coastal disturbances
��������� �����silence pervades except for the peculiar thrumming of bran van 3000's "drinking in LA" which is currently residing in my brain-soup.the days pass fairly uneventfully. a few ripples in the continuum. nothing major. laundry tonight giving me a peculiar sense of accomplishment, and now having actually completed doctor faustus for class tomorrow, i feel strangely at ease. dreaming of the west coast. dreaming of a warm climate, shorts. sandals. tropic wind. the sierra madres. proximity to mexico, land of the untamed lushness that spills out and over the occidentals to the orient ... cradled in the palm-valley of the dry desert ... i've always thought of mexico as a dry, unforgiving place. i need to read some more kerouac soon.
an odd coloured tinge to my temperament lately, flushed with red for embarrassment and apologia but with the mediterranean blue of accidie, the poet's angst and laziness. ennui. orange for sympathy, and the creeping edges of black for nausea and bile - everyone else seems sick on the outside, racked with illness and physical malaise, whereas i feel the incessant tug of tidal depression. in and out with the moon cycles.
pick up the phone. dial.
shutter out the winter, welcome the spring. as if sloughing off a coat, about to take off your shirt. at a beach. the water recedes. slips off the continental shelf - briefly. i run out, dashing through the shallows, barely missing the rocks, the anemone, the dying fish, chasing the receding tide - running, faster, as though the ocean will be gone if i don't see it for the last time.
suddenly i'm standing on the edge of the continental shelf. i look back. the world seems new. i am standing on a mars with atmosphere. everyone is gone and the ocean froths dark and deep below me, down the cliff, a waterfall in reverse, drying up.
i turn and head back to what's left of the shore, noticing "marked for development" signs along the way as i go. bulldozers creep out along the dirt. buildings spring up. new portland. new halifax. new new york city. new amsterdam across the way, the small strait, over the marianas trench ...
and the silence of the spring exhaling over the world.