One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound
except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember
whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve
nights when I was six.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky
that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in
the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays
resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.

It was on the afternoon of the Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero's garden, waiting for cats, with her
son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland,
though there were no reindeers. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we
waited to snowball the cats. Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they
would slink and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and
moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their
eyes. The wise cats never appeared.

We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows - eternal, ever
since Wednesday - that we never heard Mrs. Prothero's first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden. Or,
if we heard it at all, it was, to us, like the far-off challenge of our enemy and prey, the neighbor's polar
cat. But soon the voice grew louder.
"Fire!" cried Mrs. Prothero, and she beat the dinner-gong.

And we ran down the garden, with the snowballs in our arms, toward the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring
out of the dining-room, and the gong was bombilating, and Mrs. Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier
in Pompeii. This was better than all the cats in Wales standing on the wall in a row. We bounded into the
house, laden with snowballs, and stopped at the open door of the smoke-filled room.

Something was burning all right; perhaps it was Mr. Prothero, who always slept there after midday dinner with a
newspaper over his face. But he was standing in the middle of the room, saying, "A fine Christmas!" and
smacking at the smoke with a slipper.

"Call the fire brigade," cried Mrs. Prothero as she beat the gong.
"There won't be there," said Mr. Prothero, "it's Christmas."
There was no fire to be seen, only clouds of smoke and Mr. Prothero standing in the middle of them, waving his
slipper as though he were conducting.
"Do something," he said. And we threw all our snowballs into the smoke - I think we missed Mr. Prothero - and
ran out of the house to the telephone box.
"Let's call the police as well," Jim said. "And the ambulance." "And Ernie Jenkins, he likes fires."

But we only called the fire brigade, and soon the fire engine came and three tall men in helmets brought a hose
into the house and Mr. Prothero got out just in time before they turned it on. Nobody could have had a noisier
Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt,
Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would
say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets,
standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?"

Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel
petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt
like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the
English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the
daft and happy hills *******, it snowed and it snowed. But here a small boy says: "It snowed last year, too. I
made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea."

"But that was not the same snow," I say. "Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it
came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow
grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and
settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards."

"Were there postmen then, too?"
"With sprinkling eyes and wind-cherried noses, on spread, frozen feet they crunched up to the doors and
mittened on them manfully. But all that the children could hear was a ringing of bells."
"You mean that the postman went rat-a-tat-tat and the doors rang?"
"I mean that the bells the children could hear were inside them."
"I only hear thunder sometimes, never bells."
"There were church bells, too."
"Inside them?"
"No, no, no, in the bat-black, snow-white belfries, tugged by bishops and storks. And they rang their tidings
over the bandaged town, over the frozen foam of the powder and ice-cream hills, over the crackling sea. It
seemed that all the churches boomed for joy under my window; and the weathercocks crew for Christmas, on our
fence."

"Get back to the postmen"
"They were just ordinary postmen, found of walking and dogs and Christmas and the snow. They knocked on the
doors with blue knuckles ...."
"Ours has got a black knocker...."
"And then they stood on the white Welcome mat in the little, drifted porches and huffed and puffed, making
ghosts with their breath, and jogged from foot to foot like small boys wanting to go out."
"And then the presents?"
"And then the Presents, after the Christmas box. And the cold postman, with a rose on his button-nose, tingled
down the tea-tray-slithered run of the chilly glinting hill. He went in his ice-bound boots like a man on
fishmonger's slabs.
"He wagged his bag like a frozen camel's ****, dizzily turned the corner on one foot, and, by God, he was
gone."

"Get back to the Presents."
"There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths;
zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-
shanters like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking
tribes; from aunts who always wore wool next to the skin there were mustached and rasping vests that made you
wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all; and once I had a little crocheted nose bag from an aunt now,
alas, no longer whinnying with us. And pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not
to, would skate on Farmer Giles' pond and did and drowned; and books that told me everything about the wasp,
except why."

"Go on the Useless Presents."
"Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor's cap and
a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake that no one could explain, a
little hatchet; and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that
an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow; and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the
trees, the sea and the animals any colour I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the
red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds. Hardboileds, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches,
cracknels, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and butterwelsh for the Welsh. And troops of bright tin soldiers who,
if they could not fight, could always run. And Snakes-and-Families and Happy Ladders. And Easy Hobbi-Games for
Little Engineers, complete with instructions. Oh, easy for Leonardo! And a whistle to make the dogs bark to
wake up the old man next door to make him beat on the wall with his stick to shake our picture off the wall.
And a packet of cigarettes: you put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited
for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And
then it was breakfast under the balloons."

"Were there Uncles like in our house?"
"There are always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle
and sugar ****, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird
by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out. Men and
women wading or scooping back from chapel, with taproom noses and wind-bussed cheeks, all albinos, huddles
their stiff black jarring feathers against the irreligious snow. Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all
the front parlors; there was sherry and walnuts and bottled beer and crackers by the dessertspoons; and cats in
their fur-abouts watched the fires; and the high-heaped fire spat, all ready for the chestnuts and the mulling
pokers. Some few large men sat in the front parlors, without their collars, Uncles almost certainly, trying
their new cigars, holding them out judiciously at arms' length, returning them to their mouths, coughing, then
holding them out again as though waiting for the explosion; and some few small aunts, not wanted in the
kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat on the very edge of their chairs, poised and brittle, afraid to
break, like faded cups and saucers."

Not many those mornings trod the piling streets: an old man always, fawn-bowlered, yellow-gloved and, at this
time of year, with spats of snow, would take his constitutional to the white bowling green and back, as he
would take it wet or fire on Christmas Day or Doomsday; sometimes two hale young men, with big pipes blazing,
no overcoats and wind blown scarfs, would trudge, unspeaking, down to the forlorn sea, to work up an appetite,
to blow away the fumes, who knows, to walk into the waves until nothing of them was left but the two furling
smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars. Then I would be slap-dashing home, the gravy smell of the
dinners of others, the bird smell, the brandy, the pudding and mince, coiling up to my nostrils, when out of a
snow-clogged side lane would come a boy the spit of myself, with a pink-tipped cigarette and the violet past of
a black eye, cocky as a bullfinch, leering all to himself.

I hated him on sight and sound, and would be about to put my dog whistle to my lips and blow him off the face
of Christmas when suddenly he, with a violet wink, put his whistle to his lips and blew so stridently, so high,
so exquisitely loud, that gobbling faces, their cheeks bulged with goose, would press against their tinsled
windows, the whole length of the white echoing street. For dinner we had turkey and blazing pudding, and after
dinner the Uncles sat in front of the fire, loosened all buttons, put their large moist hands over their watch
chains, groaned a little and slept. Mothers, aunts and sisters scuttled to and fro, bearing tureens. Auntie
Bessie, who had already been frightened, twice, by a clock-work mouse, whimpered at the sideboard and had some
elderberry wine. The dog was sick. Auntie Dosie had to have three aspirins, but Auntie Hannah, who liked port,
stood in the middle of the snowbound back yard, singing like a big-bosomed thrush. I would blow up balloons to
see how big they would blow up to; and, when they burst, which they all did, the Uncles jumped and rumbled. In
the rich and heavy afternoon, the Uncles breathing like dolphins and the snow descending, I would sit among
festoons and Chinese lanterns and nibble dates and try to make a model man-o'-war, following the Instructions
for Little Engineers, and produce what might be mistaken for a sea-going tramcar.

