Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Observations

On the excuse of picking up medical forms from the doctor I was able to walk through Prospect Park yesterday in this eerie virtual weather. I hoped to swing by the fenced- off patch of ball field that's been popular with sparrows of all kinds but found it dead and silent, more evidence of virtuality. Sure I heard the Jays screaming but their calls always seems a little synthetic anyway, no offence to Jay lovers.

Somewhere almost lost in the closeness of the Jay's calls were the cries of hawks, a more delicate sound that comes to a finer, echoing point filled with height. Two hawks circled the Ravine East of the dog beach where I stood. They circled there for a long time, but the circle wasn't static, it eased around a little bit, grazing South, then lifting, then easing North. Of course there was no actual circle, this was only my mind filling in the gaps. And could you say that both birds were making one circle or was each making its own, which overlapped like a coil of wire pressed flat?

One of the birds dove and in so doing seemed to release the other from the vortex. The one remaining gradually flew higher and higher until it could barely be seen even though still in plain sight. Staring that way, I started to see the things usually filtered out of my view, the strange microscopically magnified looping strands mysteriously in my field of vision, snaking fuzzy ribbons of light and dark pulsating against the sky, abundant small whitish points resembling microorganisms. I guess I was watching so hard I started to see the inside of my eyeballs, saw the infinity within ironically begin to project its workings onto the infinity without. You know it is in fact a virtual day in those moments when the sky begins to quietly writhe with the pulsations of your own blood.

Walking 5th St. I found one of those bags woven of strong flattened plastic fibers, bags which my friend tells me are called vegetable bags in Colombia. Inside it scraps of paper inter folded, someone was throwing away their art, spiritual drawings, a blue goddess holding a green earth in her uplifted hands, a coiled black snake perched on an orange ball, 2 mandalas painted loosely with some sort of stamped marks. Out go the idols, just like the sand mandalas the monks toss to the wind. Also in the bag, an electric mixer, which I assumed was broken. I took the blender with me to give to my son who likes nothing better than dissecting broken appliances, but when I got home I found it worked. Inserting the whisks calmed the engine of the thing which spun too fast without their resistance. So for now I have 2 electric mixers. That makes 4 circles, and I'll just stick to that theory, because I know, if I test my hypothesis by sticking my finger into the silvery globe of speed, I'll be very sorry and in no mood for meringue.

5 comments:

Robin Morrison said...

"You know it is in fact a virtual day in those moments when the sky begins to quietly writhe with the pulsations of your own blood. "

It was a bit of a long and upward spiraling buildup, but the above made it worth the paragraphage.

I accord that my highest praise: envy, petty and probably irredeemable.

supgr: youth speak greeting to a female

amarilla said...

Thanks for plowing through. As a punishment for your criticism I demand you send a diamond tight prose poem at my soonest convenience. Or put one on your blog.

Robin Morrison said...

May it be a condensed version of your virtual/hawks post?

opila: the iridescent sheen of athletes and laborers in full, sun-stroked sweat. (Pun Bonus score!)

Robin Morrison said...

Speaking as a fellow housewife, however male, I find that one of my prime inspiration points is washing dishes. We've no machine but me to wash them clean (Scottish rhyme time), and placing my hands in hot soapy twice-chlorinated water spurs the bird.

So this will be my formative nucleus for the rewrite:

swirling like each others' sensai

skytest: I decline to define on the grounds that a cybersentience might recognize me as one of its won, which could prove awkward at the wedding.

amarilla said...

Like anyone else, you are truth's freedom embodied, so don't feel obligated to do anything but enjoy that plenitude that I hope you feel tingling in your fingertips. Prose schmoze!