Winking at Divinity

It was sight made sound. I could hear my eyelids closing. I could hear them stretching down, smoothing out the creases that have developed over time. It sounded like a mass in E minor. I thought that would be the sound they made upon opening, certainly not when closing. My hand was in my pocket; it doesn’t matter which one. Every movement I make is a movement made with all of me. My eyelids sang in E minor as my thumb nestled my keyring. I could lie and say it was a beautiful thing. Honestly, it was just a thing. It was no more extraordinary than auditory halucinations, than phantom sights or smells. It was no more far reaching or earth shattering than the scent of cedar mingling with tea leaves, the scent of rain kissing dirt and earth kissing air. It was nothing more than that. I would love to tell you of some big show being put on in the sky, like lightening strikes or hail stones pummeling the ground, but there was none of that. The sky closed its eyes, and I turned around. So, there I stood with my thumb nestling my keyring in my pocket and my eyelids singing in E minor. My skin turned to unmolded clay. My body heaved itselt, not outward or forward, not inward or backward; it was just a heave, a sigh, a release. I can’t tell you what it was. It was no more spasmodic than a last breath, than the rush of primal orgasms, than the contractions of labored birth. It was nothing more fantastical than that. That heave took my breath away as my thumb played in my pocket with the keyring and my eyes sang in E minor. And the earth did not swallow me and the wind did not carry me. I don’t think I moved at all. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t smile; I didn’t cry. It was far too ordinary an event for such a show, such a display. And the taste of honey filled my mouth, honey from the tomb and it was sweet ambrosia. Sweet ambrosia and I didn’t swallow it or spit it out. Neither seemed an appropriate way to waste such a common thing. Common like silk douvets hand washed in a metal tub and line dried on Saturdays; like supermarket check-out girls donning tiarras, saris, and diamond rings; like filling car tires with radium. It was far too common a thing. It pleased me little, since, after all, there is hardly anything extraordinary in the commonplace.

(February 12, 2008)

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