quietly.

“I discovered that life was a two sided coin—the barrier that kept me in was the same one that kept love out. I used support programs and books like ‘DO IT’ to see an emotional duality as well. I realized that the other side of fear was excitement, that excitement was exactly the same feeling as fear—that excitement was fear turned inside out—and that I could, for example, give a presentation at a meeting, which once would have been a fearful thing, but was now exciting since I was on center stage and had the whole audience hanging on my every word. That same pit of my stomach in which fear cowered now harbored excitement waiting to burst forth. Then I looked at the other side of my hurt and saw that it reminded me of where caring had gone—it was my unconditional gift to another human being—and then the hurt suddenly had meaning. As for my anger, I turned its energy to my advantage, like a judo expert redirecting the force of another’s attack, and used the energy for change, to move forward. Soon I was happy and singing and looking forward to my next experience—and here it is—and here you are!”

“I’ve found a joy in you, Angelina, one that carries me through the workday, to where I must soon go forth.”

“OK, I’ll be short. That’s the key,” she continued. “Joy is everything. With joy one can survive all sorts of duties and whatnot. Joy is the background radiation that is always there no matter what the chore. In fact, the word ‘joy’ doesn’t even have an opposite.”

“Un-joy?”

“Nice try, but as you can see and feel, there is no end to joy; also, note that there’s even a word that means more joy.”

“En-joy.”

“Yes, good, Peter. Joy never ends but can only go higher—the repetition enhances it. Do you know the word?”

“Re-joice.”

“Great, joy is uplifting and keeps you afloat no matter what. It cannot be dampened, even while you’re working hard or during an illness. It’s always there and never lets you sink.”

“Joy’s a buoy!”

“Good! And when two people want to give joy to each other, they—“

“—They join.”

“Wonderful, Peter. How do you know all these word sounds?”

“I’m a poet. And a philosopher in a past life.”

“You do seem so familiar to me.”

“I have to go to work now, I guess,” Peter said hesitatingly.

“You’re ‘I guess’ is my opening. Stay with me today; it is time.”

“I must—yes, I must stay with you; it is true, but where?”

“The barn down the lane—it has a hayloft.”

“No one uses it?”

“Not for a long time. Let’s go.”

They left the garden of secrets behind in the yard and walked a block or so, down through town, passing the old railroad tracks. They noted the small library and its treasure trove of books, but this was no day for reading—for the rustic warmth of the barn and the softness of its hay called to them across the lost decades that had passed among them like dust storms.

Now peeling gray, but once red, the barn was a rotting ghost of another time, long abandoned and left to the elements, but, it must have been well built, for it still stood square. The faded outline of a Wrigley’s Gum advertisement recalled an old slogan. The door of the barn resisted at first, creaking like an Egyptian crypt, but soon gave way, powdered rust streaming down from the hinges. The smell of oats and animal musk escaped and mixed with Angelina’s perfume. Inside were rusted harnesses, pitchforks, old lanterns, broken wheelbarrows, tilted horse stalls, and a ladder, remarkably intact, that ascended up into the Heaven of the loft. Some pigeons fluttered out of a hole in the roof as Peter and Angelina clambered up the last rungs and swung their selves into the sallow hay, laying a blanket there to soften the stickling ends. At first they lay quiet, wondering if they had been seen, and, sensing that they weren’t, exchanged at last the kind of kiss that was free from the all seeing eyes of children and grandmothers—a kiss that was deep, and ear to ear, an offering that was free, open, and inviting to consummation—the end and beginning, ultimately, of all kisses. A writhing dance relieved them of their clothes, and their lips wandered forth to parts hitherto unknown, thereby doubling their pleasure, just as the sign on the barn had promised with its faint lettering. Joy was indeed an energy born from all good emotion, a gushing stream swirling in unstoppable motion, a force now over the edge as a waterfall of boundless power, and beyond, into a tidal wave from love’s endless ocean. Now and then, during these hours of softness and hardness among the valleys and peaks, Peter and Angelina would remark to each other as to how bright the other’s face had become, how smooth and shining was the partner’s skin, how like teenagers they each felt, how the years had fallen away magically during the endless lovemaking, and that if only they had a camera they could capture their younger selves on film to show later to their elder selves as proof of love’s youth. But there was no need, for each could see, then and there, in the sparkling eyes, sweet smiles, and glowing skin, that they had, indeed, become young again.

SPRING SONG


When the spring tides fill up the free spaces

In our winter spirits, then we shall roam

At ease, drink the sweets in every flower,

And feel the balm in every breeze; for we

Shall all thread the lovely web of life that

Affection’s hand weaves so fine about us,

Drinking up deep droughts of life’s delight.


Within

After making love, Peter and Angelina rested in the straw bed, blanketed by the cozy warmth of the hayloft, lying snug, like birds in a nest. The scent of wood smoke hovered, as the spirit of autumn, and that smoky specter rose, haze like, to the barn’s cathedral ceiling, its presence made visible by the sun’s rays, an effect betokening the miraculous. Embracing, the pair fell in and out of sleep, serenaded by the soothing sounds of bird calls and by the far off voices of children laughing. After slowly waking and relaxing, the lovers left the barn by the back way, drifting into the mist of the meadow, walking lazily, as if grown plump and heavy, sweet and ripe from love’s mellow harvest. They looked back at the barn, feeling ever contained within its now sacred walls, the whole structure having been anointed and made holy by the prayer they had shared within.

The bees buzzed amongst the weed flowers in their dance of love as Peter and Angelina walked alongside a crumbling stone fence—what was once the proud boundary between two farms. Purple loosestrife and Queen Anne’s lace decorated and trimmed the pumpkin patches. They walked the abandoned farmland that was now covered with secondary growth, nature having again reclaimed her own.

As the afternoon came to this quiet time of strolling, thoughts whirled around inside Angelina’s head, voices that were calling out to tell Peter that all was now right with the world, but she stayed quiet, as in a church, in order to leave love’s grandeur undisturbed, and, instead, surrendered herself to the sensual feeling of the wind lifting her hair. The couple, walking hand in hand, were made weightless by their smiles as they followed the old trail through the forest toward the old farmer’s homestead. Some leaves were already falling and this surprised them at first, with the their ghostly touch, an invisible force nudging them on inexorably toward the winter of old age.

The child within Angelina was bursting, uncontainably eager, with secrets that begged to be unveiled. The opening seemed to come when Peter looked into her eyes with a gaze that was love calling out from within, but she spoke only to herself as she surveyed the love scene and thought: Knowing this as a woman, I feel the nurturing love, as it is parallel with the distances of walking, and though realizing that the walk may end, I still know that this feeling of love is a beginning of true love, a fine start, for Peter is sincere. As for passion’s well, my emotions are bubbling over, like a stream made into a river, ready to flow silently and serenely among the smooth and rounded rocks of nature’s being. I smile as the rose in my heart blooms in this second spring of middle age, my soul the wind, my spirit energizing me as a woman who chooses to give the gift of herself to him in a time of sharing in a relationship, that, for once, seems to be going really well from the start.

In Peter, too, the silence was deepening, in reverence, for he, too, wanted to talk, but each walking step that had remained quiet had brought them closer to each other, and so this was merging them as one in the solitude of the forest. Angelina the artist was drawing in her mind the picture of a heart blossoming in love, and Peter the poet was chiming rhymes of love—rhythms and melodies that were now lent extra meaning by their reality. He thought: What words can express this wonderful feeling? What translations from the speechless realm of emotion can be spirited from the soul to approximate, in the limited language of speech, the sweep of love across one’s heart strings? Their visions continued, pouring forth in positive images—thoughts attempting to create words from those shimmering images, wavering like mirages, just out of sight—ideas developing from the negatives—emergent dreams that ever encouraged. But, it was as if words were not required from two persons already on the same wavelength, as if their thoughts were already blending somehow, weaving in and out and all around them, binding them, love-bound, and lifting their spirits onward, upward, inward, and outward—until physical sensation had been quite washed away, their being left only to the spirit’s song.

All in all, thought Angelina, as she sensed Peter’s thoughts, this was the moment to share her emotional risk and tell him what he gave to her in this hour of love, but these pensings spoke only as a kiss as they each, as if in fugal unison, stopped to let their souls meet on their lips. The magic of youth and mid-life wisdom had merged and swept them toward each other with its circular current, a feedback circuit gone out of control. Peter saw in her a woman who was experiencing a love that was fresh and new and invigorating, and he felt a peaceful love, one without stress and strain, a love that was self-sustaining—a perpetual emotion that created its own energy. Angelina again felt the urge to talk, but the couple now had to circle back towards town and leave the investigation of the farmhouse for another day, for Peter really needed to return to work. Yet, the emanations of love’s fair thoughts persisted and overspilled, a fragrance that was sweet, soft, and smiling on the air, a scented mist of well being everywhere, containing them within its bubble.

The fertile farm fields were ahead of them, filled with corn ripe for the harvest, a crop sowed only for the local families. Angelina spoke at last and said, “Peter, you must know what I feel; I sense it—I’ve taken a walk in being young again with you as I’ve given my heart and body in unconditional love. I want to tell you now of my joy as I felt it as we walked through the meadow, of what I was bursting to tell you and paint for you as an artist, expressing with love’s colors the scene rendered in emotion’s hues. I know, too, that I wanted you to touch me then when we first met, when I served you cookies on the porch. Somehow I knew that we were meant for each other. I asked you to stay, after you played cards, so that we could become closer. I had these thoughts then, and they persist. I sensed, and still feel, a serenity made from deep pools of feelings that had to be shared with you. Peter, I am a very open woman and I hide nothing, for feelings that go unrelated are as good as lost, but I wanted to treasure the feelings of our love as we walked, to hold them for hours as a cloud undispersed until they could burst upon you with their fullness. Petter, we are new again, born again somehow, and we have been drenched with the joy of love’s cloudburst that rains down upon us.”

“Angelina,” said Peter, “this afternoon was a poetic dream in which our love was shared honestly and purely, bursting, as you hinted at, like a grape of joy against a dry palate, as Keats said, and after our coupling I nestled in your arms, hoping to remain there forever, for I felt peace, and even more serenity as we slept, and then again during our silent walk as we fell even more for each other when we let the wash back of the waves have their wonderful way with us, undisturbed by our words. I’ve wanted and needed a woman like you, especially one of patience and understanding, for I have a job to attend to and some other responsibilities as well. Let’s explore the old farmhouse tomorrow, and have a picnic along the way. I want to know you and become involved with you beyond all repair. You are good, truly good, and loving and generous. I’ve searched a long while for this dream. It was hard to believe, at first, that a woman could be so kind and caring and still remain unmarried, but your mother told me that your first husband, well, that he—”

“—died of cancer. Peter, I only told you that he left me, an inapproximate generalization, so as not to sway the course of our love with it, you know, to give us more of a chance. Though I can tell you that it was not an exciting marriage.”

Now, all their thoughts poured forth and they spoke as one, their voices merging in a canon of chime, their music sweeping strong and ringing, like the bell to the knell; she saying what he thought and vice-versa—in tune, in union, yet parallel.

