Thursday, August 16, 2007,7:46 PM

Do they still call it infatuation? That magic axe that chops away the world in one blow, leaving only the couple standing there trembling? Whatever they call it, it leaps over anything, takes the biggest chair, the largest slice, rules the ground wherever it walks, from a mansion to a swamp, and its selfishness in its beauty. Before I was reduced to singsong, I saw all kinds of mating. Most are two-nightstands trying to last a season. Some, the riptide ones, claim exclusive right to the real name, even though everybody drowns in its wake. People with no imagination feed it with sex – the clown of love. They don't know the real kinds, where losses are cut and everybody benefits. It takes a certain intelligence to love like that – softly, without props.


But the world is such a showpiece, maybe that's why folks try to outdo it, put everything they feel onstage just to prove they can think up things too: handsome scary things like fights to the death, adultery, setting sheets afire. They fail, of course. The world outdoes them every time. While they are busy showing off, digging other people's graves, hanging themselves on a cross, running wild in the streets, cherries are quietly turning from green to red, oysters are suffering pearls, and children are catching rain in their mouths expecting the drops to be cold but they're not; they are warm and smell of pine needles before they get heavier and heavier, so heavy and fast they can't be caught at one time. Poor swimmers head for shore while strong swimmers wait for lightning's silver veins. Bottle-green clouds sweep in, pushing the rain inland where palm trees pretend to be shocked by the wind.


Do you really not know how much I love you?
 
posted by Still Waters Image
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