One Night

Life fell upon me like death by the guillotine.
It happened in an instant,
all at once.
And no matter how much you prepare yourself
for that inevitable moment,
-- it is always still unexpected.
"Can I really die?" the head asks the sharp blade above its plane.
"Can I really live?"

Kitchens are no place for connections
The living room connects:
The TV, the commercials, all the couches facing out
and away from each other,
all the faces sitting on the couches
consequently doing the same.

But kitchens are meant for cooking and washing and cleaning and baking.
There's no where to sit and nothing to watch.
There's really nothing you can do but stand in a corner.

This, of course, is a good thing...
because inevitably,
each person will be standing in a corner, four different corners,
and then the corners of the new corners formed from the people standing in the corners
will now be filled and
Lo! and Behold!
A circle is formed.
And people are now standing facing one another
with a drink in hand
and a story being told
or a joke being laughed at
or many stories and jokes and memories, each facing each.

And the part I wait for, the part I know is on its way upon that circle being formed
is the filet mignon of the conversation.
The small carved out piece
found for only a moment or two, or longer, but to get there one must carve through the fat
and the bones
and all the other insides
that are necessary for such a piece, such a bite.

And what a bite it is.


I wait.


And when it comes, I chew slowly,
but eagerly,

so as not to miss a single moment.
I taste it, swallow it all up.

Like a painter who needs no words to think, who dreams only images,
so too must the conversation remain in images and imagination made real.
Like the painter who mixes his pallet and moves the ground
the earth
the element onto a pallet
to mix and mix and to be mixed
with more earth to be moved around and swept up
by the lowly brush to move that very earth onto the canvas,
being a great Mover who merely transports
pieces from one place to the other in a grand display
of artistry and creativity and expression and
spirit (If I may):

the moment is physical.  tangible.
the movement of dust and bones into Life.
A Life that is suddenly displayed by some great Mover,
pushing itself upon you,
like a guillotine that falls just in time to put your head back on.