Reaching town, they stopped outside a coffee shop, their appetites sharpened, their senses still raised from lovemaking. The avenue was alive with children playing, and, so, Peter and Angelina, being children of forty-five within adults, followed the welcoming aroma on into the cafe. There they ordered Red Lion Kona chocolate raspberry coffee and some doughnuts, then sat down. Peter stared at his doughnut.

“I’ll tell you a story about a ‘donut’—a taste of memory:”

“Upon arriving at St. Bernadine’s Catholic grammar school each day, I would always stop at Bill and Betty’s little store, which was just across the street, and buy two honey dipped donuts to eat in the classroom after mass. This was a privilege for those saintly students who had fasted and received holy communion. For me, as a 6th grade boy, it was the ultimate treat, considering that the school day provided little other diversion until lunchtime.

“Oh, how delicious those donuts tasted to a growing boy who had starved since dinner the night before, fasting all night and then sitting through a seemingly never-ending mass, during which special prayers were said for nearly everyone’s grandparents and sick relatives. But, it was well worth the wait, for breakfast never tasted better than it did for us, the famished holy of holies. Imagine, eating right there in school during class, without even having to sneak in the bites, such as one had to do with candy snacks later in the day, during hunger attacks. And out there, cooling, on the window sill in all its glory, was our free milk, there only for the deserving, the healthful drink that washed down the honeyed donut. All in all, it was a morning feast truly fitting for us young Christian warriors.

“To get milk, one needed only to have the foresight to sign up the day before, and, of course, to sit through a mass, most of which time was spent either in looking over all the minute details of the person just ahead or in nudging someone’s shoe or lunch box along the floor until it had quite disappeared. Of course, to kill even more time, one could pretend to climb the wall buttresses barehanded and to maneuver among the ceiling arches, dropping down the lamp wires and such—until rudely bumped back into reality by the nun siting behind, the nun with eagle eyes that could detect the slightest lack of attention. Or one also could look and see which of the girls had forgotten their veils by the sorry napkin and handkerchief assortment draped on their heads. Yes, a mass was a long and difficult time to suffer through, especially the endless periods of kneeling, but it was the tasty dreams of milk and honey donuts that carried me through, and, now and then, I’d catch a whiff from my donut bag of the breakfast, which everyone knew meant breaking-the-fast.

“I also had, from Bill and Betty’s store, some of those penny candy sheets, the long narrow ones with about thirty rows of three dots of candy across—the kind of candy that you could never seem to cleanly remove from the paper, and so you always had to ingest some of the paper lining as well.

“And, too, some brand new packages of the latest baseball card series. I would slowly and secretly open them later in class, at some boring moment, which came often, and hope against hope for a Mickey Mantle card, which everyone knew appeared only rarely. Me, I was a real collector, using my own allowance to buy the cards, not like some other kids whose mothers gave them enough money to buy an entire box of baseball card packs.

“Yes, all this, plus more could be had from Bill and Betty’s store. It almost made going to school worthwhile. Bill and Betty were both quite old, and I can see now, looking back, why they were often crabby and impatient with all the little angels and near saints who would crowd into the store each morning to lay their pennies on the counter. But, to me then, it was a kind of rare freedom to roam the store.

“Old Bill never said or heard very much, wearing a hearing aid and often pretending that he was deaf, but old Betty—she would always ask what I was doing in the back of the store and yell at me to stop loitering and to either buy something or go to school. Looking longingly at the popsicles, I would move on, always remembering the time when they cost only four cents instead of five, still mad at the price increase that broke my budget. Once there was a time when our teacher would bribe us each with a free popsicle just for going to communion, but the principal soon put a stop to that, after seeing the entire sixth grade class dining on popsicles day after day, reasoning probably that holiness was not something that could be bought. Yes, those were the days of luxury.

“Since our sixth grade teacher was a lay teacher, not a nun, we had many such adventures. I remember, one time, when she marched the entire class over to my house on Sunday morning because I had missed choir and mass—since I had slept in my backyard tent with my friend and had stayed up all night and now needed to rest. Luckily, we saw them coming and so we went in the back door of the house and right on out the front door, and we never stopped running for blocks, although it was hard to run and laugh at the same time.

“Then, one week, while buying my communion breakfast, I noted that old Bill was missing behind the counter, having been replaced there by his granddaughter, Patricia, so, I asked where he might be.

“Sick,” she told me, “very sick.” But, in a week or so, old Bill was back, although he was moving much slower than before, and so I started secretly staring at him. Some months later, a sign was put up in the door, saying that the store would be closed for a week, and within a few days I heard that old Bill had died, and we students, of course, lit numerous votive candles for him in church, obtaining at the same time the pleasure of playing with fire. We prayed for his salivation and were of course very penitent and remorseful for ever having caused him any trouble in his last days. Taking no chances, I, as always, invoked an Act of Contrition so as to wipe clean my slate by gaining a plenary indulgence, which, amazingly, was said to work even for murderers.

“After a week without donuts I was a nervous wreck, and often had severe withdrawal pains after mass during breakfast time, but survived somehow on some Hostess cupcakes and some imitation donuts that my mother bought at the supermarket, but these donuts just weren’t the same. The store reopened as scheduled, old Betty running it alone. As I prepared for school that morning, I brought extra money for an special treat—some of those wax bottles that contained, as now I see it, mere colored water, but, then, as I thought as a boy, some sort of elixir of the gods. I bought donuts, too, and I swear, to this day, that there has never been a better donut made, probably because, back then, the neighborhood bakeries made them fresh at 4 AM without preservatives.

“Thirty some years have passed between this and then, and through those years my tastes have somehow strayed away from donuts, to more exotic foods, even to fruits and vegetables, and so it was that I had long forgotten about the old school store until just recently, when I found myself at Dunkin’ Donuts ordering a freshly baked honey dipped donut. As I bit into one, the taste of my grammar school memories came rushing back, all of them apparently contained right there inside of that donut, and I have so written them down just as they came to me.”

The cafe was a curiosity shop, full of antiques and museum pieces from the world’s past, even better than the Rolling Rock Cafe. Their eyes swept the far walls and found a strange juxtaposition of stuffed squirrels, old clocks, Egyptian masks, rusted scythes, ivory tusks, and the unlike. In their heightened imaginations, or perhaps from some real déjà vu, they again roamed the African savannah, stalked the primeval forest, and boated down the Nile, along its fertile corridor. Silently drinking the exotic coffee, they were transported by its fumes to the beans’ source in the lush forests of Hawaii’s Kona Coast. Peter spoke about the natives there, the picture perfect weather, the lush green sided cliffs, the frothy surf, the volcanic black sand beaches, the views of the other islands off in the misty distance of time, and of the new islands still forming, like their love, several miles beneath the sea—volcanic cones ever building and forming from the passion of the fire god, Pele, his lava steaming in the water, as when male meets female, for fire and water make steam, building into an island base in the abysmal desert of the ocean—a pyramid of hope reaching for the surface and the sky.

They were next drawn by Angelina’s eyes into a painting of Camelot that focused on the famous archway of the Dragon’s Gate, the entrance used only by the greatest of Arthur’s knights. Dipping her brush in poetry’s medium, she remarked to Peter that this moment of their relationship, this beginning was the start of a painting that was to become a masterpiece by a great artist, a love scene created by the joining of passion’s color with the details of everyday life, for her support programs had taught her to live life one day at a time, each day a perfect fit unto the others, like a new stone added to a stone fence in such a way as to touch as many other stones as possible—yet each new stone a piece separate from the whole—and that such small moments of stability and enjoyment would allow time to take care of all—and so she wrote as much in her daily journal at the table as she spoke her thoughts out loud now for Peter to hear. “I’ve had my ups, downs, and arounds on life’s carousel, Peter, and in doing so have collected some trophies of men from undesirable classes, cheap carnival toys as they turned out, whose tenure, mercifully, was short. But I’m older, and wiser, now, and I can quickly see past the insincere, the desperate, the addicted, and the hopeless. So, I’m not afraid to say to you now, even in risk of unbalancing that tenuous seesaw of independence and involvement that are the focuses of men and women, respectively, that I need you, Peter, for you are driven not by desperation or pain, but by the purest motives of love, and so you sustain your affection with only the goodness of giving.”

Peter nodded, unafraid, willing to love her without reserve, and, in this briefness his promise of commitment held more weight than the wordiest answer. Their love—the keystone in the archway, the master piece that she referred to—would complete and support each other’s bending tower of stones—the leaning weight of the years—a strength now redirected from weakness.

After dessert, they sat back, sated, absorbing again the the old-time decor of the cafe, noting in particular the ancient hourglass made of welded brass that rested on the shelf above them, as then, Peter and Angelina, still resonating in two-part harmonic choice, rose together with a start and quickly read the inscription written on the old timepiece. In a mixed revelation it said, in both English and Latin, and in so many words and inter language puns, that a moment un-seized loses its momentum, that one can pass through life unaware, like sand through an hour glass, and that time should rather be worn by everyman, as by emperors and kings, like a royal diadem of momentous gems. Thus, the engravature, in the total sum of its demonstration, proclaimed the motto of’ ‘Carpe Diem’, or seize the day.

Angelina added later, near the point of parting, so that he need not say it, “It will not always be easy, Peter, for love always wants more and so love doesn’t always listen to reason.”

“I know, but our hearts are pure.” Peter arrived late to work, the apparent weight of love’s responsibility now added to the demands of a professional job in a company that would swallow up all life if given half a chance in a world that was always rushing—rushing with a sense of urgency, as they called it, better known as panic, to get more, to produce more, to do everything faster, to greedily gain more market share; yet, love could never be a burden, being always uplifting in its effect, so Peter, invigorated and more alive now, flew through his work—and wrote more perfect computer programs, dispatched and answered electronic mail with the speed of light, resolved questions as soon as they arose, and used his now unlimited power to deal with any contingency. He dealt with the workaholics, ignored trivial details and useless meetings, and even went home on time, four hours having done the work of eight, for with love all things were possible, and there was now life in all things.


Peter sent the following memo to his friends at work and instantly became a sort of cult hero:

The Stainless Steel Rat Escapes From the Computrons

and Goes Out to Lunch

The Computrons were everywhere—they were tabulating, computing, calculating, scheduling, producing, gaining visibility, and ever working as a team. It was rumored that they were devoid of feeling, although they did have a few circuits for that; however, those signals, weak as they were, were often crowded out by the sheer intensity of their work effort, for the Computrons were single-minded, focused, goal oriented, dutiful, diligent, market driven, and oh so busy, busy, busy!

It would be hard to get past them, I thought, as I looked longingly out the window of my office. Outside I could see freedom in the hills beyond the river, where there was a place that I could have a peaceful lunch, a place whose approach was forever shrouded in mist—a secret spot hidden from all Computron scans, a haven that awaited me. But, how would I get away?

