12.21.01



12.20.01

look at the date.
     12.20.01
     contemplate it. Take out the dots.
      122001
      it is a mystery. A riddle rounding the bank of itself.
     Look at it as it circles itself.
     The two twos.
      The two nothings
     between two ones
      like repeat
      :|| in a song score, written scribed and sounded between a cavern of ones.
      Just like waves crashing pounding between boulder hollows -
     between bellies, crevices, cracks split in granite
      fissures, hollowed washing machines tumbling
     barnacle bellies, communities, lives and rocks tumbled
     and tumbling in the basin. I found a starfish floating there once
     when the tide was low and I could walk in.
     The twos and the zeros
      flit in and out, floating
     between ones
      and in that space is magic.
     Elves polishing shoes during dreams - sleeping cobbler and wife.
     This is magic and this is noticing it.
      What would it be if we did not see? And what would it sound like if we did not name it?
     I hear riddles and elves in the columns dashing between greek revival pillars. They sound like an aunt’s laughter.

Hmmm.
Could it be that we found this? Maybe if these dates were different. Perhaps the year zero started a year earlier and it was already two thousand two. Does this only hold relevance according to time-space convention. What would it be if nothing were true and things were not known? What if truths shifted and feelings persisted? What would today’s date be if it weren’t so magical? Is it only because of the awareness? Is this sung to sensitivity? I have never been known to serenade.
     What I find shocking is that magic exists in finding it, not in its existence.
     And then she stood up and sat down in front of the computer. The feeling changed and she moved with. The urge to write joined her as the urge to vacate vacated. She left undone her red journal, where she cut pictures, leaving the text and articles strewn on her bedroom floor. Just as the tape was in her hand to tape down this photograph of WTC rubble, she gazed into the date and saw something that sparked her and she sat up, got up and began writing.
     Is this the ADD they diagnosed when she was a depressed seventh grade freak? Her attention unmastered and swerving like a reckless driver, following every red automobile as it passed to the left. What had she grown and mastered? It was an awareness of the movement to and from. Noticing her attention shift, she studied the impulse. It sounded something like a feeling muted under layers of reality. Hidden in an alcove behind her right ear, resided her subconscious. It spoke no language but desire. And knew no key to unlock the mystery but the taming of it.

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