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 As I walked beyond the forsythia bush at the south end of Coburn's garden late this afternoon, I heard the telephone ring. This time I answered the alarm and Lucinda's voice told me it was time. I asked her time for what and of course she said it never matters, not between the two of us. And I realized she was right. I should have known better than to reach for the receiver.Immediately upon this reflection I slowed my pace and I looked up to join the black-and-white sky. I followed the stormy moon that moved ahead of me and toward the cliff's edge, to the head of the winding staircase that my grandfather built of railroad ties the year before the soldiers put him to work mowing dead lawns at the asylum. It was sometime that year, as a child of ten, that I lost all sight of color. I've felt better ever since. Most people see so much of events that the reasons they pursue, the reasons they imagine to be responsible for their visions, confuse them and wear them down. These people forget that there are no reasons, just gardens and cliff-side mansions, and ladies who vanish, and distant voices whispering their promises and threats through telephone wires. Even this sky is a stormy story I imagined. Its clouds have nothing to do with my birth, nor with my death. With my marked hand I held on to the top rail. I felt its wooden planks sway with the wind. I let it take the part of me it claimed. Lucinda taught me how to do this in a detached manner, free to watch my hand as if it were my footsteps running in front of me, unafraid of the journey's end. Sometimes I think the wind feels good, while at other times the lack of balance disturbs me. When a man learns to watch too carefully that which happens to him, he begins to fear what might happen next. Those who live in cliff-side mansions without a certain plot to organize their stories suffer this nervous phobia more than others; but as with every daemon known to haunt a human being, an isolated intellect owns certain advantages over those who communicate by way of telephones and clocks. I stared down at the ocean waves, the waves that always crash when I need most to think, and there on the sand, standing still and looking up at me, was Coburn the gardener. He appeared far younger tonight than he did last evening. I forced a smile he could not help but question, and I asked him if he wanted later to join me for tea. I know he understood the warning, because he turned away. I climbed down the staircase and I walked along the beach. I matched my footsteps with the lighter prints Lucinda left in the sand when she and I were young. She led me back to the cottage. The cottage has cedar shingles and a wide porch. Sometimes I sleep on one of the wicker chairs as I listen to the stormy moon. Tonight, though, I'll go inside and light a fire. By its glow I'll study the runes and wrinkles on my hand. *** Thanks for stopping by to visit us here at SpilledBeans.com. If you'd like to be notified whenever something new is posted to SpilledBeans.com, then please join the Spilled Beans notification list. -- Con affetto, Anthony V. Toscano, Editor SpilledBeans.com  |
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