Or I would go out, my bright new boots squeaking, into the white world, on to the seaward hill, to call on Jim
and Dan and Jack and to pad through the still streets, leaving huge footprints on the hidden pavements.
"I bet people will think there's been hippos."
"What would you do if you saw a hippo coming down our street?"
"I'd go like this, bang! I'd throw him over the railings and roll him down the hill and then I'd tickle him
under the ear and he'd wag his tail."
"What would you do if you saw two hippos?"

Iron-flanked and bellowing he-hippos clanked and battered through the scudding snow toward us as we passed Mr.
Daniel's house.
"Let's post Mr. Daniel a snow-ball through his letter box."
"Let's write things in the snow."
"Let's write, 'Mr. Daniel looks like a spaniel' all over his lawn."
Or we walked on the white shore. "Can the fishes see it's snowing?"

The silent one-clouded heavens drifted on to the sea. Now we were snow-blind travelers lost on the north hills,
and vast dewlapped dogs, with flasks round their necks, ambled and shambled up to us, baying "Excelsior." We
returned home through the poor streets where only a few children fumbled with bare red fingers in the wheel-
rutted snow and cat-called after us, their voices fading away, as we trudged uphill, into the cries of the dock
birds and the hooting of ships out in the whirling bay. And then, at tea the recovered Uncles would be jolly;
and the ice cake loomed in the center of the table like a marble grave. Auntie Hannah laced her tea with ***,
because it was only once a year.

Bring out the tall tales now that we told by the fire as the gaslight bubbled like a diver. Ghosts whooed like
owls in the long nights when I dared not look over my shoulder; animals lurked in the cubbyhole under the
stairs and the gas meter ticked. And I remember that we went singing carols once, when there wasn't the shaving
of a moon to light the flying streets. At the end of a long road was a drive that led to a large house, and we
stumbled up the darkness of the drive that night, each one of us afraid, each one holding a stone in his hand
in case, and all of us too brave to say a word. The wind through the trees made noises as of old and unpleasant
and maybe webfooted men wheezing in caves. We reached the black bulk of the house. "What shall we give them?
Hark the Herald?"
"No," Jack said, "Good King Wencelas. I'll count three." One, two three, and we began to sing, our voices high
and seemingly distant in the snow-felted darkness round the house that was occupied by nobody we knew. We stood
close together, near the dark door. Good King Wencelas looked out On the Feast of Stephen ... And then a small,
dry voice, like the voice of someone who has not spoken for a long time, joined our singing: a small, dry,
eggshell voice from the other side of the door: a small dry voice through the keyhole. And when we stopped
running we were outside our house; the front room was lovely; balloons floated under the hot-water-bottle-
gulping gas; everything was good again and shone over the town.
"Perhaps it was a ghost," Jim said.
"Perhaps it was trolls," Dan said, who was always reading.
"Let's go in and see if there's any jelly left," Jack said. And we did that.

Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another
uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip
wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a
Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out
into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other
houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas
down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.

bypassing the 502 error: title - whiplash...
body... cream...

original intent:

they're doing road works on a stretch of road
where the brothel sits:
house of the rising sun or whatever you want
to call it... i'm not ready for the thrist:
for the plunge that will extend into half a decade's
worth of not *******...
i'll give it a week or so... before i take the plunge:
proper... mind you... i've already found
the perfect formula for drinking...
the cheapest bottle of australian wine...
at 14%... mixed into the glorious Mayan drink
of the gods' that's kalimotxo...
and if i'm still not "feeling it": i'll top myself
off with some slender-man's whiskey glug-glug...
it worked so well for 4 years without
touching a woman's body...
what the hell prompted me?
to wake up from this slumber?
oh... right... i own two maine **** cats
and when i was grooming the female...
she stuck up her brunt right into my hands...
it felt like: trans-species ******* for a while...
a cog in my brain went loose...
for days i cycled in the night into central London
looking at the flesh market:
of the free peoples of the western world...
what prompted me...
i was grooming my maine **** cat and she
was tempting me with a: ******* hairy apple...
no... wrong... just plain wrong...
perhaps i swing around beard envy & ha...
***** envy (well... imagine a rabbit ******* an elephant...
big **** genre of: and how deep is that...
ahem... hole? standard kama sutra...
not one size fits all)
but when your cat starts to imitate getting it...
**** me... the night... cycling... sweating it off...
until you have to touch the antonym...
but suppose you come across a timid girl
and you get a case of erectile dysfunction...
while you end up caressing her: timidly kissing
her because she's timid...
pointing at her eyebrows... nose... eyes...
ears... pimples... freckles and moles...
the mirror... fingers... elbow... knees...
and asking her to say the Romanian words for them...
sure... a momentary lapse in sanity:
the reason(s) was already self-evident...
take a woman like Ava Lauren...
now... my god... by god... that's a ****-machine...
an *** like a Lamborghini and a body
like a leather armchair...
and she stuck through it... a mandible body
of the extension of the jaw...
some people are born to be boxers...
she was built to be ****** in the confines of
orthodoxy...
dead pornstars though... i.e. Shyla Stylez...
it's really a joke if i ask: would it be necrophilia
if i'm doing it to images of a dead pornstar?
"doing it": best on the toilet...
no... no scented candles... no eager kangaroo *****
no webcam... no thrill...
3 birds:  1 stone: on throne of thrones...
no better way and all the best excuses to later
jump under the shower and get on with the dead...
sorry.. day...
4 years i did... grooming a cat awoke in my a thirst
i thought i had long forgotten...
- kinks: mostly foreplay...
       kissing after all that 2nd base foreplay
while she's on top of you veiling you with her
Turkic raven hair...
immediately after the act: all that virility...
now... dilution...
            kinks: i still tend to rub my hands against
a brick wall before i enter their abode...
i rub my hands against bricks
to demand more from when i'm touching
flesh... nothing can come close when standing
at the altar of a woman's naked body
in dim lighting... with at least 2 mirrors on the wall...
reassurances of cleanliness are highly
welcome... even though by a tonne load of surprises
she would perform ******* with the rubber
commoner of promiscuity...
- kinks: any body attired in latex...
  that's the height: ms. gimp...
                          well... there's that or me endowed
with a cockerel sized endowment about
to **** a maine **** cat during grooming...
as "sick" as finding out you've been doing
the nos. 1, 2 & 3 on the throne of thrones
to a dead pornstar like Shyla Stylez...
in third person: lover-boy all smooches
and octopus tentacles reading the geography
like he might pick up the braille of all the grooves
and hinges...
interruption: i'm no pornographer!
although there's this one allusion:
    Venus in Furs... ol' Leo von Sacher-Masoch...
on the tip of my tongue:
at the tip of my fingers...
to turn stone in skin...
   - i remember being in a strip-club once...
i had to fly to Athens for that one...
i walked into a market sq. and met up with
some random... Greeks... Algerians...
Medi- olive skinned folk...
complete strangers... we drifted around the nightclubs
and watched the girls coming out...
how's that scale of nought through to ten?
below average... and highly demanding...
the four of us decided: **** it...
we climbed into a car and drove to the outskirts
of Athens to a strip-club...
unlike a dog that's chasing cars
i couldn't just... look... a few drinks down
and still eyeing the prize
i had two women around my arms
and my face buried in one's *****:
while some demon-she look on from
the other side of the platform of lost clothing...
another put a green peg on the table
informing me i could have more...
by then i was out of debit... my card was
returned... a bouncer escorted me to the nearest
cash machine in a hotel... started talking
to the receptionist while i was pretending to
withdraw money i didn't have...
right there and then i became a child:
******* my clothes... excitement, fear... both...
dunno... drunks have this build in GPS...
Athens... a city i only just arrived in...
blind drunk mad with love...
i managed to find my way back to the hostel...
**** the guiding beacons into my dreams...
eh... a ******* is never going to be a brothel...