There were also the Robotrons and the Automatons to worry about. They were even more intractable than the Computrons since, being earlier models, they were much more inflexible. However, I thought, more philosophically, there has to be a work niche for everyone if a company is going to prosper. Ever needed were soldier types, organizers, workers, go-fers, administrivians, bosses, whip-crackers, clock-watchers, foil-makers, harried secretaries, hectic people running around and sweating every little thing, and contented Smoos. Yes, I know, some of those jobs are horrible, but, remember, if it were not for these niche-fill-ers WE would have to do those jobs!

Some niches were filled and unfilled by a sort of natural selection process, for example, by managers who were not of the right mold, ones who were quickly weeded out of power and replaced by those who would live, eat, and drink the Corporation. Yes, you guessed it: management was soon all of one mind. This was my challenge, readers, the mass Corporate mind. It was strong, unyielding, and solid, and certainly one could not face it head on. Still, I would try to do the impossible—which was 1) to go to lunch, and 2) to do it without talking about work or hearing about it while I ate.

All this I kept in mind as I, the Stainless Steel Rat, planned my es- cape, for nothing could keep me inside on such a day of nice weather. Lunch, especially going out for it, was a long forgotten art that was last practiced by our forefathers, and now nearly impossible to pull off, for, lunch had, sadly, become an unofficial extension of the workday. We had to beat the Japatrons! Everything had to be doable and viable—for there was no longer any such thing as a ‘non concurrence’ or a ‘non commit’ (translation: ‘no’).

However, there were no walls that could hold me—no building secure enough to contain the Stainless Steel Rat, for I lived and thrived in the cracks and small interstices where authority overlapped—in the gray areas of the corporate structure! I would vanish into the rootless world of the abstract, where computers reigned supreme in their silicon and stainless steel world, hence my name. In my world, justice was obtained from the heart, not from the book. Now then, how would I get out to lunch when I was expected to either work through it or to eat with people who would talk about work and nothing else?

My plan unfolded. I scheduled an official meeting in a conference room at 12 noon, a normal enough time for a meeting, but, I invited only myself and some fictitious people who, of course, would not show up. This fake meeting would guarantee that a meeting conflict would occur with those Computrons who often actually did schedule noon meetings (or even worse, 5 PM meetings). Meanwhile, I activated my Turing Machine, which would automatically answer my electronic mail by looking for certain keywords and names, thereby giving replies that would appease the sender, buying me even more time. Next I carefully unplugged my phone so as not to draw undue attention to the phone’s unanswered ringing during the next half-hour from the fools who would try to call during lunchtime, for it was now already getting near 11:30.

Then I changed into my Corporation camouflage clothes: a white shirt and tie, with sleeves part way rolled up; for, this would help me blend more easily into the crowd, making me quite boring and unspectacular, and therefore practically invisible. As a final touch I put fifteen pens and pencils into my shirt pocket and carried some foils and paperwork in my hand, as well as a briefcase containing the delicious lunch that I had prepared at home.

This was it. Do or die. I left my appointment calendar prominently displayed, so that anyone who was really trying hard to find me would stumble over the calendar and presume it to be the truth. Then I quietly looked both ways, for it was still a little bit early for lunch, and quickly left my office, even walking 300 feet out of my way just to avoid the office of a Super Computron who loved to delegate work on sight of the nearest person. For concealment, I temporarily joined a group of marching Automatons, walking close behind them so that no one could observe me in operation as an individual. Once in the clear, I eased off down a side hallway.

Oh, no, Red Alert! My old manager was coming straight at me, though he was still a ways off down the aisle. He would surely bend my ear until it was swollen and red with pain, and make me late for lunch. Thinking fast, I quickly ducked into the place where no man had gone before: the ladies room. I counted to twenty to allow him time to pass and then exited, not even stopping to wash my hands.

Yes, I could have had lunch in the Corporation cafeteria, but, as I’ve said, that was much too dangerous, for work was being talked about in there, and also the food was poor and expensive. I just had to get out in order to save my mind from being narrowed down too much. I headed towards the freight elevator which would lead me to the En-graved exit of the loading dock.

The walk toward the elevator was the most dangerous part of my plan, for it was a one-way aisle with no side exits. Oh, no! I ran straight into an Automaton! My only hope was to ask it to join me for lunch, hoping to catch it off-guard—so it would think that I was joking. So, I asked it to lunch. I guess I reached its built-in humor mechanism, for it coughed out a mechanical laugh and said, “There’s not enough hours in the day for the celebration of life that you describe through social relationships, human interaction, dreams, art, nature, books, romance, joy, happiness, smiles, adventure, and certainly not lunch! Work, work, work! I must work on my foils for a one o’clock meeting. I cannot go out to lunch, ha, ha; my life is out of control because I’ve bit off more than I can chew—” I quickly slipped away while it was still mindlessly lecturing me from the automated tape of standard prerecorded answers.

So, lunch was still on, and I carefully left the building, taking no more chances, staying well out of the line of sight of any big shot’s office window, both for practice and to keep myself alert. Also, just in case anyone was watching, and for alibi reasons, I headed over to the actual building of my fake meeting, where, by the way, no one knew me. I entered the building and immediately exited it by a side door. This ruse was necessary because the badge reader would record my exact time of entry, in case there was an investigation later, but not the time of my departure.

Outside again, I hugged the sides of the buildings until I got well through no man’s land and past other obstacles and could gain cover from trees. All this was well away from the security gates, of course, for there was no getting through them at this time of day since they were laser equipped and therefore deadly to any moving object. I headed for the river portion of the Corporation ‘moat’, for it was the most lightly defended. I took the route most likely to succeed, the one through the Corporation graveyard, wherein every Computron epitaph read exactly the same: ‘It lived; It was busy; It died’.

I hoped that I could remember the path down to the water, a trail made by the Indians long ago. I found the secret entrance into the river bluffs, carefully passed the No-Trespassing signs, and snuck in through a small gap in the electronic fence. Of course, no one was allowed to use these wonderful trails since they might jump off a cliff and then sue the Corporation.

A glorious view soon unfolded before me, and the world was once again bright, and beautiful. My spirit lifted upon seeing the sparkles on the water, the mountains, and the waterfalls across the river. My boat was waiting just where I’d left it. Naturally, I was careful not to touch the water, for it was poisoned with toxic pollution.

This was really it! I crossed the river—in the boat that I’d so carefully constructed from driftwood and fallen trees. I landed on the opposite shore, a still pristine county that both time and progress had some- how forgotten. I walked into a wild vineyard and picked a shady spot, among many, where nature was still new and fresh. There I savored my lunch without distraction, even read an old forbidden book, then began a wonderful nap on the grass. Looking across the river, I saw no sign of the Corporation, except for its two water towers. The Stainless Steel Rat had made it—I had gone out to lunch; I was across the river and into the woods.

RAINBOW


Toward the end of a sunny day,

A storm came and washed away,

And the sunset clouds, being glad,

Held a party for the returning lad.


The sun then peeked, and soft shone

Into the mist of the departing squall,

Its light split into particolors lone,

Separating, each from the ALL—


A bouquet of colored rays

Swirled into sight,

And promised good weather

For the rest of the night.


The rainbow lit up the east,

As long we attended the feast

Of both the east and the west,

Till into darkness we descended blest.


The stars guided our homeward flight

By shining their jeweled lights

Of ruby, emerald, and sapphire

In living colors of blazing fire.



Sanctuary

Some days passed. Peter woke early, wrote down his night dreams into a journal, as usual, got up, and found himself at work early, a preparation for taking the afternoon off. Working swiftly and silently, he dashed off computer programs in the time warp allowed by solitude and love’s inspiration. Toward 11:30 he bought and packed a lunch of juice, salad, and sandwiches for the picnic with Angelina, and soon evaporated into the warming noon, passing, on his way toward freedom, several ongoing business meetings, and many harried workers that were glued to their terminals, gobbling a quick bite as they worked, probably not even tasting the food.

The porch was empty, the grandladies having gone to a rummage sale. Peter knocked on air as the door was opened by the spirit that was Angelina, and was let into the rambling home—a time portal to the past. Warmth emanated from the parlor, from its chestnut paneled bookcases that held worn editions of the poems of Keats, Shelley, and Byron, and from a lush carpet that sunk under step like grass on a putting green. Knickknacks of cherubs, centaurs, and children skated on the ice of the glass shelves. It was a museum gallery of all the minutes, hours, and days that sequenced the Victorian whole, the months upon seasons that tolled the cherished year—those decades which in sum actualized a full life of youth, prime, and eld-age; it was incense from ancient times—memories of a generation that bridged this century to the previous.

“The card players,” said Peter, pointing to a sepia print of three young ladies.”

“Yes, my mother and her sisters in 1912.”

“Taken in—?”

“—Quebec City. Our first home away from France.”

“What is it like there?”

“Wonderful, but cold. It’s an island in the St. Lawrence river, and we always had to travel to the mainland by ferry. The streets are narrow and the shops are quaint, and the people are mostly French speaking.”

A winding staircase led up to the tower room, and from there they could see the farm lands and the tips of the silos. The bathroom held an old tub crouching on lion’s paws, with its hot and cold water handles made of ivory and gold. The bedrooms all had a fireplace, and the dumbwaiter was now used as a laundry chute. Roses and vines grew as ground cover on the bedspreads, and flourishes swirled up the walls. Walking softly, for her grandmother was still asleep, Angelina led Peter down the servant’s stairway to the kitchen, stopping on the bottom stair and kissing him, then adding to their lunch basket some bread, wine, and cheese.

A crow was tapping on the window as they left, and it followed them. “Some crows are domesticated,“ she said, “and this one often eats with us when we dine outdoors. Once it even turned the pages of a book I was reading. It always raps and taps about this time.”

“As seasons pass, the world comes to your door,” he offered.

“Spring comes with the bluebird—the singing troubadour,” she re-plied.

“Summer calls with the rose, amidst the woodlore.”

“Autumn crows, plump and sweet, through frosty hoar.”

“I love inventing poems, Peter—it reminds me of an old parlor game we used to play, but in which we used triplet rhyme, aba bcb cdc, to vary the scheme and to allow the rhymer a little more time to think.”

“Maybe we could collaborate on some poems and prose,” he suggested.

“Maybe we could live through the plots, enjoy the poetic emotions, and then write them down as stories and poems,” she said.

“We’ll write in our journals each day and see what becomes of it.”

“OK, then we’ll compare notes and merge our ideas into a story.”

“I’ll write about how we met, perhaps calling it ‘Ageless Times’.”

“And write of the things that you do without me, too.”

“I’ll write the story of a day, or a night. I have a dream journal.”

“Tell me about the night—your dreams, everything that happens.”

“All right, I’ll bring it next time.”

