Standing still for a minute in the park, it’s like a Disney movie—the birds and squirrels gather round.  All I need are deer and butterflies…

What’s the difference between this bird, with his mohawk and orange beak, turning sideways to look at me with one bright eye, and the new leaves swaying behind him?

Plants and animals split off from an earlier life-form.  And on the sea floor there are vegetables with mouths.

The tulips, so upright and alive, like a teenage choir.  And this squirrel rising up on two legs to stare at me.

Look at those shoulders, arms and forearms, chest.  Even a navel!

No doubt we communicate creature to creature.  I try to beam him good will.  Can’t eat good will.  He scampers off, with a single curse, then leaps onto the trunk of a tree, powers up the spiral stair.  Our one encounter in this life…

And the tulip.  Little ice cliff of flower flesh.  Mentally, I draw eyes on you, undo them.  Something surges in me that may be akin to photosynthesis or the rising of sap.  Is it possible, is it even remotely possible, that the tulip is exhilarated by its viewers?

The birches are radiant in themselves.   And then there’s sun from a clear sky, on them, on all the trees, shining on the people carrying their coats, showing skin–a whole radiant atmosphere connecting everything. 

Birds and squirrels—we get to see you pursue your purpose, and we change it, unimportantly; if it wasn’t me, it would be a noise, or even an inner impulse.

Bird with the orange beak, perched on a low wire fence.  I know this will be brief.  But it’s actually lasting a while, through many jerky frame by frame movements of your head… 

Branch of new leaves, you work your magic on me.  You’re not going anywhere.  I sink into you, smiling.  Pure life shining.  Something in me lets your swaying slow my heartbeat.

I was once young and stupid.  But never this stupid.

At 21, in my own mind, and in my study group, I called for the confiscation of all private property above a certain amount.

My father was paying for my college, sent me pocket money.  My own property was close to nil.  I’d had one summer job, just stopped showing up…

Decades of American Communists saw the homeless in winter.  Fools, they came to worship Stalin.  But they didn’t know his death-lists, the murder of millions, the gulag, the starving of Ukraine.  They didn’t know his true nature.

You–you saw October 7^th!   And you can read Hamas’ charter! 

The kid across from you in screaming lines on the quad:  he is a Zionist. 

Is it abstract and theoretical for him too?  Maybe.  Or maybe his family lives in Haifa.  Maybe his cousin would be machine-gunned if Hamas invaded from the West Bank, there where Israel is just a few miles across. 

It’s a radiant day on campus.  The sun is shining on rich and moist green grass.  Israel needs grass like this.  So does Gaza.  There are flowers everywhere. 

The two sides are getting sunburned.  They feel the sun on their cheeks, their lips, feel it even in their throats, inside their screaming mouths!

The native and the migrant birds frightened by the dissonance of conflicting chants, have decided it’s worth it to come back and feast on caterpillars.

The kid across from you: his mouth is dry.  He’s not getting enough water.  Are you?

You’ve had multiple challenges–that’s clear. I think I can see the scars…

Suddenly, Jacob drops down dead, his yarmulke still clipped to his hair.  You called for murder and now it’s happened.  His friends gather around.  His parents are hugging his corpse.  They don’t understand.  The doctors come and take his organs for donation.  The eulogy is read. You learn a lot. Now everyone leaves, the quad is clear.  Look at his face.  Is this really what you want, times thousands?

Yes, to get from point A to point B.  From bed to bathroom to kitchen.

Yes, to pace while thinking or talking on the phone.  Drift to the window and look out, seeing nothing or something…

But more than that—to walk down the street, just walk for a few minutes, and the surprising distance that piles up behind!

Or go deep in the woods on a trail, around the bend, and get to that little valley, that little stream, and stare at moss and branches, the flow over rocks.

Soon I’ll rejoin all the regular people.  Connect again to rabbits and deer.  To everything that works properly—bacteria, supercomputers…

Wasn’t everyone grinding bone on bone and limping heavily?  You in your car at the light, isn’t your right leg damaged on the brake?  You in the crosswalk, aren’t you in pain?

I’ve never seen a limping deer, but they must exist, lying on their good side on flattened grass deep in the thicket.  It’s just getting worse.  The prognosis is not good…

I bonded with an arthritic dog, and that was a consolation.

But now I have things in common with the great walkers—the daredevils who cross whole countries, even continents, sometimes walking backwards!

I relate to the pilgrims, on the way to Compostela, through the Pyrenees and passing Tortosa.  The marchers, heroic protestors of past and present, nod to me.

I stayed connected through pain and limping and a walker and a urine bottle to my father, deceased.  Now as I do wooden laps, my self-image changes; I feel his exterior surrounding me.  I have gray hair, am wearing a yellow sweater; I’m unusually present to children I don’t have.  He/we put in our time, do our laps, get stronger, come back to ourselves.  And soon we’ll unveil a new suave simplicity—nothing to see here!