- by Timothy Patrick Monaghan
-
Inward I’m cluttered — distracted, confused, and unfocused, so
Turning off the electronic Mind-Numbing-Wonder of the Age
- with its constant Most-Important-News-Ever,
- I drift:
- Read, pause, think, and drift.
- And long slow thoughts bubble up,
- Odd wandering bubble-thoughts.
-
Shopping,
- in the midst of bakery smells
- I hear a voice,
- “Do you need anything hon?”
She’s a chunky, frizzy-haired Bakery Lady:
Tired, weary, and pushing hair out of her kind face.
“What,” I ask and she looks up –
- two frail ones in the midst of
Gigantic LCD Wonders that Consume Imaginations
- and
give a Flat Sense of Self -- but
- no sense of mystery,
- this mystery we live.
“What --” now, for a moment, eye-to-eye,
- The sweating Bakery-Lady and the Wandering-Me
- “What is the meaning of life?”
Her face goes blank, thinking,
then comprehends and her head rolls back
- hysterically roaring,
she steps back roaring, tells her bakery-mate and they both roar.
Laughter, is it a way of praise?
Roaring and enjoying
- the whole bakery changes for a moment
-
I slip away and up pops a bubble-thought,
- ‘Oh to live and give and be in that--
- simple, spontaneous, playful, and joy-filled.