They entered the wood-lot, walking well past the town’s eyes, and put down two sleeping bags for the picnic, picking a spot under a cypress tree that was next to a crumbling stone wall. They immediately began fixing the stone wall by filling the gaps from the rocky rubble, putting one stone on two and two stones on one, for stability, sometimes having to jiggle them or turn them upside down to gain a better fit, always carefully dropping the stones through the last inch to avoid bruising their fingers. Large stones were saved for the bottom and flat ones reserved for leveling the top. Odd shaped stones formed the middle section and had to be twisted and tilted, as in a Tetris game, until they fit snug. The old stone fence soon took shape again—firm, like a solid relationship that was being built brick by brick. Then the lovers ate, as in a loaf of bread, and drank, as in a flask of wine, and read, as in a book of verse, and lay snug and secure while the world worked. They conjured up mythical creatures from the faint wisps of the autumn mist: unicorns and chimeras wandered by, alive only by the virtue of their possibility, and faeries danced—spirits caught only by a believing glance, and all such visions held them sleepy-eyed as languor and indolence had their way with them.

Later on they took a walk, following the stone wall, soon coming to an inviting stream that promised many unseen wonders around the bend. The water sparkled, and was shallow, with stones in it that could be walked on. The explorers were drawn into a forest of moss and fern where there were no footprints, and here they found a pool just beyond a ledge that made for a small waterfall. Following a side branch of the creek, they came upon a steaming pond but knew not the reason for it until they swam in it and felt the bubbles of rising air massaging them—little geysers from a hot spring.

They continued on for awhile, now far astream and lost in compass direction but not in directive. The creek took them though an old cemetery which had been long abandoned, its caretakers probably dead and buried within. There were many old grave markers with sayings on them.

They paused to read an epitaph written on an urn:

From heaven’s stars came my dust eterne;

Time’s seas nurtured thee and thine in turn.

From time, death, and dust I thus became,

And by this, thus, and that I must return.

Another, emblazoned on a flower, said:

From that black and endless eternal deep,

Nature’s fertile soil woke me out of sleep,

Saw me bud, flower, leaf, strive, and die;

Then lay me back to rest, my soul to keep.

Another, more lively, entitled ‘Whens’, read:

Life is a web of whos, whys, whats, and hows

Stretched in time between eternal boughs.

Gossamer threads hold the beads that glisten,

Each minute a sequence of instant nows.

As they left the burial ground, the stream beckoned them onward around yet another bend. To their surprise they came upon the almost legendary old farmhouse, now seen to be made of soft sandstone. The stream ran into the spring room of the house—a source of bath and laundry, taken and done in another century—and out again along its wet and winding way toward the Hudson River.

A small forest hushed and protected the cottage. The leaves of autumn painted a colored scene of yellow and crimson, backed, closer to the house, by the ever-during green of the pines. A slate stone path led up to the front door, a gold leaf carpet of fallen leaves gilding the way. The house was in some need of repair, they noted; it needed a few nails in the roof shingles and some wood work. Inside, they found a few small holes in the walls.

“We could fix it up,” she said, “and have a place to stay when it gets too cold for the barn. Winter may be coming all too soon.”

“It’s been vacant a long time.”

“Since my uncle passed away. I was then only a young girl of twenty summers. My aunt still owns it and the surrounding property, but she doesn’t care about it. It has been forgotten.”

“So, we could use it. We could have it?”

“Yes, but let it remain our secret, and then the privacy shall be ours as well.”

“A little dusting and painting could do a lot here, along with a woman’s touch.”

“I could put color in the windows.”

“Curtains!”

“Yes, and maybe bring a few things from home.”

“It would be our sanctuary—our country home.”

“Our country manor, our homestead.”

“Our haven, our retreat.”

“I like the word ‘sanctuary’ the best.

“Yes, me too. Here we have no neighbors, no intrusions, no electricity.”

“It’s close to nature and sky.”

They plugged the holes in the walls with rags, dusted off what they could with old sponges from the spring room, and then checked and cleared the flue, and started the fire burning from some wood piled nearby, as if the former occupant had fully intended to live through the winter in which he died.

“I’ll go back and get the food and the sleeping bags,” he offered.

“And bring some hay to use for the bedding. We can stay here into the evening. It’s so romantic, Peter.”

While he was gone, she found a candle and an old lantern and put them where they would be handy.

By the time Peter returned at dusk, afternoon had descended and coolness had risen. In front of the fireplace they laid a blanket over the hay and put the sleeping bags over that. They then put their heads together and tried to read a book aloud, but managed only a few pages, for, as the flames flickered and flared, the glowing embers of love kindled into ripening kisses and swells of passion that surged like a storm tide—kisses from lips already flushed and swollen from sensation, new kisses, teenage kisses, like those exchanged on vacations or given in the back seats of cars—first kisses, exploring kisses, endless kisses. Their clothes fell away, suddenly useless trappings. His breathing soon fitted to her own. A wondrous human and loving spirit, like a mist, drenched and flooded them, their soul’s being filling into form, like rhythm into a poem. The tide broke through the sandbags and overran the shore, the water rising past all previous marks. Her lips wandered over his chest and ever downward, and she was kissing ell skin, as he, turning round, parted her long legs and rested his head on her inner thigh, she turning sideways to accommodate him and resting her head on his thigh as well—and so they together caressed and kissed those intimate areas so boldly presented, soixante-neuf style, stopping only to feel the waves pass up onto the shore, wet the sand, and recede again, but ever echoing as a watery visitation of all that is sweet and pure and good—the image of a mermaid riding on a porpoise, perhaps, along the margin of sea and land. Their rhythm rippled the water, raising the tide even further, and this jostled the ships’ bells into ringing, which then danced the lights of the river buoys across the sea and sky—all vibrations from hearts that were satisfied.

After a timeless time, Peter entered the alpha and the omega of all things, and, many leagues later, leaned back, still connected, and pulled her up onto his lap, his legs in the yoga position, providing a garden whereupon she could sit and bloom, as a lotus flower, and there they gently rocked, the stamen of his manhood pointing up into Heaven, her universe accepting him openly, all around him, he within her. The emptiness filled and the fullness emptied, the blessings raining down from above in the form of peace, serenity, and love, as they steamed though emotion’s ocean as co-captains in their relation ship. And, as each loved and was loved, this world, this wretched world, with all of its foolishness, work, hurry and scurry, pain and worry, quickly faded away into nothingness.

The mermaids glided, deep and finned, sea come shore, as the dark tide of sleep swept away the sinned, and the couple, warm within the quilted sleeping bags beside the fire’s glow, dreamt that they were seagulls afloat on the wind. Being the first to wake from this reverie in the sandstone farmhouse, Angelina whispered from the cliffs of consciousness to Peter, and he slowly drifted up from the val-ley of sleep, “Peter, we must go now so you can attend to your responsibilities. I’ll come back here on the weekend while you’re away and I’ll work on our house some more.”

“OK. Let’s meet at the cafe for breakfast on Monday morning before work.”

“I would like that.” As they left the cottage, the great orange pumpkin of the autumn moon was rising, lighting the way along the banks of the stream; it was not really bright yet, but provided an otherworldly glow that, like the mood of love, guided them on. From a clearing they could see the stars, those lamps of incredible brightness that shone from far away and long ago, suns, really, but dimmed by the incomprehensible distances intervening.

A thought from space entered Peter’s mind, perhaps from a door momentarily opened by a shooting star, and he turned to Angelina to relate, “I am a traveler through space, a refugee from some barren and fruitless world; I am searching, ransacking the heavens, looking for the legendary Eden, and, as I peer through the viewport of my spaceship, I know, through some driving force, that among those many lights that dance in the sky an oasis in space waits for us—a world where flowers bloom and fountains spray—a paradise called Earth to glorify—a world of boundless beauty and grace that has no equal, anytime or anyplace.”

“Well, welcome home, Peter—to Heaven on Earth, the be all and the end all, for Earth is the best of all worlds, a world balanced by sadness and smile, life and death, night and day, sun and flood, give and take, truth and doubt, plenty and drought, good and evil—for, you can’t have the one without the other; therefore, Earth, just the way it is, is truly the best of all possible worlds, one made even better by our love.”

“There’s an urge, Angelina, between root and flower, plant and soil, leaf and sun, air and water, daystar and planet, man and woman, valley and mountain, wind and mist—and between you and me, through time and space—forever.”

Returning to the old cemetery entrance, they were greeted by a stone angel atop one of the gateposts, the other one having flown—Heaven’s last gatekeeper on this frontier from beyond. The moon was higher and brighter now, and Peter, in a poetic vision, spotted Old Autumn himself wandering among the tilted tombstones, his hair of straw winnowing in the wind as always. They stopped and shivered as Peter related this to Angelina, for she, too, had felt the his presence. The crow reappeared, startling them for a moment, and landed on Angelina’s shoulder, nuzzling her, then flew on ahead—the famous Bird of Time, perhaps.

As moonlight washed the marble of the eternal monuments, they read two more of the inscriptions engraved thereupon:

To me it was all a moving picture show,

Attended by mysteries, row upon row,

That were faceless, laughing in the dark below;

So I laughed, too, and better enjoyed it so.


Oh, never has there been a time more rare,

But that I could surely say “I was there

On that Heavenly sphere of blue and green;

Yes, I was there in life extraordinaire!”

Leaving the cemetery and ever looking down to guide their footing, they noted the poison ivy and carefully sidestepped it. Further on, they spotted, beneath the cedars and silver maples, a vigorous undergrowth of vegetation, brought forth, like a second spring, by the extended autumn. There was basil, feverwort, wolf’s-bane, wild cucumber, cinquefoil, meadow-saffron, germander, gillyflower, and fall roses. Lifting a rose and pressing it between their lips, they drank the evening dew from it in what turned into a kiss.

After passing back along the stone wall to the picnic site, they emerged back into town, like ghosts from the netherworld, swirling, like leaves whirled by dust devils, in their unison of love that was propelled by forces from beyond. They kissed good-bye, a two-day kiss, as all the while sweetness and serenity stole through their flesh, like a mist in a valley filling it fresh.

The weekend passed, with its steady and pleasant reliefs, a sometimes parallel universe for Peter, and on Monday, Peter, reading the newspaper and drinking orange juice, waited in the cafe for his Angel of Dawn to arrive. She soon came, staunch—and loyally reliable—and they ordered coffee, eggs, and sausages. “I started writing the story of a day,” said Peter, “but I only wrote midnight to 7 AM so far; it’s mostly evanescent.”

“Please read it, Peter.”

A day, in the period that it subtends, is the cyclic unit of time, a pearl pure and round and complete in the necklace of months, a bead worn smooth. The days, polished by the clacking of time over the cobblestones, distance themselves, like echoes absorbed by the night, into the rosary of the seasons. My day begins at midnight, the time when a day lives and dies as the date changes unseen on a timepiece—a watch fire reborn from its own embers.

“Good start, Peter. Good metaphors.”

