Salty

Oh children, we are a mess. Things have happened and unhappened; leading men have become extras; heroes have become villains; characters that died in Act I have returned in Act III. All these things and more: pesky leaking walls in a far-off house; there was even an attempted abduction with threat of rape.

How can one simply sit? How can one do anything but walk heavily west until the continental shelf gives way?

Did I live for the moment? For an eighth of each, perhaps. Some people are better equipped for earthly joy. For each moment here I spend three building its sister somewhere beyond Pluto.

I sang sad songs to the ocean today. Heavy sands blocked much of the plaint, but enough dreary melody was washed away that I could turn back toward home.

* * *

To loves specific and general, I offer my insufficient thanks.

It may be that a tiger has come closest to a blind, willing, and spiritual love. I had never been loved as mere and utter saltshaker before. Do you understand? So irrelevant was the artifice of my own person that Tiger loved whether I was tan or pale, tired or spastic, talkative or tongue-tied, or even there at all.

* * *

Tiger perhaps does not deserve special mention here. Tiger is, or has become, precisely the handsome prince who rules the lands beyond Pluto. Tiger is the scent of foggy eucalyptus trees, rosemary bushes in the sun, and that indescribably delicious spice of well-tended flesh.

* * *

Goodbye, tigers! It is time for all saltshakers to turn inward and reflect upon their grains. Never again, we say. Never again, we repeat.