to the only bright-eyed person I could find
in this fathomless sea of darkly-sunken, vacant faces.
A sentient soul in this disenchanted land of the blind.
The old man raised an eyebrow and broadly smiled:
“Come, sit a moment while you find calm,” he beckoned.
“Then we’ll take a walk and leave these cares behind.”
I drew a deep breath, and then drew a second.
He shuffled along the rosewood bench to make room,
introducing himself and asking my name:
“Glad to make your acquaintance,” Joe tipped his cap,
a beam on his face and his eyes all a-flame.
“I’ve sat here for years, watching the world go by,”
old Joe informed me, with a sigh and lament,
“Not one in a hundred in the here and now.
There or then, they are, not truly in the moment.”
“Oh! hither and thither and helter-skelter:
armies of ants in an ant-heap making money,”
cried old Joe, wiping a stray tear from his eye.
“Better to be like bees, in a hive, sharing honey.”
I took a deep gulp and bade the man continue.
“What you’re hearing and seeing now is grim reality,
squeezed through your unregenerate distorting lens,
and a dreadful reminder of our fallibility.”
“Beyond this superficial layer, lies a tough unsavoury husk,
and at the moment that’s all you seem to behold.
But please trust me when I tell you: deeper still –
beyond – lies a kernel, a beating heart of gold.”
“Do you think I’m going mad?” I asked old Joe.
He said nothing as we walked off down the road –
then paused – and nodded at a drive as we passed by,
and I turned my head, mind still on overload.
“That’s what’s happening to you,” old Joe explained.
He pointed down the driveway, waving his arm about,
and the deep cracks in the concrete said it all:
this was my state – my fate – it left no room for doubt.
“Just nature’s renaissance, and pushing up roots,”
smiled Joe, “but look there and you’ll see what I mean:”
and there, in a crack, I saw a flower a-bloom,
its petals vibrant orange, its slender stem jade-green.
“So, you don’t think I’m mad?” asked I, peering at him,
and yet I wondered if this was subtle subterfuge.
“Heaven forbid,” old Joe smiled and shook his head:
“We just need to get you to a safe refuge.”
“Not the psyche ward! Dear God, please no!” I screamed,
and Joe placed a calming hand on my shoulder:
“Don’t be so quick to judge,” he gently replied –
but deep inside I still sensed my dragon a-smoulder.
“I know a shelter a few hours’ walk from here:
a country school where they’ll take care of your needs,
teach you how to keep your secret tucked away,
and how to grow a garden from those precious seeds.”
“For how long?” I asked, thrilled at this new prospect.
“As long as it takes,” he shrugged, as we walked on.
“Until you’re ready to return and play your role.
Good job you found us before you were too far gone.”
“And on the way, there’s a quaint tavern I frequent,
where we might relax over a lunch and beer,
to celebrate the joy of your first awakening,
and give thanks that – at long last – you made it here.”
“There are so many folk around with partial solutions,
that it’s hard to tell the horse from the cart.
So easy to get lost in the world’s gyrations,
and lose touch with the quiet-wisdom of the heart.”
I’m sorry you fell through the cracks,” Joe lamented,
“and you’ve had to struggle and suffer all alone.
But the only important thing, in the end
is that you made it to this major milestone.”
“... Before you ended up pushing up the daisies.”
~ ET. Yorkshire, England, © Saturday 5 September 2020.
Background image: Concrete driveway severely cracked and buckled by tree roots along Glen Mawr Drive in Ewing Township, Mercer County, New Jersey.
Image author: Famartin.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons.
Image licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Superimposed image: Orange gerbera flower.
Image author: George E. Koronaios.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons.
Image licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).