I lay barely awake, reading, the waves of sleep seeping ever closer, in circles, it seemed, lapping at me as my book fell toward the bed and even once to the floor. The cat had succumbed hours ago and slept, snuggled and purring, with a paw across its eyes. Summoning one last motion out of the deepening paralysis, I stretched for the lamp and drew the darkness over me and rested warm and naked between the sheets. The mini blinds sliced the moon, and I bathed for a moment in the stripes until I turned away from the light and drifted toward darkness. I thought of the pine tree under which I would sleep next to the old stone wall in my dreams—my recurring haven of repose—in a securely warm cocoon of the snugness of a sleeping bag; here I would be utterly removed from even the touch of God—my body and spirit proximate to a new radiance, that of the day’s heat remitted from the stones back into the night air. I, too, in sleeping, would absorb from Nature whatever it was that was renewed afresh each night through the mysterious black conduit. With one last look back to the day’s events, I yielded to the sweet delight of dreams.

“I like the stone wall, too, Peter—it’s so—country.”

But, my sleep within a sleep upon layers of pine needles would have to wait, because the adventures and daydreams of the day, like pine needles on end, prodded my sleeping brain with their ever pleasant spikes. Sleep’s circle had closed to a point and reopened on the other side, taking me through its black hole and into another universe.

It was good flying weather. There was even a draft flowing up the slope of my backyard. Like kites, we gently lifted off and drifted down the long hill, floating, spread-eagled like flying squirrels, the ground falling away under us, as we, gravity’s children of the ski jump, were called home by Mother Earth; but, then, closing our fingers and thus making up for the lack of webs, we cupped the wind to rise even higher, hundreds of feet up, ultimately, into lofty and precarious flight. Devil-dared, we sailed without the usual four-limbed chuted canopies that most flyers wore, which, although they made for surer flight, often caused flat-on-the-face landings. We real adventurers wore minimum chutes, or, as on days like today, none at all, and figured the updrafts from the contours and temperatures of the land, and every now and then, in apparent foolishness, compacted ourselves into swimmer’s cannonballs and plummeted for fifty feet or more before spreading and flaring on the cushion of full surfaced air. My consciousness, as a passenger, rode with me, for I had practiced dream awareness and control, and, so, an event that would be normally little more than a remembrance now became a living and conscious thing. I rose heavenward, alert and appreciative, a spectator mounted on Pegasus, riding the thermal drafts, and observing everything, like the all seeing eye atop the all-knowing pyramid, one looking both inward and outward.

“Peter, do you often dream about flying.”

“Yes, though sometimes I have to flap my arms to get off the ground.”

The night flight was lovingly interrupted when you joined me in bed. I partially awoke. You were refreshingly cool, and nestled length ways to me, skin to skin; we were a pair of golden spoons. You touched my lively and intimate part, stroking its full extended length, sometimes pausing to scratch my thighs. I turned and caressed your mounds, first one and then the other, back and forth, massaging your hair and scalp with my other hand. You were soon wet below the waterline, and you steered my rudder, already moored nearby in the flankette dock, into that safe harbor, where the waves soon originated and sought the open sea. Here, in the surf between sea and shore, I rolled and tumbled a long time with the swells of anticipation, and finally, in an eternal celebration that was compressed into a few timeless seconds, felt the full breath, depth, and width of infinite release.

“Interesting, Peter. And I love the water motif. Water is love’s element.”

Heavy sleep soon called me, the bed gravity having at least quadru-pled, and I sank, embraced, into that oblivion of sleep from which I’d confidently return. I dreamt of a small tropical island only a few feet wide, supported, it seemed, only by shimmering and sparkling diamonds in the pure blue sea. I was joined by my confidant, and from here we reigned over the social empire we’d created, one that stretched around the circular horizon like gleaming jewels: friends going about their bright business of living life, sparks amid the dullards, gems reflecting value and meaning. Farther out, the sea was a golden bronze, and there the spawning whales blew their spouts as they came up for air. We sat wordless, aligned and comfortable, letting the sights flood into us, filling us. There was no other purpose except to look.

“As in life there is no other purpose but to live,” she added.

“Now and then I would wake up, and in that brief interval replay my dreams so as to engrave them into my long term memory. The next dream was a chase dream—these were always welcome and were always especially exhilarating since I could never be caught.”

“Let’s hear it.”

We were climbing redwood trees next to an old cathedral somewhere in Brazil. The building was a block long and apparently unsteady, for as we stepped to it from the trees it began to tilt forward, tipping like a sliced loaf of bread, and I, thinking fast, ran to the falling front and bounded down the crashing stones as they formed temporary steps, now fallen slices of toast, as the building collapsed into rubble and dust. Looking back I could see some of the stones rolling toward me, an avalanche. I ran and ran, each step lengthening, like that of an ice-skating racer, and soon each of my strides covered thirty feet or more, sweeping long and true, like broad jumps strung together, until I needed not even come down to ground. I floated a few feet above the road until reaching home.

There I collected my sleeping bag and headed for the stone wall next to the pine tree—and lay me down for my sleep within a sleep. I reached out and touched the stacked stones, felt their warmth, and soon lost all consciousness…

“Some say that the day should begin at 6 AM with first light, and I would almost agree, but, by the dawn of reckoning, the mood of the day has often been already set by the tones of dreams, and so for me the day begins with midnight. As I awoke and reviewed my dreams again, I knew that it would be another good day. I could no longer remember a bad one. Perhaps, like a stable weather pattern, the good days inspired good dreams and vice-versa, ad infinitum. The daily almanac came on the radio and I was alert to listen, though still assured of staying in bed another forty-five minutes. There was no hurry. This time was planned.

I got up, turned on the heat, dressed, fed the cats, and put on the eggs, bacon, and sausages. Opening the door to get the newspaper, I inhaled that wonderful deep drought of cool outdoor air during that first moment in which one is immune to even the lowest temperatures. This was followed by a drink of water from the well; I felt its coldness flow all the way down to my stomach. That’s it. That’s all I wrote.”

“I love it, Peter—it demonstrates the true excitement of everyday life, especially during the time of sleep, which most people feel is a big blank, but is actually a wondrous time if you’re aware of it, like a movie filmed in Cinemascope and 3-D, a virtual reality in which you can script and star.”

“Yes, I’m trying to show that everyday life can be much more than ordinary if people would just live it. Money and fame are not required.”

“Our everyday life is exciting.”

“Yes, we find glory in everyday things like walking, reading, working, nature, talking, dining, and loving.”

“And in meeting friends, giving love to relatives and families, a glass of water from the well, fresh air, swinging on a porch swing, being together.”

“Yes, it’s a life available to everyone, but it takes a certain style and attitude of openness and spontaneity.”

“A lot of people just complain and sit around not acting on their dreams. Like robots, they run the same old rat race. Rush, rush.”

“They give their time to hurry’s worry.”

“And so they go breathless back and forth in the scurry.”

“Focusing straight ahead, the balance all blurry.”

“Cold, unseeing, blinded by the flurry.”

“Yes, and when the angels came to visit them, they didn’t even know they were there.”

“And, Peter, neither did they love.”

“No, Angel, they hoarded their love, or couldn’t bother with it.”

“Living well is more a matter of ready reaction to opportunity than a calculated, scheduled, ponderous activity.”

“And all of Earth’s pleasures are greatly increased when you have someone to share the living with.”

“The excitement is more.”

“We’re a good match.”

“We are open.”

“And giving.”

“I love you.”

“An Angel came to visit me.”

“St. Peter has arrived.”

“I love you so very much.”

TODAY

Yesterday is gone, dead and buried—History;

Tomorrow, the future is unknown—a Mystery;

Today is a gift—That’s why it’s called the Present.



Everyday Life

Many days came and went, days and nights balanced with work and play—and the accounts of these times rest in the journals of Petter and Angelina, in their chronicles of love and hope, some pages of which they carried to read to each other later on this day.

After work, having put in a full hard day, Peter met Angelina in the half light dusk of the dwindling year, and they sought out the Hudson river on an unusually warm November day, walking down toward the water through a vineyard. A few grapes missed by the harvest yet clung to the vines, still ripe enough not to taste sour, so they picked them and fed each other. Her pet crow had already found them and was pecking at the grapes.

As they sat on the rocks at the river shore, they saw the sun in the water at their feet—it was as a fire floating on the water and was almost too bright to look at, for it shimmered. The river was flat, at no tide, and the reflected clouds in the water were as an impressionist painting. Off in the distance they could see the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge. The Catskills were clear, too. Diamonds in the river crept toward them as the sun passed its zenith and began its glide down the zodiacal arc. The floating fire on the water now shone directly into their eyes.

“Imagine,” she said, “fire exists in water—who says they can’t mix.”

“Yes,” I answered, “water is supposed to conquer fire. Your sweetwater always puts my fire out!”

“True,” she replied, “but afterwards you rekindle the flame.”

An old propeller plane flew by from the Rhinebeck aerodrome in a sky already laced with vapor trails in the high cold air. They looked up and watched it pass.

“Looks like World War II is starting up again,” he noted.

“We’re on the same side,” she affirmed, “an American boy and a French-Italian girl hiding out in the countryside near Paris.”

“I know,” Peter said, “I’ve come to the country of love.” Laying on the ground, they were still looking up at the vapor trails.

“See that line across the south?” he asked. “That’s the Tropic of Cancer.”

Angelina just smiled and said “Come to me, honey.”

“You’re the honey,” he said, “and I’m the bee.”

Making love, they grew intense, and he picked her head up, holding it and pressing her kissing lips even closer onto his. Then he lifted her upper body as well and brought her onto him all the more. Around them were the dried weed flowers of autumn and some bare stalks of corn. Up the hillside they could see the grapeless vines stretching for acres and acres. The air was filled with the scent of smoke from a pile of burning leaves.

With a mock French accent, Peter said, “Angelina, zis ize America!”

“You’re deep in France right now,” she answered. He closed his eyes, and yes, he was surely in France, but also in the French countryside. There he could see the fields of grain in her native land waving with the soft breezes. There he could see the ravages of her homeland caused by two World Wars—the reason her parents had to leave. Peter opened his eyes again and saw the glory of the American countryside reflected in her eyes. Stability was here, in him, in them. The sun set behind the mountains as each ring of floating fire in the water was snapped one by one. Like the night snuggling the day, the partners merged in the magic of twilight. Breathing deep, they took into their senses all that life could give.

They held each other trustingly, knowingly, peacefully.

“I wrote a story;” Peter said later, pulling out some folded sheets of paper. “It’s about us—it’s about our cottage that we’ve fixed up, about a recent time when I came to visit you at night.”

“Let’s hear it.”

The Cottage in the Woods

(La Maison aux Bois)

As I walked along the stream side path, the memories of the wrenching workday were worn away by the soothing sounds of the water lapping on the rocks. Cares floated away on the outgoing tide, replaced by sun-sparkles on the water—which alighted on my mind, still glimmering, and danced as they became my imagination’s hopeful ideas about the night to come. It was about a mile to the cottage and I almost started to run, but it was getting dark and cold and slippery. As I walked, I thought of Thoreau’s words on life: “Simplify, simplify, simplify!”

