Focused inward, aware of organs of the head and belly,
Nervous system tenuously observing the organism,
I emerge, late in the day, from my darkened room, seeking sustenance.

A bowl of Japanese noodle soup, hot, salty, savory,
Will bring me back to life.

But first, a brief trip across the driveway of the upscale strip mall,
To the discount book store for a library reject,
A cheap avenue for good fiction.

So, now, I sit and sip and chew,
And turn the pages in an uncharacteristically leisurely pace,
And this phrase suddenly charges from the page into my still troubled brain:

"We are all creatures who have disappointed the Creator's grand design,"
And I know it is true, and I know others know it also --
But how do we know?

An answer immediately leaps to mind --

We know by our own striving for perfection in some realm,
Be it the body, the mind or performance of some act.

We know by drinking in the seeming perfection
Of the infant, a flower, the soaring bird.

We see it in the aggregate of all our fellows, as if vibrating closely or widely
Around an invisible reference we call the ideal.

But, the Creator cannot possibly be disappointed
In our inability to achieve the ideal, permanently--
It is presumptuous to assign human qualities to The Great Everything.

These thoughts, while emerging from the cave of the migraine headache...

08/05/1999

Posted on 12/12/2001
Copyright © 2025 Ronald A Pavellas