i was just sitting outside. i have a minivan, ya know? I had the back open and the interior lights on. this is the darkest time of the night, before the moon rises. so the stars are all out and my erin is on the phone talking relentlessly on about all of the things that people do and say to her and about all of the things that will happen eventually. i don't think this way tonight so naturally my mind wanders. a real fucking spread of stars this time around. the gods must be warm and naked and swimming. whatever that means. it's warm; 45 degrees or so, and the horizon catches my eyes intense and shocking. i thought the horizon was on fire. albany glows there some thirty miles away just past the last foothill ridges of the taconic mountains and by fault of disclarity, i process this vision of shimmering oranges and reds as a single massive burning ball raging up off the hill and into the sky toward the stars and the gods that inhabit them. a peaceful fire though, because the sky is high tide heavy waters drifting tonight. the gods are swimming, if you remember. and in the foreground, a line of trees. old oaks maybe. and erin still talks on eventuality.



so i was smoking a cigarette and drinking port and thinking about the world i've grown up in and its many manners of things that are only partially tangible. this digital world. this internet. this unexcited music scene. things that teeter on the fringe of what is real and what is imaginary. this is why i love film. every time i hear the shutter click, i can feel the karma racing, like with gravity, toward the center and the matter of the static creation. it's why i isolate myself and socialize simultaneously, i suppose. to keep an eye on the border as it moves.

and it is why i travel among great cities and great landscapes in meager ways. by bus, by train, by car. to rub up against the fibers of this world. i've heard from elder and wiser sources that few people live this way and I've found from direct experience that fewer care to now. I'm unconcerned with the sciences of politics. I live with intention but i do not live politically. I don't care about what you want, i care about you. I don't want what you have, and I don't care what they have. I have it all. Everything that happens in the universe is happening right here, right now. I don't need to manufacture anything, i only need to create ways to see it happening. that's all i need to do. Then put a picture up on a wall and let us all stand at it in awe, saying "look at that!" we all know it was there all the time. we all are guilty of nothing if we look now and are grateful angry sad happy peaceful quiet compassionate disturbed and, you know, whatever. no judgement; only vision and reaction. no poverty and no rebel factions. no need for it. of course, who am i to say something like that?



Then the service cuts out and the phone beeps and it's quiet again. not even crickets tonight. just stars like the glowing toenails of celestial swimmers. When I call Erin back, we end the conversation and I stare at the "all-american city" as it appears on the horizon to be burning. and in relative terms it may be. but it is with peace that i turn my back and head toward the front door.