Winter twilight came and ended just as quickly, and the planets of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars hung like Christmas ornaments on the tree branches. Through the wider gaps between the trees, I could see the Milky Way and Orion’s Belt, those sights assuring me that I was going in the right direction. I felt good already because I knew that these woods belonged me whenever I walked through them. Several times I felt for the key in my pocket to make sure I had it. By giving me a key Angelina had showed a lot of trust in our love, and by accepting the key I had showed her the same. “Please don’t knock,” she had always said, “use your key and just enter.”

As I walked, I breathed deeply and thought of her warmth and love; upon breathing out I thought to expel all that was destructive in this hectic and hurried world. Soon I was able to imagine the taking of her breath into my lungs and the breathing of mine back into hers, and it was through this trance that I quickly arrived at the cottage without really noticing the passage of time. I stopped outside at the shed and selected a bottle labeled “du vin francais”. There was no electricity in the cottage, of course, just candles, as I noted the love light in the window. This farmhouse cottage is our retreat; it is our inner sanctum, our love temple, our trysting spot, our Heaven and haven. I stood back from the door until I was sure I had the right key, for I didn’t want to fumble around at the door in the dark.

As I opened the door, her puppy and kittens greeted me, and I let them out as usual. The room flickered in the candlelight and I knew that my eyes would soon get used to the dark. Meanwhile, I pretended I was blind and walked the way that my feet knew. I put another log on the fire, then drew closer to the flames, warming myself. A recurring thought returned that said “that fire was winter’s only fruit, that peace and quiet and rest were her bounty”. It’s more than enough, I thought, more than enough. I poured two glasses of wine and set them out on the dining table, leaving the bottle uncorked so the wine could breath and develop.

I passed through the kitchen and smelled the duck warming in the wood stove. As I parted the beaded curtains of the bedroom doorway, I saw her lying there through the canopy’s colored veils. She was resting from her day and was half awake and half asleep. It was in this dream world state that she often wanted to greet me. I removed my shoes and clothes and lifted the covers and snuggled into bed beside her. We never spoke any words upon this type of meeting—we just kissed, and sometimes neither of us would break off the kissed—the kisses would go on and on, endlessly, not quenching the thirst but only deepening it.

I snuggled against her and she pulled my arm and hand across her body. Soon we were in the flankette position that we usually ended our lovemaking with: side by side, she on her back, me on my left side, my right leg between hers, our lips kissing, my left hand massaging her nape and hair, my right hand very slowly securing her breasts. As we held each other, I could sense that the world was fading, that the outside world no longer existed, that the boundaries between us were being dissolved by our love, that we were merging into one being, traveling into a dimension beyond time, that we were arriving at the innermost sanctum of our joined selves. Still no words were spoken. I saw and felt the glow of the headboard candle as it bathed our bodies in the flickering light. Now and then I would reach up and tip the wax to brighten the candle. She was dressed in my favorite colors of red and black. Her scent was Angel of Midnight. The burning incense suggested memories of ancient times. She was Cleopatra, I was Anthony; I was her Sultan, she was my Sultana; I was Napoleon, she was Josephine. Still no words had been spoken. I was the Tzar, she was the Tzaress; she was Shaktu and I was Shiva. She was the passion flower and I was the bee; she was the butterfly and I was the wind.

She opened her eyes and spoke at last: “Bonjour, monsieur.”

“Je t’aime,” I replied.

“Avez-vous le temps de rester un moment?” she inquired?

“Oui, oui, mademoiselle,” I answered.

“Soixante-neuf?” she asked.

“Oui, oui, une amie, tous les soirs!” I exclaimed.

“Je m’appelle Angelina,” she whispered softly.


“Magnifique, Peter. I’ll write a response tonight and read it to you tomorrow.”


The workday passed quickly, and Peter, ignoring the recent hub-bub at work concerning six sigma, team partnership, market driven quality, ranking, and such other nonsense that was the fad of the moment, found himself again in the cottage with Angelina, she reading her response to him as the snow outside started falling steadily, Old Autumn apparently having passed away.

Angelina read her reply to Peter’s story:

La Reponse de Angelina

(Angelina’s Reply)

I write this story as an artist because a story like this should be told so that other women can find a love so pure. Our romance is like that of all all the greatest loves of the world. We all need the holding, the loving, and the peacefulness of life that love can bring.

As I waited for Peter in my cottage, I slept in my bed. After a while I thought that I heard his key in my door, but I didn’t let myself become fully awake. Before he came into my boudoir, I imagined what it would be like to be close to him. We had been apart for just a short time but it seemed like forever. (La eternite.)

As he came through the doorway to my bedroom, my heart began to beat so heavily that I thought he would hear it. I was so patient as he disrobed and sat on my bed. Then he lit our candle. (Il fait noi.) He came towards me closer and closer and I could feel that we’d missed each other a lot. I could feel my body wanting to entwine with his. Oh, how I love him as he loves me! All I could think of was how close our selves could be. We would join together to make one out of two, merging in heart, mind, soul, and body. (Je avoir la passion d’affaire de coeur.) He laid with me and held me so close. I could feel that he wanted to make love to me, and my body felt electric shocks as he held me. He kissed me very tenderly and held me firmly. He put on some soft music. These intimate moments were like ocean waves on a sandy beach, each wave coming in and drawing out over the sand, pulling us closer and closer.

This man in my life knows what I feel and all that I desire. I know how to give him pleasures, and I love the feel of him on the lower part of my body. (un baiser) (effleurer) This relationship is so full of love. We eat together with friends so we can still be a part of the world. We write and read and talk about anything and everything. We learn wonderful things each day. We can still do all of the things we did before we met. (Toujours!) The tide comes in again to the sand on the beach. As the water recedes and leaves the sand I feel so peaceful and relaxed. When we’re together I can feel pleasure like currents of water swirling round and round in my body—it has a center like that of a waterfall—the water gushes over the top of a cliff and sweeps me away. (Le petite mort!) Anywhere he kisses me starts my energy flowing. Then I kiss him back and he kisses me again, and before I know it, it’s fireworks and Bastille Day all over again. (Le feu.) I love it when he holds my hair as he comes into my body. I do the same to him. When we’re kissing and he lifts or moves his head, I go right with him.

I give him the energy and power to stay in me for hours. We rock and ride our boat, feeling the motion of the ocean.

Of course, none of the above would be possible or meaningful if it were not for the love that is the foundation of our relationship. There can be no icing without the cake—it wouldn’t be filling. What is love? The French tell it all when they speak of love. Our love is a feeling of completeness. We are each inside each other’s hearts and bodies. Energy builds and builds and builds. Our minds understand each other. Our souls are as one. We build no cages. Love is set as free as the butterfly; it alights where it pleases. When you give of yourself, you truly give. (Sans cesse!) He is like no other man in my life. I love making dinner for him; I love buying presents for him. He wants to give all he has to me and I want to do the same for him. Neither of us wishes to take; we only want to give to the other. We give each other the pleasure of our unconditional love. It is the greatest gift. (Merci bien.)

Now I will speak to my man directly: I am now a woman who knows of love. Your kisses are like no other; they are like the dew of morning; I am as a flower met by a bee to make honey. Our life is a garden of delight. (Joie de vivre!) When you’re close to me, my body feels energy and it shakes from the electric shocks that vibrate from head to toe. The warmth and tenderness of your holding has so much feeling that I want to just melt away like the wax of a candle and then passionately dissolve into you. When I am alone and reading my Love Book, I feel as though you are still inside me, and I feel all of my emotions and think of my love for you. I am writing to you because I feel so much peace when I say “I love you”. (“Je t’aime.”) When you kiss me in bed I feel heat and passion such that I want to give you my unconditional love as you give me yours. I want to give you “me”! That’s how I feel each and every time we are together. The wine we drink from each other’s mouths is so wet to my lips. I never demand anything, because everything between us is so natural. There are no shells of eggs for us to walk on. All is of a peace. When you touch my hair and my breasts, I feel as if I’m being overtaken by magic. When I give you my love on your body, I’m giving you my heart and soul and the complete joy of my love. (Tout a fait.) When you kiss me down on my body I feel an energy and a melody that says I want you there. My body plays music to the beat of my loving heart. I want even more of whatever it is that you give to me that makes me crazy for you. Whenever we embrace, my body feels your love’s giving. I want to feel you inside me because my feeling is that I have a man who loves me for me and who gives me his love and his body unconditionally. (La flamme!) When you come into me I feel so warm that love covers my body with a feeling that makes me cry out with all of the energy that I have. I desire you, I want you! Your love has healed me in every way. My love for you is so real that I can live my life to the fullest in all areas to the best of my ability. This is love’s power. (Beacoup amour!) I am your love slave; I am the woman of the French Lieutenant. You are intensely gentle and gently intense when you make love to me. You talk to me as a poet with words that make music to my ears. Romance in books seems unreal, but our romance is surreal and is from Heaven. The kisses you give me drive me wild. When you hold me close I feel like a teenager in love. My pen can write about all our wonderful picnics and lovely lunches that we have gone to. The more I give of myself to you, the more you give of yourself to me. My pen has written much and will write more next time. (Peu a peu. ) I love you so much. I live now more than I’ve ever lived in my life. I will continue doing what I do best: being myself.

Je t’aime,
Angelina



Although the weed flowers marking Old Autumn’s last tracks were still flourishing, heavy snow flurries threatened to bring a white thanksgiving and either complicate the holiday or add to its romance.

Meanwhile, Peter pulled up to his terminal, brought up his 30,000 line computer program, and opened the patient for surgery, as he liked to think of it. Working swiftly from a red inked printout marked during coffee hour, he clamped off capillaries, redid their interfaces, and bloodlessly sealed them shut again, although these were only preparatory and minor repairs in auxiliary areas. Next, the main arteries had to be incised, and therefore it was no longer possible to open and unblock the incursions in sequence, since indirect ramifications and side concerns quickly arose and wildly flared, as fleeting thoughts, when one thing led to another, thereby requiring immediate attendance lest, they, in the formless impressionism of the art of computer programming, fade to vague remembrance and reappear later, always at an inopportune time, as defects known as bugs. The phone rang while Peter was juggling these evaporating images and so he had to ignore it; but, no matter, for PhoneMail would record the call. Twenty minutes later Peter sutured the incisions and readied a compile and regression test which would either attest to the quality of the operation or reveal its fatal errors and necessitate the revitalization of the patient or, at worst, require a restoration to preoperative health from a backup file. During these tests Peter played back the phone call and heard Angelina’s voice: It’s snowing, Peter. Oh, and please bring wine for our Thanksgiving dinner tonight. Bye. The computer tests showed zero defects, and so Peter, now fully back to earth, walked to the window down the hall and watched the snow squall advancing down the mountainside across the river.

This being the eve of a holiday, workers would be let off early, and so, Peter, anticipating this and needing an edge on the snowfall, quickly departed from the corporation, vanishing among the flakes. Although the snowstorm was in full force, the low center of gravity of the Honda Prelude prevailed and his radial tires were the first to chew the unsullied snow.

