April 16
Centerpiece
I could, I suppose, dig up a bowl to put in the middle
of this eyesore. Here are some “silk-like” flowers, plastic leaves.
I’ll stick them in this empty salad dressing bottle. There. All set.
It’s difficult to cultivate a decorative sense
with deprivation’s sloppy habit of hanging around
the joint. From near-squalor, good taste will seldom radiate.
Some folks of more comfortable means spread out and radiate
from the center of an upscale mall, the Mecca of the middle
class. They thrive in out-sized houses where company sits around
well-appointed tables, extended by the extra leaves
the hostess has so easily found. The ways of affluence make little sense
to me. For decades now my once-fond aspirations have been set
lower, to compensate for this lot in life as previously set
by Chance –not heartless, merely neutral. Good fortune tends to radiate
toward random recipients. She loves a profligate or frugal sense
equally. But –- she can take a sudden downturn in the middle
of an upswing (or vice versa.) The lack of certainty leaves
a person without a solid surface to work around.
“Lucky at cards, unlucky in love” is a saw heard around
gossipy circles. “Unlucky in both” is never set
up as a corollary. Many times conventional wisdom leaves
one wondering if it’s possible for love to radiate
with true contentment. From deep down in the middle
of the secret self, uncommon sense
infiltrates the common: seeing, hearing, touching– every sense.
Earnestly we use these tools to construct a life around
a circumscribed sphere, with a diameter in the middle –-
flexible, but immobile at its hub – - set
to show resilience. This is the kind of love that should radiate
both in-and-outward from the circle, when vagueness finally leaves.
The shyly-opened buds in spring and autumn’s flame-stoked leaves
might lure a hapless heart into a gullible sense
of hope. Or a similar incentive might radiate
out of some well-defined display to flaunt around.
With solid assurance, we could set
our table without the fear of ugly interference in the middle.
Past the middle of life, the future leaves.
One’s curriculum vitae has long been set. There’s no longer any sense
of bouncing around. Yet a few stubborn stars still radiate.