halloween as henry....

 

THE MAP IS IN THE BOTTOM DRAWER

I do not think that it is in anyone's best interest that I decipher my intricate maps of the garden of the forking paths, for they are but maps that I have annotated in my own travels. And it is these maps that have pre-destined my future excursions. The HANDCUFF sign, as provocative as it is, leads to shallow water and steep hills. The CASHMERE GLOVE sign, seemingly soft and gentle, leads to the land of the Sybarites, who cannot be trusted for good advice. Walk a little further until you see the sign of the OPEN HAND, exercising caution that you do not mistake the crossroad sign, THE GAUNTLET, for it. Only one is bare and plain, the other--jeweled and precious. Without vision, things are not what they seem, and with it....i reckon that they are exactly as they are....

Translucent by hands upon black earth

THE QUEST FOR BAMBILAND

I have returned from a calm and introspective retreat at the mountain cabin, where the space and time for clear sight is presented as a reward for a short drive across ever familiar winding roads, forests and rivers--to a place of Reis' and my own device. After illuminating the cabin by destroying the remnants of spiders' work and redirecting the paths of large, bi-colored ants indigenous to the immediate perimeter of the stone foundation, I felt that order had been re-established within the microcosm there. Of course, within hours, nature had supplanted my emerging bambi-vision of the peaceable kingdom as the ants returned to scale the hairs of my legs and the spiders, having moved their webs to my bedding, reminded me that they, like the wind and the waves, will do as they please--regardless of my efforts to share a space with them--a space that, after all, they had lived and bred in for countless generations, each lived with the most subtle and unthinking variation. Frustrated, I crushed a black widow beneath the rubber of a spider-decorated flip-flop and wept at my inability to communicate a more collaborative state of existence between us. Maybe I acted from fear, an emotion that wise men meditate upon, rendering it evanescent and thereby enabling Bambi-world. Then I remembered what a rough life Bambi had before emerging on the great mountain rock cliff in charge of his life and destiny.