Three heavy inches had already fallen by the time Peter had bought the wine, changed into his winter clothes, and rolled into Rhinecliff where he parked and elatedly began the long walk to the sandstone farmhouse. Some flowers of the fall’s second spring still poked their heads above the white death wrap that was being drawn around them, and Peter’s brain stuttered in the acceptance of the incongruity of the scene, his vision wavering in the blurred demarcation of the seasons. This then, he knew, was the smothering of the earth’s last warm sweet odours, the sad finale of the perpetual-flowering-carnations, the blanching of the still green and grassy banks of the stream—summer’s last refuge. Even the rose d’amour that he carried for Angelina had turned from red to pink with the snow’s ivory dusting. As if to mourn for the fallen fragrances of man and flower, Peter stopped in the old cemetery and picked a marigold, one that was still vital—one that only yesterday had thrived in the warm heart of a tombstone—and, as he inhaled its odour, a thousand memories reoccurred and he was immediately given back his youth, and the energy that would carry him well through life’s final frost. Rounding the other side of the gravestone, he read it, after wiping off the snow:

The watch fire fades, the final curtain falls,

The dust within me to the earth recalls.

No talk of me from thee beyond the veil;

My bird of time has flown; this life is all.

Moving on, Peter had to watch his footing, but now and then enjoyed an intentional slide down an unwalkable slope, for even mere existence had now become a pleasure.

Angelina felt within her bones the onset of a cold winter, as she watched the blizzard out the window and prepared the cranberries and the stuffing. The snowstorm was cleansing the world, truly laying on it a blanket of serenity. As she put the broccoli into the wood stove, she reflected on the snowfall and knew that it was nature’s way of getting people to stay in and enjoy the home from which living warmth emanated. The inner child in her was excited at the prospect of throwing snowballs and sledding down the big hill, not to mention the building of a snow fort, which the little boy in Peter would no doubt dream of even more so. She put the soup on the fire, feeling warm in her country kitchen as love and anticipation mixed into the glow of the new season. She loved to cook for this man who gave her so much time and appreciation. This was a good life of laughing and living and touching. It had been so long since someone had made her laugh. For this a duck would be served, along with potatoes, corn, broccoli, and greens fresh from the country soil. She lit the candles and placed them on the table.

Out in the snow squall, Peter knew the way, one that he had often found even in the moonless dark, and the steady exertion kept the cold away as he walked slowly and without alarm, for they both knew that he’d be a little late. Now he again flew like Pegasus, as in his dreams, and passed, like Santa’s elf, over the rooftops in the gale, sweeping on through the valleys with the gusts, striving ever onward into the blinding tempest, often by touch and feel alone. Peter could feel the bulk of the house out there among the streaking shadows. Angelina blinked the new electric lights on and off a few times and called to him out the door as she searched, like some winter firefly, for the beacon of his reply. Appearing out of the whiteness like a ghost made flesh, Peter shook off the large flakes of snow on the porch and embraced her, youth again creeping across their faces as they kissed.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I have surprise for you, Peter. I’ll show you after dinner. It’s a work of art—my art.”

Peter uncorked the wine, which turned out to be champagne, and, although they seldom drank, it flowed and flowed in thanks this evening as they feasted on the duck.

“Where did I ever find you, Angelina? You are so rare. I’ve been looking for someone like you for many years!”

“Me, too. Where did you come from?”

“Well, I came from the past, Angelina, from a long time ago,” he said, swelling with the emotions brought on by love’s joy.

“Yes, I think so, too, Peter, but tell me about it, tell me about us long ago.”

“All right, I came from a century ago, last time, from the 1800’s. I was a monk in a monastery, in love with a nun. We worked on the same books, she illuminating them and I editing them, and so we became close and met often in love through a secret door that connected the monastery to the nunnery. When the monastic village burned, I rescued her, you, from the fire, by the hidden door, and we set off together into the wilderness with an ancient book that we’d saved, and there we made a wonderful life together, eventually growing old in love, peace, and serenity. On the day after you died I lay on top of your grave all night long, intending to stay there until I myself died, when suddenly I heard the most wonderful and haunting singing of a nightingale, as if it was the song of my partner’s soul ascending. I got up and walked closer to the bird and listened in joy, enchanted by the song. After what I thought had been only a few minutes, I realized that, somehow, several decades had gone by, for I could see—as if from a time machine—that a modern town had grown up in the wilderness around me—and all this I knew to be true, for I had also been granted the wisdom of the ages while I’d remained unseen and captured by the nightingale’s lullaby. So, I found myself here in Rhinecliff. And when I saw you on the porch that first day, I knew right then and there that it was you, the nun that I had loved so long ago, that you had somehow also been spirited here by the bird’s melody.”

“Peter—it’s true! I remember now. It was our Bird of Time.”

“Yes, it was the crow. Angelina, we have come back to each other.”

“Yes, from another life. I knew it! I knew it!” Angelina went to the kitchen to prepare dessert, and Peter looked around, seeing all the work that had gone into the room and into the dinner. He felt a warmth spreading deep within, down into unsounded depths, and when Angelina returned and had set down the cakes and ice cream, they embraced for a long time, for centuries, or so it seemed. The rafters shook as the snow squall reached its height, a real nor’easter—the perfect night for a love-in.

An easel stood in a corner, covered by a sheet. “I’ll show you my surprise now, “ she said. “It is my masterpiece.”

“I’m ready, “ he answered, walking over to it. She unveiled the painting, and said, “It’s the state of my backyard garden on the day that we met, a scene now forever etched in time and mind—this is my Christmas present to you, to us—from me.” She pointed out the aspects of the painted landscape, relating, “Here, the falling chestnuts of yesteryear, as from our healthy tree of love, there, the wild-hearted roses gnarling among the branches of spruce, like a strongly formed poem blossoming with meaning.”

“And there,” he continued, “the golden-throated lilies sing, and here a maiden-flower blushes, its purity and virginity reborn.”

She added, “And there a galaxy of sunflowers sways in the wind, echoing the luminosity of our love.”

“Yes” he continued, “herein live all the flowers of our fragrant garden—even the silken saucers of the hollyhocks.”

“In which you caught a bee as a child, then shook it and held it against your ear to hear the aggravated buzz, even getting stung perhaps, then opening the flower and letting the bee fly away.”

“Yes, it was a long time ago, but it seems like yesterday.” They quietly cleaned up the dishes, freshened up the bed, and slipped beneath those white sheets of snow. They rolled toward each other and kissed, shaking and quivering even from this, for they had now become orgasmic by touch alone. Their free arms reached out and around and scratched each other’s back and whatever else they could reach, adding fuel to a sensual fire that only an ocean could quench. Thus they hibernated—snuggling in their quilted nest, cradling, cuddling, and nuzzling, like kittens. They ate another and another dessert of love for the longest time, ascending, stabilizing, and then building on it up to heights that went well beyond known physical boundaries. Some endless time later he joined with her, as, at the same time, she surrounded him. He became the centaur—man above the waist and beast below. She became the tiger cat—in heat, meowing with delight. They were one, sharing the connecting element—there was no telling where he ended and she began. He became larger and larger until the surge could be denied no longer—they flooded together down the love stream as the dam broke, and there they coasted and rode the gentle waves. And still they kissed afterward, more so then than ever, and caressed and gently touched each other, every nerve tingling with sensation as they shook in unison—tidal aftershocks. They left their bodies and once again floated weightless through the heavens and back—across the scenes of the centuries that they’d known: they spotted the first flying reptile, sighted near-man on the African savannah, swam in the sunken Druid cities of Atlantis, saw Merlyn building Stonehenge and burying the Crimson Chalice underneath it, watched the Sphinx weathering away—saved only by its sinking into the sands, witnessed the scaffolding around the pyramids that had formed the slow stone ramps, glimpsed the last temptation of Christ, beheld the fall of Constantinople, observed Sultan after Sultan rising and then falling from the throne, and looked at the first printing press. Eventually they fell into deep slumber, cocooned in their embrace, and at this last second of consciousness she whispered a thought to him—a message from the herein to the hereafter: “Peter, when we awake it will be spring.”

Peter had a vivid dream, probably from a book that he was writing about what happened after King Arthur died, entitled ‘Last Knight’s Almanac’ and would go on to use the content of his dream in the book, but, the real question is: Who wrote it? The dream was about the rites and wrongs of spring for King Percevale and his two squires and went as follows, in the present tense, to bring it alive:

The trio comes to a road that is blocked by the passing of a spring carnival. It is the annual ‘Rites of spring Celebration’, doubly raucous this year because it also celebrates the recent victories of war. There are tumblers, troubadours, circus acts and the like, and it is well attended with drunken revelry. A vendor on squire Bogar’s right is selling sacred objects for unbelievably low prices and so Bogar takes the opportunity of the journey’s pause to investigate the bargains. His attention is first brought to a piece of the venerated wood of the true cross, brought here by the vendor himself after he had gone on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and secretly excavated the hill of the Holy Sepulcher at night, whilst a cathedral was being built over it. Bogar parts with some valuable coins and buys a worthless piece of wood. He also purchases a nail from that same cross. It is still incrusted with Christ’s blood. He buys also a portion of the actual crown of thorns, a shredded part of the tablecloth used at the last supper, a bone from St. Peter’s arm, a piece of the manger, some drops of the Virgins own milk sealed forever in a glass vial, and a tin cup used by Joseph of Aramithea to catch the blood of Jesus on that first Good Friday. Having spent all of his riches, he is about to return when he spots a golden box with a crystal lid, containing a purple cushion on which lays a piece of rusted iron, triangular in shape.

“This,” said the vendor, “is the tip of the spear that pierced the side of the Saviour!”

After much consultation with Hargrave, Bogar obtains a loan and makes the final purchase. The riding junk-pile returns and King Percevale examines the haul with horror.

“Throw all of this rattling junk away!” the King insists.

“But most of this is from the true and holy cross, sire!”

“Squires,” replies Percevale, “I’ve seen enough pieces of the true cross to construct twenty fine sailing sloops of war and still have enough wood left over to build a bridge over the Usk river. What is that cup? Good God, we’ve found the Grail again! Fling it to that beggar by the creek who is sipping water with his hands!”

The squires quail at the King’s rage and let their treasures fall to the ground, but the King is laughing on the inside at the squires’ folly and soon they all break into hearty laughter. However, the laughing stops abruptly as they all notice that the box containing the spear tip is now quite full of blood.

“Keep the spear tip,” replies Percevale with haste, remembering some words of prophesy, “and attach it to a fine and sturdy stick, for the Crimson Spear has been returned.”

After the silence of the continuing journey becomes too much, Squire Hargrave inquires: “What is the origin of the Grail? And its purpose?”

“Well,” replies the King, “it was the actual chalice used by Joseph, stepfather of Jesus, to catch Christ’s blood as he hung on the cross. It was passed down through his family and was god-sent to Arthur by the Mother Goddess of the Holy Isle of Avalon. When Arthur would hold the Grail, and only Arthur, it would turn red. It was first called the Crimson Chalice. Arthur himself is a symbol of the Savior and is said the be seven generations descended from Him. We knights are Arthur’s disciples, modern day priest-soldiers out to make the world a better place. However, the Grail was lost and you know the rest of the story. Guinevere is a symbol of Eve, temptress of men, and of paradise regained. Taliesin the poet is a symbol of the beauty of our pure souls. And the Lady of the Lake, she is a mother to us all, as from her we are all descended. But, to answer your question more completely, the Grail symbolizes man’s harmony with nature and with the gods, which are really one and the same with us. All is of a whole. God and nature are not without us, they are within us. When Arthur received the Grail back he again became one with the Land. I found the Grail by shedding my armor, a symbol of my pride.”