i don't like the argument of:
look... but don't touch... touch... but don't taste...
taste but don't... what comes after taste?
if ever i catch myself watching pornogrpahy
it has to be classic Italian flicks...
on silent...
i can never be fully absorbed:
i'll wait for a real experience to come
with the flood of the senses...
i can't give myself to simulation with all
the sense...
after all... i was probably one of the last
boys who bought a ***** mag in a shop
with... actual expedience of trade...
it was still in the open...
i might have died of shame but at least
i didn't hide it...

                  no shame in Belgium though...
we were visiting world war I graveyards
and the trenches... but at the same time
we were looking for the best brothel in Ypres
while i was the only boy buying a ***** mag...
all ****... shaved... unshaved...
no *******: because a man's imagination
was still fertile... you had a woman's body
impose itself on your psyche like
an x-ray... and you had all that imagination
to subsequently have to swallow...
third party ***** weren't involved:
you never felt like a cul de sac ******...
oddly enough... limp **** hey presto:
can't perform when asked...

ooh... ol' Turkic raven hair:
all her talents in the foreplay...
and all the smooching during *******...
thank god i could never marry...
father children...

4 years it has taken me to wake up to this...
"repressed" reality...
repressed or... even the Teutonic Order
had a brothel in their capital-citadel of Malbork...
Marienburg...
for the love of women who also love:
cleanliness... and the aesthetics of arousal...
for all that's love and all that's not love...
for all that beside love: intimacy without question:
but all the answers...
for two bodies imitating slugs or serpents
where no words are exchanged or given
toward *******: autonomous bodies reaching
for braille with eyes wide open...

- the road to the brothel was closed...
the guys doing the road works cut it off...
not tonight... tonight i'm going to bemoan how:
well... when you start writing...
don't expect to have the same sort of privacy rules
implicit of... whatever the hell you do besides...
why wouldn't a plumber raise these words
from the domain of thought that's probably
his most cherished freedom?
people can still pretend to hide in anonymity
on the internet...
but... why would you... write bogus comments
and troll...
before words become carbon on paper: pencil...
the circus of thinking ought to be enough...
unless: like me... you're going at it like a bull...
i don't think i can have "privacy" anymore...
not that that bothers me...
i'll wear a mask when i put my face on...
but literacy so squandered for the upper-hand
in slighting someone anonymously...

                    ha!           someone would have
written a confession: Anne Sexton brush-up on:
what's important... Anne Sexton... now there was
a ***** that if she was willing could make you
dream all day and night...

why are so many pornstars so... ******* attractive
that you'd wish to push them
into bird-cages with the parrots
or adorn them with white linen niqabs?
as much as i want:
my words are not sacrosanct:
but they're also no Mammon slot-machine
golden-goose mine: perhaps when i'm dead:
something might trickle down into the coffers...
but i doubt that...
words never become shapes or colours
or therefore paintings...
words burn... words and all that becomes
collateral as they dig and drown into
the unconscious: of course... no motive...
just a motif...
    
brother Balaam: fellow diviner of the god
of the Hebrews...
brother Balaam... give me the strength of purpose
to chase more shadows: more more more!
speak to me from under the depths
of the sea of death...
they have left these northern lands...
and as they now stand: proud in their multitude:
and still persist in their clinging to the diaspora:
for i will not glutton myself over
the accomplishments of but one Hebrew:
when i can glorify their deity!

literacy has been squandered:
best strip these people of their "knowledge"
of letters: letter by letter:
let them return to smearing **** on cavern ceilings!
hostile barbarians: paradoxically:
the Vikings were renowned in their celebration
of "effeminate" males: poets...
i could warn a dog or two to bark as i thus:
howl...
               little creatures of dispute...
little belittling lords of shovel ****!
hey! prompt! all verb no noun...
something these leeches might understand... "might"...

all this lubricated tongue has made me think
of something else that happened today...
beside me revisiting the cinema of memory...
grandfather and i: the hyenas of the graveyard:
although even he pronounced that
he was unable to laugh: i guess i started to laugh
for the both of us... eagerly, proper:
with the vowel catcher of the first
arm of the tetragrammaton: HA HA...
while the "other" vowel catcher would
smother the vowels in sighs: AH AH!
exasperated... almost...

       call it PR or whatever you want to call it:
i'd rather stack shelves in a supermarket
than work at a call-centre...
the deceit and the Peter Pan *******
i said: it's not the Shetland Islands...
it's the South East...
i was rummaging on an internet speed
of... 0.1Mbps (megabytes per second)
for a while... i reached a zenith of 0.6 - 0.8(Mbps)...

for a year... if not longer...
and there she was: she came...
this bleached-blonde pchła of a... she did put on just
enough mascara...
obviously taken...
i don't think *** entered my thoughts
when... she... didn't... parade her keychain
that involved a picture of her and her child...
pchła: an endearing term for a girl
of timid build... a body my shadow at noon
could break like a walnut...
i called her an engineer...
she wasn't going to construct a bridge...
she was going to fiddle with my router...
my internet connection...
a woman who had desire for fiddling with:
"dead" things: shadows...
arteries... veins... a concept of a heartbeat...

i just admired her hair...
obviously not natural... bleached...
     she was a body occupying a space...
a welcome intrusion nonetheless...
i sort of enjoyed the silence i surrounded her with...
"sort of": i clearly did...
best be on your way...
a female engineer...
well... from 0.1Mbps... coming up for air
now standing at... 5.6Mbps...
she asked: how did "we" manage?
we just watched a lot of the show live...
but... there were more important things to mind...

the bothersome truth is that:
you can't exactly dig into: pristine good...
this girl who became a "cable guy" engineer...
engineer: "engineer": "tech. support":
i'm not trying to demean her purpose:
i'm the one doodling words on a makeshift
canvas...
i'm no painter or mind having
enough nepotistic authority of: father painter
so i become a fashion designer... etc.

i pin-pointed the proper term though: no?
nepotism?
you just can't objectify certain women...
both of us beguiled having internet providers:
so... shouldn't they penalize the companies
that are all software and bar users?
will the software providers turn off my...
electricity?
the PR Peter Pan stunts... as i told her:
you being the engineer and me being the customer...
we can talk... face to face...
but over the phone?
put me in a confessional booth
with a woman from Mecca and her... double take
on what's to be seen: what's to be heard...
what's to be ******... what's not to be seen / heard...
eaten...

an eager *****: if a ***** is going to give...
but if... she's... this occupied presence...
it's impossible to penetrate her with words...
all i have is:
bleached blonde hair...
heavy mascara... something insinuating combating
nervousness: i am what i am: sorting out cables:
i reassured her: the aesthetics will be dealt with...
a drowning man will cling to a razor's edge to save
himself...
why do i feel so hardly alone
around people who invest so much
in... having children?
it's not like i'm expecting 3rd party sources
to come and salvage me: when completely decrepit...

