8.13.2006

Just Maybe...

I climb on one of those childhood merry-go-rounds, the kind you find in an old fashioned playground where metal made scorching hot from the sun ruled, metal that burned your hands where you grabbed on and the back of your legs as you squatted down.

And I spin fast and fast as a team of children run, propelling the spinning machine in motion. I lose myself in the spin, the blur going by. Unable to focus, I see more deeply, within and beyond.

I lean back tempting my body to fall, clutching the hot metal bars with outstretched arms, eyes pointed to the sky. And I start to read the clouds for the messages, convinced a language lives there beyond shapes and colors. I figure if I can learn to read the clouds, I can learn the untold secrets of our life.

The children watch me, the grown-up in silent play. They study my body language and I see them and invite them to stop their running and climb upon the spinning merry-go-round. Together we lie down on our backs, our legs outstretched, feet touching in the center, our bodies like spokes of a bicycle wheel.

All the children look to the clouds and I ask them, “What do the clouds say?” and one by one they start shouting out their answers.

And I strain to hear, the wind somehow blocking sound from getting to my ears. But I don’t mind because I see the children shouting and I know they can read the clouds, can speak the language, and it’s more important for them than for me. They have more time to teach the world of the clouds. I was just to bring them here.

4 comments:

Willie Baronet said...

On the one hand, I know this is brilliant and inspired. And on the other I can only think about the time I ate a bunch of watermelon before getting on one of these spinning things and feeling so sick it was like my eyeballs were pushing up into my brain. :-)

Anonymous said...

That gave me such a happy feeling. i just wish reading the clouds wasn't so hard for us adults.

Tiffanie said...

That was beautiful.

Osquer said...

"The children watch me, the grown-up in silent play." Marvelous! This isn't prose it's poetry!