The Bakery-Ladies Roar

- 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.