a woman completely devoid of any ****** advances:
perhaps performing the role of a dentist:
a surgeon: it's already exploited by me
when it comes to: seeing her most ******
parts: her hands... at the grace of a supermarket cashier...
let her be... she's already averting her eyes:
i might insinuate a receding question:
there's the moon... the forest...
come autumn...
maybe i'm focusing on exaggerating myself...
i am: exaggerating myself...

toward a focus of timidity...
as best i can...
    i am a dead end joy-**** at best...
an underperformer at least...
              my own very self worn down
skipping barefoot in memory
right now probably better adorned by a straightjacket...
but who's fooling who...
the readied ***** or this girl working out
cables?

i can respect this one without a need
to pressurise her with a... ******* niqab...
until she might bloat over:
over-suckled... fat... nothing more than
a speed machine for *****-count...
something that doesn't deserve limbs:
is all torso and belongs
to the cult of the bone tomahawk cannibals...

that one motto cited by all Arabs
and pseudo-Arabs: there no water in the desert...
spoken in dearest of the dear that's England:
this green and pleasant land...
where's the ******* desert?!
shovel! both a verb and a noun...
how rare.... perhaps not so much...
        proverbs from the Middle East...
******* to the Middle East and let me
riddle my own: better a sparrow in your
hand than a dove on your roof...
how's that?

better joy in the immediacy of your own:
than peace among your closely associated.
******* H'arab...
you're no Jew... esp. when sitting
on Dino-Lamborghini juice...

castles in the sky: so the psychiatrists says...
or cities built on sand...
every Pakistani / Bangladeshi knows this
proverb...
the times of appeasing the "forever" sober
Arab and his sober-Arab libido...
i'll wait... are now... like i once said:
the horrible has already ah-happened...

and if it hasn't: then i'm still... pretty much
taking a proper role in being the only watchman
on a sly of a kipper...
n'est ce pas?

irritation culminates with:
when you make your own wine...
but don't have the filter equipment...
all that excess "fibre" probably gets your more
drunk than expected...

i haven't had enough to my liking to
somehow dissolve the pledge
to keep at least 72 ****** on a leash...
all that's eternity: given all that's
available and will be:
within the confines of un-chartered space...
send me a postcard from the eye of Jupiter...
i'm more than asking:
imploring: i'm... sort of making:
chain you to me: demands...

tomorrow's a sober head:
tonight... i'll be drunk with both wine
of my own making and...
the memory of a naked body of a woman...
exactly: if she's an engineer: "engineer"
fiddling with my phone socket...
she has a photograph of her and her child
on her keychain...
i wouldn't even dream of...
usurping her... status...

            looking at her felt like eating...
oats... something wholesome...
i met up with you... herr grey...
i did't find any child-fiddling bits...
what... were... you... hiding?!
i will laugh: if you tell me: a heart...
melt my stony enclave...
burn the whole world while you're at it!
there was never going to be any sacrifice
in the crucifix pose:
only purpose for focus: for... submission...
as someone devoid of wanting to continue....
he didn't die for "our" sins...
he died in order to be worshipped...
**** him... let him hang on... father of proselytes...

- point of closure...
for now... i never rose high enough
to suddenly turn cold-turkey: goosebumps
on the *******... still... dead...
i wasn't born into a Buddhist harem...
therefore i sometimes relapse into
the gimmick of the tease...
periodically... every half a decade....
i drink unfiltered self-made wine
and talk about hardly the ******
"exploits":
i come across magnets equivalent to
timid schoolgirls...

some supposed ****** revolution happned:
lob-sided...
given how the girls took the strap-on off
and shoved the **** down
the ******* brains of their bank account
squadron...
     the ******: "******" revolution came out
***-****-side first: thirst:
lopsided: the girls have all their fun...
we die... they come close to old age:
it continues: men tend to think throughout:
that period of concern: supposedly-deemed:
life...

the feminine agony of old age...
grandma's apple pie: **** grandma's apple pie!
i want to drink my wine
with... blisters and...
dis-ingestion...
              
         sucker punch:
            suckle toward a knuckle that might just...
make creases with caresses.

