FOR CRISTO: THE TAO OF A COSMIC SAILOR

We move forward, my son. Always forward. We live in the Eternal Now, ephemeral and everlasting. We do not mourn the past in a veil of tears or blind ourselves in false reverie. We discover the history of futures that we hope to be and sing songs to it with words that reveal themselves behind the second hand of the clock and notes that that are born each moment.

There is only The Now and The Now renews itself endlessly in a single stream forward, like an arrow unencumbered by the friction of gravity launched from the mast of a ship. We set forth upon The Ocean of Time and Space and the Cartesian grid of waves are the canvass of our creation and adventure. You are always here, I am always here, upon the deck of our souls, the stars above and within to guide us across the universe.

CRISTO

It’s been one year in the eyes of a prophet, but one thousand losses in the soul of the seeker. My son is here yet gone and it pains me in even as I take shots of that analgesic called “faith.” What can I write about you? You still speak to me in whispers and dreams. Some may think it’s foolish that I still live of you, but souls, our children, come to us in different forms sometimes. Feline you were and are, but my child no less. You are not gone. You will never be gone. You are always with me. I do not mourn you thus, since you are here and will return anew in a different form at a different time. I celebrate you, Cristo, child of my heart.

Come, let us talk awhile and laugh.

ANIMALS

I saw them verywhere in the city the past two days. The animals. Some were dead on the road, some were slinking across streets beneath cars in the night. I live in a city, a real, live, teeming city full of concrete and buses and places of pleasure, yet there were wild animals at every turn.

Hawks dived down towards windows, possums lay dead in the road, skunks sprayed the night, feral cats prowled like panthers and the crows were flying in packs.

They were out and they were everywhere and something deep in my soul tells me that it's a sign of something and of something that's not quite right. Don't ask me what it is because I don't know yet. I just feel it inside.

We live in interesting times, to paraphrase the Chinese expression. Things have been turned on their head in the world and people around me seem content to lose themselves in some fantasy moment of bliss, telling themselves that there is some magic or magic man that will make it right. And they keep on living as they have, spending and playing as if the illusion were not an illusion and the good times had no price.

The angels have started to fall and the ground beneath us is starting to rumble. That sounds crazy, but I believe it. Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I'm just not in a good mood. Maybe this whole thing will pass...

But there's the animals, untamed, unleashed. Nature has gone wild. Just before I sat at my desk to write this, I saw a brutal sight. I watched a crow swoop down and kill a sparrow. Like an arrow he flew into his prey, bit into the sparrow's flesh, feathers floated around him like lost souls.

As I turned from the scene, a possum crawled out from a sewer. His mouth was bloody from the remains of what he'd just eaten.

I need to talk to my little Cristo.