the gift of sight has always been a curse
i hide in sleep and friendship
and silence
this morning (afternoon) i got to work and heard that there had been a fire near my house, just a few doors down...a strange little cleaning supplies outfit, a dilapidated building with a blue tarp roof and a window full of plungers and other junk. every day i pass the guys who work there, every day we see one another but pretend not to. one of them (i suspect i know which one, though sometimes people surprise you so i have a second choice even though there are really only two of them to begin with if you eliminate the owners) leaves cairns made from garbage found as the snow thaws - items brought by animals or left by pilgrims who pass by on the way to mecca (of the beer or grocery variety) and sometimes lose their belongings. before i woke up there were helicopters and billows of smoke; later i stood across the street and waited for the bus in the aftermath, somehow oblivious to it all, looking at a sight so familiar that i no longer see. tonight i stopped by to survey the damage and pay my respects in the dark. i knew it was only a matter of time before their neglect backfired, but i was also made keenly aware of how even great loss doesn't always have to mean tragedy. blackened wood, boarded up windows, but no smell of smoke unless you get really close and no damage to the houses too close by. the lilac still stands, unscathed.
i wonder if he knows how much his gifts make me smile, and then i imagine there must be no other reason why he creates them. for smiles that is, not for me alone. my favorite was the yellow rubber glove, middle finger placed oh-so subtly over the end of a broomstick, a flag, an ode...his works are symbols of resistance and testaments to the necessity of continuing to look for beauty among dullness and ruins. no reason for him to return, now. i will miss him, my secret friend and unlikely spirit lover.