I famigerate without taciturn timidity the straits of a straightened jury-rig of nesiote narrowbacks harping the accordion zest and zeal of the plenilune consuetude of a scrivello infamy sprung into the rows of rip-tide acclaim hamstrung by the decline in fastidious upkeep of the timberlask vesicles that avoid the phenakism of prismatic reformation fundamental to transmogrified simpers of dismal saturnine darkness encroaching on the parallax of realms within the dominion of the Almighty for the omniety of the usucaption of the fruitful prune in the priggish afterglow of a noontide eclipse bereaved of whispering retreat in the hallowed wasms of stiltanimity becoming an entreaty to ecumenical barbs of propriety selected without intimacy to folksy bibliopolists but rugged in sterling tribute to the true vine of the appointed ways of sacerdotal triage among a roughshod vanity of a derelict world marveling at otiose rejoinder rather than true spasms of tragedy flickering in the recessive alleles of a careworn culture. The travesty of Beirut is the bromide of current leapfrogs of sentinel lust and malapert destruction forming an ironclad camaraderie with chocolate-box langlauf disasters wed uxoriously to the penury of the brackish version of the catadromous bailiwick of despotic nescience pregnant with sophrosyne redemption at the cusp of a plaid perfunctory quip of quisling intimations of the sketchy provenance of humdingers of comestion lurking in the plodding prowl of a ribald wiseacre of a beckoned billow of trinkochre welded into a conscientious blarney that awaits the popinjays that sculpt brittle redshort fictions into awakened carapaces of a limacine reduction of impoverished fulmination into the neatly sworn footprints of a geotaxis shuddering with magnetism only in spectacle without the overhailing zeal of vintners who specialize in curtailed wine drawn from Caiaphas and soaked with the muddy turgid Siloam as avenues toward the repentance of asunder becoming marginalized as a whimper of taciturn choleric war receding not even into an audible delope as the masterful chryselephantine assault of cryptic auditions in the theater of effete refuge sink into the pelagic oblivion of a remarkable blister festering into inconsequence as the rebarbative emoluments to tattered travesty hearken a battle-cry yet emanated in the reprehensible bulwark of the gerendum of a poised plastered humility aggrieved with such friction turgid on rollicking magpiety that even the larceny of brutish renegades of triumph sink beneath the brevity of accident rather than the fortitude of globalized turpitude weakened by the improper demarche of fuliginous homeless depredation of innocent bystanders flocking to the harvest of war found in insight rather than the perfunctory bromidrosis of the macroscian enmity of hidden maleficence spawning a credenda that is spayed on arrival in the faineant zoolatry of a spelunkers’ madcap dash to flex the filigrees of turmoil in resentment of the amicable truces of a God who never tempts and a lurking lie that never itches for trigger-happy hapless rebukes because the skittish skirmish of futilitarian repose is a scoundrel of the profligacy of errant weakness blinkered by the humdrum din of deafening semaphores of provocative thornbush on the threshing floor of cowardly imposture president of all affairs of spirit and all renegades of caitiff megalography of forgotten oblivion despite the curglaff of vindictive and never vindicated assaults on the integrity of the birthright of Lebanon to wager a presumptive gamble of trifling retribution for the alacrity of suspicions eloping with forbidden mistresses in the humdingers of flackey rather than the troudasque harbinger of a lunacy impugned by a restive triumphant fallow time seasonable for a litany of pretenses demassified for a liturgy of seances with eldritch commiseration in the saw-toothed serration of selachostomous bravado wielded by likely or unlikely culprits of ravenous ruin shepherded by the guilty cardinal sins of the complicity of explosive vanity marauding on the ruins of a fortress debased by pettifoggery of internal excuse rather than the wrath of provocative ire in the irksome cauterized wounds of the inured to deliver spectacular reticence despite such grievous diacope. Evil gilderoys of maleficence carve the sapwood of the periphery to aimless subversions miscarried by the modern atrocity of glamour memorialized as a sound-byte underminnow of a roaring rhombos rip tide as stocks wavy at the curvature of edgy demarche despoil the denuded wasteland of cultural despondency a wagtail to the impudence of famigerated affronts that deserve a sterling recompense wielded by the onerous and operose burdens of a prone decubitus of aboriginal bread seeded from Heavenly realms dissipating into the roars of blinded conflagration too meek to even exist on the ramshackle hillside of a barnstorm of aggression powerless to encapsulate the nexility of unspoken allegiance to destruction rather than the halidom of consecrated marriages balking at the caulked provisions of a slugabed monolith of craven capers on the recesses of abeyance in the interregnum of a time where famous people communicate with me. How can such a charismatic bravado of lurking presidency stoop to the denizens of usufruct in licentious latitudes on the outskirts of consideration even pretend anymore that the vacuum of effluvium (Gal 6:7) can be mocked and milked into the row of centuries blistering through the calenture of apprisal and heaved awakening as the zephyrs of the Occident meet temporal juncture with the coenesthesia of a hibernating trumpery formed by the turnverein of listless lethargy billowing through fumiducts of siphoned lavaderos of hypogeiody that the underground spasms of cacophony could marvel at the historic emergence of a magnate with the most powerful magnetism of God shepherding the true flock John 10:27 because he is willing to be the good shepherd and potentially die for his sheep John 10:11. Remember, whenever you hear a Queer Studies Radical Feminist bloviate on emasculated sardanapalian posture John 8:44 and even though personified as a masculine titan of bulwarks of immense otiose wilted inkburch shielding the world from true meaning, the maskirovka of the Devil is present in the dark trespasses of personal abandon among the wilderness of many marsupial jackals of martles wagtails to an invictive proclamation of invulnerable sappy sopanaceous filibusters against hefty sinew forged the bony fragments of the charnels lost to brief epitaphs never mourned in threnodies worthy of remembrance that the departed died with us and live again through us whether in Heaven as participant or on Earth as an acting battalion of the skullduggery of the mystique of shimmers of God acting on Man’s behalf 1 Col 1:15-16. That the firstborn of all creation obtains supremacy through the finalisms that I seek as the captain of trailblazing untrammeled roads we are reminded of the narrow and wide gates expanded by the explosion of thought that trespasses into the hidebound ratchet of a reasonable bleat becoming a harsh outcry of justice for Lebanon that they feel so powerless in implosion what could aggrieve potentate civilizations to the precipice of global maleficence in destruction. Swarming for alveolate hominid hominism as an outgrowth of alienation by design polarized spectral dangles at jaundice flamestun by the ordeal of oppositive barnacles to the chryselephantine habituation of a masked menace of Procrustean authority to muzzle the free license of armamentariums of a latent man keen to the kenspeckel visibilia that we might have punctuation in the poised primiparas of a hearkened unprecedented in modern history that the traipse of lapse is no longer the tenure of mindless calculation of authoritarian gabble sentries of a mobilized fleet of embodied human ignorance but a foisted sprite of whangams of apothegm that deserve in their gnomic respite from the phenakisms of a philogeant kumbaya assertive in its treony of radical compassion for those who dwell in tentpoles of revelry bound not to the covenant that sent us into light and sparkling in hidden obsolescence that the fulgurant words of Mount Horeb (Sinai) are both immaculate and without trace of sin because Acts 17:30 declares a powerful truth lost to the twinges of time that issued peremptory governance of my theology but through remission I admit the grievances of septiferous blockades of ponderous plodding nescience haunting the spectral aubades of paeans to a high-flown sun darting through galactic space apace of the velivolant sails of divine wind that come in the spree of recompense authored by the vines to which all roots belong rhizogenic and immutable because the demarches of time forget the marches against the cauterized grime of new-world suspicions of aleatory fickle gubernatorial proclamations that issue reverb more than sprinkle flanged atrocity in the sight of the holy ramparts of an active double-edged God who reminds us of our many witnesses but provides not a single latchkey of escapism resident to many hapless homes of the drunken sing-song rhapsody nullifying the psychotaxis of the motatory miserly Draconian charades of Leviathan grasping the tridents of warp-speed revisionism in a benighted world overrun by mandarist fictions that fumigate a pasteurized control of cultural malcontent in situations of dearth infested by the concentration camps of China that remain unheralded in brumal and brutish indoctrination spared from worldwide outrage by the tribunes that are complicit more in malfeasance than they are celebrated for the herald of heinous bletcherous crimes of abecedarian abligurition anointed in waste rather than refined like unquenched slakes of eternal water so that no man can thirst hungry for the daily bread without returning to the providence of God awakened. Recalcitrant by the impudent