Or I went sideways, following two different modes, and broke even with myself

Some days, words sort of just fail to grasp the fullness of emotion. Both sons soon off to their own lives away from us, the first taste of real distance for our youngest, an unpredictable routine for our oldest. One to his once yearly visitation (I have custody), the other to his first summer camp. I hate when they leave. A strong word, but I mean it.

The significantly more evolved one and I, though, enjoy the time to each other.

Blessings with the curses, an older generation might call it.

In that vein, sometimes the randomness of the cosmos presents you with an opportunity to enjoy two or more simultaneous states of existence, two ways of standing out.

We left the house early today, my head on doom and politics, lingering from before I drifted off to sleep, but my eyes resting on the wonder of the twin mountains to the west of us, limpid clouds above them casting darker green shadows, filtering the illumination from the east, so that the gleam of the cell and radio towers atop the nearest faded into a muted forest umber, and the mountain showed, almost, its pre-American face.

It still bears its Algonquin name, and the scars of a late 19th, early 20th century hotel, a trolley line and the present electro-industrial configuration.

Enough, said. Encapsulating both modes of the day:



"...Cowled in the utter grief
I am the priest of a new disorder
Whose flag unfurled
Bears a hatred for the western world

There is no compromise
No piped lament
To stay the blind
Just a shrike cacophony of war

Ashes ember, fires rise
No longer am I paralyzed
Now I drown in a loss worth fighting for

Black is my heart
Black is my heart
Black is my heart
I am nemesis..."

 

"I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world."