Wednesday, June 30, 2010

WONDERLAND

I grimace at the painting
How it falls short
Missing something
A stroke or color
Something’s off.
Like playing a keyboard instead of a piano
Or lukewarm bathwater he said
Who wants to be friends when there was so much more before?
I understand now

It almost fits, the puzzle it does
But almost fits means nothing at all really
You can’t force puzzle pieces or they’ll break.
You’ve got to find the right one.

Ahh but there are millions and millions and millions
Of little pieces of dust and specks and confused looks and glances
It’s almost right
The painting is almost the most beautiful thing in the world
But it isn’t.
And that “isn’t” throws the whole thing off.

But perhaps it is that missingness,
That endearing lack
Endearment only because of its attempt,
That turns the tragedy to comedy
Imperfections then are rather sweet, and
Sadness, rather irrelevant.
The problem of pain, then
Is no problem at all but instead,
A bizarre glitch on the radar
We haven’t found the right piece yet.

And so the Earth’s heart beats steadily onwards
Always a bit off tempo,
Bleeding with its heavy heaves it begs to be complete
Cries itself to sleep
But wakes in the morning laughing
At us and all we like to pretend to be.
Apparently it’s all been overcome.
So that we may laugh too?
When we rise from our strife and loss
In the depths of our loneliness
We wonder how we made it--
Make it--
Will make it
Through the night.

But the Earth turns round and smiles
With scratches on her face and wrinkles on her forehead
Years and years and life and death but
Just a sweet imitation
Her smile,
Just the only thing we know.
Half and incomplete
And we laugh together at the sun and moon and
Stars
Yes we dare to laugh at, with, the stars.
We laugh saying how silly it all is,
In knowing how silly it’s not.

We bury our hearts
When we bury our dead
In tears and hopes and dreams
And somehow walk away whole?
And keep walking?
Is it possible?
Is it possible,
That maybe,
Just perhaps,
We might be going somewhere?

We imitate to create
An imitation of an imitation
Of the most Beautiful Thing in the universe.

What a pretty painting, but comic really,
For we have yet to see the storehouses of the snow.