quislings of repugnasket flarmeys of advenient flummoxed besieged clairvoyance I bask and beaze on the light that never fades because of the brackish whisk of a barnstorm of allegiance that is contumely to a bromide society listless in inferiority of intellect to my former streaks beyond jejune reiteration of the Jehu mentality against the canine fate of Jezebel and her faltered ministry of ewnastique waged as battalion gore of a trifling musket of an aboriginal swim through the oceanic gaze of peerless eternity squirming because of flagging resolution among the spandrels of incommunicable largesse lolloped extravagantly not just for the spoils of hyped pedigree but also a chamade to Heaven to enlist the purblind vestiges of a crambazzled Earth rejuvenated in adolescent esprit rather than callow eclat against the outrecuidance of whimpered miserly conscientiousness that exists in a shorter frame of reference than the provident dashes through a furlough of time and ancestry to cobble together a lapidary bristling excoriation of the tumescent squabbles of mystique brave enough to rarefy the humid pasteurization of a mannequin kenspeckel still-frame jilt of jostled infamy brusque in its curt envies borne of still-born promenades of a whasper between the youthful ligony and the intrepid soul of a collective warrior debased by the adscititious participant to elegant effronteries of the newfangled intellectual vogue that is the grombang of the tralleyripped hamshackle of ostentation meeting mirrored paralysis in sheepish ewnastique creations meddlesome in their ironic frizz of recursion as I lounge on the habits of creation by intelligent lurches of design that appointed the demarcations of all creatures and the mysterious bridge between the missing links that remain elusive to the flombricks of the misery of epigenetic rhizogenic imparlance of desuetude cringing at foresight littered with the disaster of ravished hindsight blushing at the limpid degeneration of the vapid varnish of benighted ligony rather than heroic strides of stoic-epicurean compromise in the apolaustic pursuit of the one eternal God present in rebellion but never the temptress of mendacity and mendaciloquence because the tug I have on speed is ratifying a cauterized casualty in the spumid betrothed wicked snuffs of extinguished furor for a time beyond barnstormed racloir rugged origination and faulty phenogenesis that escorts mythos into actionable litanies of the awakened breed scoffing at the inkburch of “Electrolytes”-wernaggle that besets the queer fascinations of a warped generation. The pytherian swank of artrench embodied in the recocted rendevation of hypetrophy in hubris swaddled by the reductive dranger polluting the realm of compliant complicant complaints of the ashowel of albatross astroud in the hibernaculum of langlauf rather than the ultramontane fiduciary tether to the estrockentch rather than the laureates of plevisable courage found in truest shades of vinsky not the subhastation of a gaslighted galvanization of purebred classy swivels of opportunism nor the ravenous incubus appetite for usufruct in subversion belongs to the behest of an insular nesiote flexing the flux of subversion as the candid posies of saccharine immodesty become relegated figments of the everlasting age of promised propriety rather than rigid stultimathy of hackencrude virtues of virtuosos that marvel at troudasque wonders occluded by the girlcott of Team Biden and his militarized soldiers of desiccation of trumpery and the faucets unbounded by swanky concealed epithets of regaled rentgourge by a hapless objection of the runic destruction of apothecary leniency becoming of the betokened emblazonry of scrimshank in every perfuncturation but embodiment of character shouldered by every chasm of power erected in demolition of the warped egintoch radicalism of the submerged wernaggles of the hopeless minority swimming with autodimplage few have to bear but the truest flock of God heeds my voice and has the sapience to spare themselves of contumely and invective to hearsay of invictive triumph beyond radioglare swirk to renege the musical providence of the chamades to the asterongue I often take for granted by immunifacient degrees of the foretold encroaching upon the crux of a pivotal and pivoted destiny not distant from cordial providence. The sweedle of epigones for the risctender of obligation to subvert the coryphaeus with the rigmarole of gentincture borrowed from the Gates’ formulaic effleck of perverse warbles of collectivized contrition for abetted cultural pederasty limpid in its achieved objective of the crudenzy borrowed from a lacking impediment to arentrum belonging to the knowledgeable happenstance of the glorified dengonin is a denostram that forestalls the agelasts behind porsters of culture rather than legitimate mainlined contamination of wellsprings of fliction of paranoiac enthusiasm might swim in kinkativy blinkered blind piebald girouettism but never dauntless in sematic entrenchment of robust dilettantism as the swaddled corrugation of time into centripetal ****** against centrifugal modernism that alienates propriety while estranging by vacuous vacuums the outspoken progeny of the surviving age beyond the Jay and Silent Bob travesty that manifests as a glower of menacing Bushian invention to tarnish with ****** mythos the drapes of a defenestrated realism of the flinkers of sheepish indignation against many drakstings of intonorous sclerotic mandibles of crackjaw chockablock annihilation of core precepts and institutions indelible from the face of a quixotic entreaty of a ragged intrusion of ageotropic monoideism above the secular-clerical fidelity of honest witness borne of triumph and tribulation festooning the nativist hyperbole into a useless effigy of mountebank imposture silly in precision and purblind to gallantry. Yet I must kisswonk rather than truckle under such ponderous pretense because of a sertivine certainty in the thickets of prudence rather than the tomfoolery of humgruffin impudence scaffolds me to a post-modern ****** that shanks through prisons of guilt and burrows an interrogation of reality supreme over all complaint that the virtuosity of the Gifted (the elect flock that comprehends my volcanic diatribes against mandarism and stomachs them without sardonic pastorauling insults of passerby vicissitude) will spare many nations of awakened perjury against human instinct in the fitness of nations to denigrate the populist squalor of lurid and livid ewnastique wernaggles of the listless buttress against my formal modesty encouraged in all affairs even in aggrieved humility belonging to intimidation rather than spawned jostles through the rumpus of shunamitism that might rankle a later age.  Yentrified morality is a personal flapdoon against the promiscuous pederasty of freewheeling ophelimity and the lurking narquiddity of the traindeque of donnist hedonism to hijack my psychedelic tolerance into an unwarranted and inadvisable sanction into the netherworld of the frinterans of cultural modality that curdact religion into a cosmetic cosmogony rather than a soldiered infamy becoming a beacon on a towering hill growing in solidarity with the pleonasm of existence itself which surpasses crude formulas that already abide by the riches of decorum too much to be admired as trigger-happy fools run the asylum of domesticated irony and the librettos to downfall rather than the wassails of “The Man” becoming more masculine in featured charisma rather than defiled against Leviticus among others who preach belonging to nuclear creed without fission but for true rapprochement to the fusion of the treony with legitimate gripes of unsung complaint among the masculine minority. The traindeque of a baseline complaint aggrieved by the kilmarge carapace of stiltanimity for the hackencrude resentment of the inkburch of illiteracy is a profligate degeneracy lurid in hyped enmity that the envied entreaty becomes the despotic shadow masquerading in shadows blossoming into the full wisdom of the mature sophrosyne heart eager to pour out blessings upon a conservation of recycled epitaphs becoming hearsay in a rebarbative convolution of redacted rigmarole incendiary to whittled henpecks of political engineering but never vapid in their flagging insistence upon an ecumenical toleration of the brooks of modernity and compromise upon which much felicity is aggrandized and permuted against the spoilsport frinterans who encage a dodgy moralism in wilted etiolated jaunty pedigree that espouses the maudlin grievous and ghastly ghouls and sprites that haunt the fictional hobgoblins of the Potemkin Village that finds usury convenient and perjury even more facile for the glib facetious engineers of modalities of hatred unsung by the ribald witwanton “I got a Solution...You’re a ****…South Carolina What’s Up” crowd that never marvels at ingenuity or rarely attempts it in the summit of the climacteric jaundice of hidebound whemmles of ridicule sparring against spartan flagitious wiseacres of genocide of ideation for the revelry of armed missives denatured by raw promotion of the questionable ethics of a flavork of needed slakes of unquenchable desire swarming us with daily temptresses not of wayward women but the disarmed pretense of a lapidary rejoinder to a long expatiation or harangue against hackencrude curdles of rowboat injustice masquerading as sentinel savory destruction of the towering edifice of proclamation. There is great menace in the casuistry of sophist philogeant philocubists dicey with destiny for mincemeat puppetry against sciamachy for the gallionic rise of gammadions in the craven lore of baseline pasquinade rallied to the insuperable causes of tribal shibboleth anointed by secular totemisms of fracture and fricative hisses of lineage that amount to pleonasms of brassage rather than mystagogical mystique of the prestige of human fraternity that