The Narrative Image

Compare and contrast these two portraits. The first is an orangutan kept captive in a zoo. The second is me, a lab technician who has demonstrated a record of reliable attendance. Oh wait. One advantage I have over the orangutan is my relative freedom to get in my car and take a road-trip (whenever work and finances allow). We hominids have done some useful things with our brains. We’ve built shelters that protect our things, our work and even ourselves from the environment. But with our usual shortsightedness, we didn’t anticipate that the subliminal hum of ballasts and the flickering hellish green cast of fluorescent lamps would drive some of us bonkers. Every once in a while I miss the sky. Careful observation has revealed that in our universe, generally, everything is progressing from order to disorder. But there are lots of eddies - places were energy gets sucked into swirling vortexes - where, briefly, order can arise from disorder. Everyday, most of us make some small contr

Basalt monolith Basks in prodigal sunlight Dreams of bikinis Rigid magma spine Keeps talking ‘bout glory days Not so hot right now Maybe men did this Built a highway in the sand Turns out they didn’t Bipolar vandal Breaking in two times a day Ransacking the bay Elder trees once said It’s time to set down some roots Timing’s everything Broken in upheaval My hidden faults revealed Too sediment-al Defiant posture Land intimidates the sea Look at my mussels! Sediments tilted Up and down are east and west What the hell happened? Multi-lane highways Time crafted for nobody And not meant for cars Rocks dissolve before The universal solvent’s Twice daily licking The sea sets forth its Restless liquid arsenal Per lunar command Millennial war Battered ramparts stand between Order and chaos Floating continents Bump and jostle each other Sometimes get upset Wind and waves persist Earthen fortifications Bow to gravity Bits of history Recorded in sand and stone Lost in the telling A shor