“In what kind of God do you actually believe in then?” asks Bogar.

“Well,” answered Percevale, “there are legends saying that Jesus, Merlyn, and the spirits of the Holy Isle of Avalon are either gods or messengers of the gods, for they are real enough and many have seen them—but we touch only the hem of the mysterious garments of mystery in which the universe is clothed! That there are mysterious forces beyond our comprehension, I do not deny—there are mystics and magicians with senses beyond our own—it is called second sight. And there are many forces that tug on us from beyond. However, my particular ‘God’ cannot be separated from all that is. There are forces of physics in the universe, immutable and unchangeable. That the universe has our well being in mind is proved by our very existence. However, the most preposterous notion that humans ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and ruler of all the Universes, wants the adoration of his creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, their begging for favors; and becomes hateful if he does not receive this flattery. This God of mystery, this vengeful God who will allow no other gods before him, who exacts homage from us, this God of the sky I cannot see or understand or believe in! People have invented this God to their liking in their own image. These people could not simply accept the fact that man and nature and all that exists in the natural world could spring from noplace without cause. These people saw complexity in the world which they could not explain by any other means but by this God. So—save a step, and accept that the world simply is! Look for ‘God’ within nature and yourselves, not without. Know that the universe has our well being at heart only in the general sense, and not in the personal sense. Do not curse the rains that nourish the land, the worms that cultivate the soil, the winds that blow so hard and carry the seeds, for, without these things the world would not have survived. We’re all in this together—you, me, the rain, the winds, and the worms.

“What kind of superbeing would create creatures—a god who knows all, knows our folly to come—and then expect praise and glorification from people begging for favors and blessings so that they can have an easier life? Let our goodness of heart and our good deeds be our ‘God’. They are real; they can be seen. We are of the world; that is our origin, like it or not. Let us do good only for the sake of good. The world can be made a better place through action, not through passive praying. And so you may think what you may, my squires, but that is my opinion, and I do not preach it, but if I am asked, I give it. And since forming that opinion I’ve later come to conclude that we should not worry about that which we can never know, and so I no longer do so anymore.”

They arrive at a tavern and celebrate their good fortune. In the midst of the celebration, an apparently sick man arrives at the door, coughing and sputtering. “Drink up men,” he says, “there is cause for joy, the Huns have been driven back to Mongolia—Asia is free!” But then he falls to the floor and Percevale approaches cautiously.

“It is the Red Death,” cries the King; “burn this tavern and the boat he came in on!” And all are thrust homeless into the windy night, running from the howling fire!

“By the time we return, squires, a third of Europe may be dead—the Dark Age does indeed continue!”

“Tell us of how and when the Dark Age began?” ask the squires.

“Well, fifty years before Arthur began his reign, the Roman legions were recalled from Britain to help defend the realm. They never returned! This is when the Dark Ages began, but Britain, being an island, was not as greatly affected as was Europe, though they were headed in that direction. When Arthur came to the throne, the land was divided, but he brought it together under his rule. Chivalry flowered and Britain became a light in the darkness, the last burning torch of freedom in all of Christianity. For many years, the flame was kept alive. Years later, I rode with Arthur, at the height of his glory, triumphantly into Rome as his armies cleared a path through Europe and drove back the Visigoths and the Huns to Europe’s edge.”

They soon arrive at the sacred Ring of Stones that signals the approach to Salisbury Plain. Here they rest, just beyond its perimeter, for the horses will not go near this magic place. A priestess approaches them. “This place, Stonehenge, is constructed to the measure and motion of the sun, moon. and stars. I welcome you, for your hearts are pure and good. I tend to Britain’s calendar and this is a great day, for the night and day are of equal length, thus indicating the start of our new year. Come join our New Year’s feast—you will witness the equinox upon awakening.

Upon awakening, they enter the astronomical wonder of stones at Stonehenge and rededicate their swords to St. Michael, St. George, to God, to justice, and the Celtic way.

“We’ll be back here by the day that the sun rises directly over the heel-stone,” rallies the King, but in his heart he suspects that they may never see this place again!

The long and flat Plain of Salisbury seems endless and brings bitter memories of the Great War which we shall not discuss here. Nearing the coast they run into Scotti raiders on the shore “Couch lances,” directs the King, and they meet the charge, barely ready. The squires get their first taste of battle and the threesome stays together and leaves together. “They will be bolder if we meet them at sea,” says Percevale, “but they do not perform well on land.”

Finally, they reach Tintagel and transfer the horses, water caskets, and themselves into Taliesin’s ship; it is now perhaps a ship of fools. The King makes his knight-errancy official: “The shield of the Golden Chalice stays here; I shall use the shield of the White Horse, the usual shield for jousting by any challenger who wishes to remain unknown.”

The squires spread forth the broad white sails of their youth—so exuberant, so sure that their lives will never fail, their broadswords yet so keen and bright. They are an inspiration, even in their naiveté.

Lonely Tintagel, guardian of the coast and birthplace of Arthur, is left behind as they leave English soil…

Meanwhile, the winter passed by as hours and days melted into weeks. As the touch of spring awoke Peter and Angelina, they slid from their cocoon, their silvery pinions still wrapped and wet—and they breathed-in the moist and earthy air which had called them forth, and then gently unbundled their butterfly wings and billowed them into flight, as they, made younger by a thousand kisses, flew and fluttered in flux, transitionally, as monarch butterflies, but then transformed into a higher state that only few couples could know—that of a young man and a young woman, a sprite and nymph—as if so waved by some pixie hand, and hand-in-hand they ran through the tall and growing grass toward the pond, bidden, like dragonflies, toward even fresher visions, so clear and bright, that drew them forward through all the summers of youth and laughter that they’d ever known, as there, at the water’s edge, they looked into the still water, each of them seeing only the other’s reflection looking back, cheerfully radiant and ever youthful…

They had made it through the looking glass to the other side, to that higher form of love in which the perfection was unparalleled. Here the gift of love was given with its wrappings unattached—no ribbons; here there was caring for its own sake; here, freedom without recrimination; here, they rose above the bickering that kept so many couples grounded; here, at long last, after so many years of searching, after untold struggles and pain, they had discovered the unadulterated gold of love, pure and god-like—St. Peter and the Holy Angel—and they lived, loving forever, in this time suspended, as the world grew older—they lived and loved in their Paradise on Earth that they had built brick by brick, caring by caring thought, sharing by sharing act—a foundation with a base so wide that its peak had left this world completely and had aspired into the rapture and rhapsody of Heaven.

Yes, spring is an overflowing of nature that fills and over brims the mind, body, heart, and soul in its overwhelming sensations, and it was life’s fever that effected this undeniable aura of glow and warmth on Peter and Angelina—a blush of colored radiance—a force that carried them in the loving clench of spring’s passionate power. This, on top of love, made them alert, flushed, and breathless as they flew through the meadows, borne on the springtide, inebriated with the earthly airs. Here the grass was greener, the passion pinker, the hearts redder, and the feelings never blue.

Following the meadow trail along the wood side they caught the secret scents of the jasmine, deciphered the messages of the honeysuckle, sensed the signals of wisteria, recalled the half-forgotten memories of the rosemary, inhaled the sweet breath of violets, heard the thoughts of pansies, and felt the early youth of the primrose. As they entered the woods, the path became a serpentine writhe of roses, pink as a maiden’s cheek, that led to a clearing where daffodils were arranged by nature’s hand—all wearing their yellow pixie-dresses. Thence to the stream, where lilies exhaled their powerful sweetness. Drenched in fragrance, they passed ever deeper into the forest, noting the fairy-frocks and more daffodils brightening from the spirit light of morning into the fuller radiance of day.

Further on, there were brilliant clumps of blue delphiniums growing in the ruins of old cottages, happy dandelions everywhere, lilac bushes as large as a building, irises in their soft magnificence, and laughing pansies that were dewy-eyed and velvet smooth. Angelina knelt to smell a rose, seemingly becoming one for a moment, and, so, Peter lifted her to his lips, as if she were a flower, and kissed her and drank the dew.

“The lilies-of-the-valley,” she said, “came from Eve’s tears as she left the Garden of Eden, taking more than just the apple blossom.”

They once again traversed the pleasant paths of the rural cemetery, a picnic park in the olden days, pausing to pick a few daisies and to read a few epitaphs, some funny and some serious:

If there is a future world

My lot will not be bliss:

But if there is no other

I have made the most of this.


When once I was, my presence full beheld

Spirit, body, heart, and mind all in meld.

More than just the parts, I became the whole,

A human being living life unparalleled.


The best tasting foods create the most harm,

Clogging arteries, for all of their charm.

The woods are agloom, wicked and evil;

Woe, too, in sea and sky full of alarm.


I told you I was sick.


First a cough carried me off,

Then a coffin they carried me off in.


Here lies a memorial above

About the one who lies below.

They followed the Path of Emotional Closeness beyond the Great Wall, stopping for a picnic lunch at a wooden table that was built around the trunk of a tree, and poured wine and ate chicken. Their crow joined them and pecked for crumbs while the robins and song sparrows in the trees sang their territorial and mating melodies.

Angelina felt the serenity of the present, the now requited yearning of love from that long ago time, and the fair weather cloud of the future, sweet and thick with its promise of security. Peter saw the selves that they had found in the unconditional love of a relationship in which all the walls were down, one in which the spirits had spread across the boundaries of their bodies and inter-crossed.

Kissing deeply in the tree’s shade brought the gentle wind of peace, and, as the stress of the workweek rolled off of Peter, they reveled in each other, on another day spent away from the rest of the world. They touched each other’s faces all around, then their backs and fronts.

As they held each other the world went by unnoticed, becoming nonexistent. A blanket was placed on the ground, and there they caressed and rested in turn, drifting in the quietude of the afternoon. Lip to lip they fell asleep, intentionally, in the middle of a kiss, and, thus connected, their souls, already joined on their lips, were able to cross on, each into the other’s being—and so, therefore, they were able to dream the same dreams, and thus they came to share the same muses and fancies of life and adventure in such reveries of love and attachment that involved the deepest aspects of the self. Breathing as one, the rhythm carried them toward ever more profound visions and deeper into the never known intimacies of the spirit, and on to the innermost purviews of love, beauty, and truth, where they became blended and fused in both being and purpose—ever coalesced, coupled and linked in a place outside of all time and space, where it was always spring, where there were blue roses and white crows—as here, dear reader, we must leave them, although not for very long—forever young, eternally ageless, perpetually joined soul to soul in a kiss.

(End of Part 1)