shatters paradigms of creed and invites an honest vestige of Noble Savages to roam the Earth yet again unencumbered by lugubrious welters of misnomer and malapropism wagered by artifices of guileless supremacy that is cursory prima facie neglect of even the sororal duties not of sophomoric glib facetious cowardice of backbited backlash of venom militarized for the desuetude of entertained visagists sculpting *****-nilly their version or verdict of decisive apartheid when we should all rally behind the united frontier of the chosen flock in the chosen generation to truckle beneath the pews not of ignorance aggravated by the polluted kilmarge egintoch puritan barbs against publicity choices I now regret (as an emolument to an incredibly euphoric track with a poor miserly message to the enchanted flock inoculated from such diversions) because alighted upon the quenched thirst of salvation I will be judged more harshly as a teacher James 3:1 than the rest of my flock but gifted with the gratuitous salvation carved from the chiselers of ribald infamy capering around with dacoitage and ladronism of the bomans of unsuspecting quixotic caprice I must reckon with the burden of ghoulish shadows on the spectral imprint of my eternal soul relishing in vicarious splendor yet bereaved of quintessential love 1 Cor 13:4 that is necessary for the nuclear conclamation of vibrant hues of resplendent and refulgent providence necessary not from a dynastic perspective but from an aimed providence that alerts dynamism rather than chides with mimes of useless schadenfreude carved from the prestidigitation of the wicked condemned in Galatians 6:7 for the mockers of sanctanimity accorded upon me as gratuity that no man can boast my elite ears and my astute wonderworks of imagination qualified me for prophecy and among the most mesmerizing prophecies registered to fulfillment that the world has ever yet witnessed because the watershed isn’t a bridgewater for the chavish of ignoramus hatred congealed into thrombosis but the narrowed gate enlarges to encompass the swath of man amenable to the flocks that escort me into permanence rather than regale the tridents of a hedonism that elected me clairvoyant at a cost of immaculate splendor registered to the holy clergy of the Sacred Catholic Church and the broader Ecumenical Endeavor that tries to be a seamstress and bridge elemental divides inherent to divided approaches to liturgy which flex their strengths in times of robust fortitude rather than become a subhastation to the vestiges of the pilgrimage to false tabernacles erected by people cozened into charlatan endeavors by the pernicious and persnickety whiplash of Least Common Denominator subversion of widely heralded sentience and sapience enriching the lot of human ambition rather than stoking useless conflagrations of refracturism accorded to the swallock of primposition of the hackneyed hackencrude that swivels with the odious ornery pretense of overtures not to apertures and lychgates of the true abiding Heaven felt on Earth by many Christians whether in sobriety or not without the evil maleficence of a misguided donnism of narquiddity for the grambazzles of aged recklessness aborning on vacant responsibility that is rickety in its magnanimity of absolution because of the ulterior chase for bottom-line top-dollar oligochrome foisted by the cartels that blind true spiritual insight from ever reaching the magnitude of ambition required to shape mountains of revolution among the tertiary squabbles of a conversant Earth open to the troudasque gallop into yield and cloveryield for repcrevel reforms the paludism of the swamp remains skittish about conforming to because objectivism is a renegade of perspicuous light blinkering in hubris and gourmandizing the hinderbaggle of cosmetic pollutions aggravated by the plevisable articles of envy and TLDR politics to “Electrolyte” logic that is a sad recursive wernaggle of the useless buffoonery of humgruffins of tatterdemalion spate rollicking in the magpiety of a timid consentient faltering myth of unanimity among the beleaguered rainbows of many lugubrious tears showering bickering blasphemy upon the mockery of God for the pleasantry of self-aware sheepish resignation that professes only that any form of meritocracy is existentially unfounded only because the beehive elected its progeny the scepter of the ironclad kingdom that wages war against idolatry and serenades heaven with luxury simultaneously. We are all shepherds of providence and there is power enough in collective prayer that we don’t fiddle around with bodewash in mistaken identity but riddle the persnickety blemish of the fastidious critiques of biting sarcasm as a tantamount blasphemy and a criminal repartee of sardonic cloys of inanity foisted above truth. The peevish breedbates who scour my evidentiary pillar of chiseled vertebrae of unbroken bones of solidarity with oikonisus will be sorely disappointed in their truthful audits of my true perception because in every single case it exonerates me from the pulpit of menacing idiots who scrawl random gabble in attempts to sound smart while reeking of iniquity wrought by the gavels of predevoted inferiority of complexion and attitude that gravitates them to an insensate benumbed transmogrified bailiwick of an appalling atrocity of mythomaniacal myths spurned by consensus among those who prize my grandeur above the superstitions of the illiteracy of the rancid rankle of otiose stupidity writhing its own sheepish envy of arbitrary dislike motivated by feminist aggressors waging warfare on turf I already conquered by swaying the intelligentsia to beckon my cause rather than pillory me on a false scaffold of frinteran abuses of the nyejays of bernacle that junediggle in the taradiddle of the nanciful excoriation of my leaden corpse weighed down by the witchcraft of connivance trayning its own delicate myths while avoiding scrutiny for appalling contumely that deserves an audience more suited for fracklings of treony belonging to the trinkochre of the rising alienation and suicides among perverted gay indoctrination that is a scourge on the planet because it willfully denies with its portentous hibbles the regaled wisdom of the culminated age against renegades of apostasy and for the behemoths of true monumental change that sizzles in savory circles among the vanguard only to alarm the Status Quo hijack of my entire endeavors as a covert crusade to use wrecking-ball fashion tactics to cosmetically incisively and insidiously perform a harprick of surgery upon a blameless countenance only for being a thorn to wragatek wragapole slavery which wages war against universal salvation because it gripes with inkburch and circular pleonasms about the most obvious glaring lies and feasts upon the serrated edge of the capers of hatred that frolic in meadows too skittish to enter the barbarian fortress of my forested residence robust in fortitude and glowering with a menacing contempt for runaround psychobabble that obganiates the obelisk of the moribund crusade to make normative ethics effeminate and to enthrone inviolable women’s speech as supreme to any male objections like the Cristiano Ronaldo accuser that came forth 8 months after #MeToo one of the most dishonest campaigns in modern history enthroned by Hollywood elites in gammerstang insurrection against pay-gap ethics done manipulatively with the sapwood of mendaciloquence like Blasey Ford whose physiognomy reeked of maudlin pretense that was so ornery in how obvious of a maleficence the intrepid Abortion Agenda has over the minds of selfish women who prefer ecbolic second-term abortions to the servile gripes of primiparas building new life rather than tearing down the scaffolds of new generations. Hominism deserves its rise because-in increasing numbers-men are derelicted by society and coerced into vapid tallespin enslavement that ridicules itself with the perjury of soul to the soulless vanity of recursive cycles of benumbed narquiddity found in “****** Hero” among other atrocities littering the human fascination with the hinderbaggle of our polluted age verging on totemic blistering hegemony of a few rotten apples corrupting the vagrant ingenuity of the forgotten champion who ushered in a new era of candor in the attempted interregnum of the United States government because I Am Hollywood got the name correct considering how many memorials there are to me in the movie industry. The junediggles of sc-ha-den-freud-e which is as deliberate of a German pun as JUDEn JuDEN which shows the German language is as farsighted as you can get and why many of my neologisms have a German tinge to them. German is an elegant language with botched syntax but a peerless repertoire of vocabulary and even though I love French, the Germans are smart because their language is smart not just because of petty arguments of pedigree which are specious at best. Being dontolesque with  the zenkidu of rengall nauclatic mythos is an artful degree which accords nominal prestige to licentiates while excorifying the obvious metaphors of sunblind logic that scours the scorched Earth of internet diatribes of sophistry and dethrones the Marcie Biancos of the world “Heterosexuality is officially OVER...K Bye” with her 145 IQ and a Stanford Degree in Queer Studies (A professed atheist by her own Twitter admission) with the warped logic to equate a heterosexual relationship for a woman as ******* to patriarchy. For someone that well-studied in literature she sure is a dumb-*** and I will demolish the syntagma of those that root against me for Status Quo preservation in the official interregnum of Saturdays during the Trump Presidency. We need an official referendum on the ideas of termagant illogical anti-egalitarian poison that derives from a deracinated worldview that doesn’t contextualize how powerful language is at shaping thought because if the entire world were Anglophonic every single