Larry L. Dill's
New Hope Journal
poems, essays and works in progress
June 15, 2006, New York, 7:30 am. Rain threatening. Complete breakdown threatening, too.
Bob told me the story out in Cranford, New Jersey, yesterday of going to see the Dalai Lama in Washingtom, D.C., some years ago. Someone asked a question from the audience.
“People talk of an apocalypse,” the questioner began. “What if an apocalypse actually came? War, pestilence, chaos, death and destruction? What would the Dalai Lama suggest a person do?”
The Dalai Lama thought for a moment and then whispered into the ear of his interpreter who in turn spoke for him.
“If you should hear of such devastation some place but it is not happening where you are. Stay where you are. If it should happen in a place where you are, try to find a better place and go there.”
I have seen the breakdown here in New York. It has not come yet, but it is coming. If you are young and energetic and have sufficient income and significant dreams, you can persist. I have none of those things anymore. Horns honk outside on the street below because someone’s plans have been thwarted. Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a battle. Why? Why is that so?
Human survival seems so much more complicated than mere animal existence. People believe that they are on a journey with an invisible spirit, a holographic image of themselves. Not a guide. More like a wife, sometimes following dutifully behind them, sometimes leading. Sometimes the spirit moves you. Sometimes it seems that you must drag it along like an obstinate child. Sometimes your spirit is a poet singing sweetly in your ear. Sometimes it is a banshee crying doom.
Maybe animals have these spirits, too. The Indians believed as much. Animists always have. Perhaps that is why Samantha cries in the early morning hours. She is not the banshee, it is the banshee that travels with her and uses her vocal chords.
Y said once, “This is not me. It is something that possesses me. It is the hormones.” Physical explanations for spiritual mysteries are the way out of the darkness. I believe. But there is a lot of darkness still ahead.
Fifty thousand people in Yankee stadium last night. I was there with them. And fifty thousand ghosts there, too. Hormones, pheromones, cell phones. $10 cans of beer. The Yankees won, by the way. The Indians lost.
We have no power against the tides. The ocean roars and all we have is a car horn to fight back with. Civility is only for the very rich and even that turns out to be a house built on sand.
I will shower now and wash off the dust of yesterday’s roads and go back out there and get back on them. Happy Birthday to me. And Happy Birthday to all of you, too. Bloom where you are planted.
--Larry L. Dill
larrydill@newhopejournal.com
www.newhopejournal.com
copyright 2006 by Larry L. Dill
June 15, 2006