country on Earth virtually would see immediate dividends in terms of intellectual creativity and limber with concepts and percepts because it is no accident the most successful empire in History the United Kingdom, was favored because of its shibboleths of Shakespearean creativity draped with flairs of the irreverent while gilded by God to be a majestic commonwealth. England and France monopolized a huge majority of history by no accident because although English might be a slightly keener language the French culture of salons of freewheeling intellectual enlightenment gilded the 17th and 18th centuries into absolution despite the Panglossian epithets of Voltaire who was ironically dissuaded from religion because of the All Saints Day 1755 Lisbon Earthquake and Tsunami. We need to be vigilant against encroachments of perceived shibboleths and more keen on an affirmative meritocracy that favors the poor and blesses the meek in their poverty and inspire ambition among them to join the coteries of refinement in thought sometimes harder to achieve with crackjaw lollops in pleonasmic languages that fail to articulate with nexility or forceful wit the true abstractions that govern the pataphysics of the unknown. Language is so decisive over human thought that it is incumbent upon every language to refine its vocabulary to trayne compendious verbiage and trim the hedges of global reform to invite the curiosity of the age to favor all creeds and languages of Abraham and the diverse progeny of a variegated panoply of majestic feats common to all parlance and capacity beyond just the Anglophonic snare because the world needs not a chicanery of blustering churlish buffoonery but an Almighty respect for the consanguinity of all to God’s blessed creation that he inseminated by his deliberate hands to enrich the world with diversity rather than cleave the world with piecemeal skeumorphs of radical propaganda that opposes the modern and post-modern egalitarian streak. One wrong must be corrected, however, the underrepresentation of Hispanics in the media and in film because this grave error is much more pervasive than the ******* LGBT inclusion narrative because these days the lollygags of fashionista odalisques with Obelisks to Baal get more say over the common decorum than the marginalized bronteum of the  rich and vibrant Latino culture which is squelched by the poverty of media and Hollywood representation. Synectics showcases how a henpecked aim at the synaesthesis of culture congregated around our Almighty Father blessed among the nations who adhere to the progeny of Abraham can be more blessed when working together rather than tribal with nepotism and aristocratic in sustained affronts to the elevation of affirmative meritocracy to the forefront of discussion rather than the froward backlash of benumbed narquiddity because the synallagamatic nature of complexity needs to be devolved with industrious ambition to all cultures and the savory flair of the vogue needs not merely a wednongue fascination with an eventual terminus of crudenzy but a sustained intellectual reformation on all fronts to standardize the English language through Hollywood and the Music Industry so that the dragnets of appeal etch a permanent trace into the engraved souls of the true flock John 10:27 are consecrated in divine purpose to reverse the Babylonian Diaspora of confused and conflated purpose that stunts the raltention of humane course and the proper pataphysical syncrisis of an evolved mundane temperament that transcends the circular traps of circumlocution common to the milquetoast industrial titans who winsomely charm with toady gestures the elitism of a moribund philosophy of intellectual thought delegation to elevate the common rhetoric to reach new pinnacles in both tribune and political gamesmanship because higher standards are required even when they surpass some common understanding so that every ambition becomes a conclave for the goal of human unity solidified by the truth of the kerygma and proclaimed to all creation as the culminated synclastic reformation of the idea of indulgence and the propriety of regaled moderation that appeases the common decorum with a shared vested interest in Latin America especially which is besieged by the cultural tenets of obrogated specialization and denigrated by the common myths of warped phenogenesis which should be debunked as a wasm of hypocrisy limited because its callous tentacles lack the charismatic fulgurant equipment of future generations to bear the operose burdens of a quintessential time of harmony united by the hymns for God by God to appease the sentries in Heaven and the celestial realms that exist for our merriment more than our detriment. The sprauncy have the  frikmag to recognize the spuria of apocryphal heresies that encourage kinship above matriotism and shared fortitude for intellectual valor rather than “*** talk TLDR” hashtags abounding on the turf of the insensate wernaggle of clueless charlatans wiggling through life not because they were borne into slavery but because they choose to be Helicopter Parents of “Baby Shark” rather than token mantelpieces of enlivened culture shimmering with radiation of Gods glory as cemented in Colossians 1:15-16 because the firstborn of all creation lives in some form in the ligature of Christ 1 Cor 12:12 because there are so many talents that exist in our variegated world that the mastery of expertise in dominions of conversant fluency will abet the variegated crops of a draped humanity corrugated on its own ironies for the delicate sizzle of beatific felicity multiplying itself in centupled design over centuries to overcome hinderbaggle while realizing the fictions of some drawflark. The strigine world concedes to this upstart rooster maybe considered a parvenu of dearth but luxuriant in riches boundless to all that draw near to the kerygma of Christ and feast on his daily bread found throughout liturgy because we should listen to people like Cardinal Timothy Dolan who is exceptionally astute (perhaps an understatement) to guide us on a regenerative rather than degenerative pathway towards universal attempts at salvation that broach a new decorum bridged by aliens to select chosen emissaries to bridle the fissions of repartee reserved for the forlorn that balk at ambition rather than relish a new era of seditious determination against the determinist fallacy and for the mental health of those coping with autodimplage and sheepish regrets and persnickety articles of remorse because all the world deserves our consolation and desperate attention rather than the trumpery of the circus masquerade of marauding agitprop which congeals into thrombosis of toxicity as the vast majority of Democrats refuse to even hear Trump speak when he is discussing discursive solutions to enigmatic quagmires,for, if more people listened to Trump they would be disabused by the specious claims of his misogyny and white allegiances because his candor is brilliant and despite the prominent advocacy of Biden who has considerable prestige in my memory, we deserve a bipartisan syncretism that unites the world and unifies the country away from the swerve of salacious mythos and towards a rambunctious magpiety of solidarity against the secular humanism of a defunct piety to Marxist feminism which is a crudenzy among the awakened men around the world increasingly alienated by the hackencrude of wednongue illiteracy even trumpeted by the vanguard as panacea when it is a comestible form of poison. We need visionary unity where there was once toxic divisive balkanization of exclaves of limited foresight clashing with new wave awakening to the persecution of illumination itself for not a rigid hierarchy but a flexible structure of inclusion that adjusts to cultural expectancy and modifies the traindeque that strands many in institutionalized poverty especially in Latin America and India and obviously Africa too. The stegophilists of language should herald the aubade of the chavish of redintegration over the squawk of din of squabbles of internecine redacted revisionism beleaguering our lyceums with toxic agitprop even at the highest institutions of learning who balk often at the recycled auditorium of useful thought because their venal tilt is complicit in squelching freedom of thought and our schools should open early so that zig-zag-zoom politics around feldtrounds who are eagerly outnumbered by the patrons who police thought become agentic not with outspoken treacheries but inseminations of intimation to hint at the spectral mystagogical reality we are all members of despite hurdles that beset the hemiteries of odalisques who seek inertia rather than mobilization. The ribald underminnow of transparency is a carcinogen of the rampant siege of Status Quo coarse hypocrisy for tentative flings with cadged cloyed saturnine professions of the landmines of atrocious miscarriage as I soldier on in the causes of the poor and the forlorn to become enriched by the glory that God delivers with munificence so that all might be enriched by the emanations of the true vine and in distaste of error I rebuke the armada of belittled armamentariums of the cantonment of deep-state breedbates boiling over potboiler frikmag that exists as a transcendent obscurantism flowering in decisive times to warp the contextual footprint of a life served in the service of all the oppressed people as a kind of Moses figure raised by the elite and fighting for the criminally oppressed and the ****** of mediagenic hyperbole is dissatisfied by my glowering spectacles because they dismount from the equipoise of the righteous gallop towards ecumenical solidarity at untimely punctuations of juncture superseding the flictions of frikmag dethroning my righteous valor and provident sanctanimity to prowl like predatory wolves the fathers of the casuistry of mendaciloquence to accentuate the stridor of inopportune squalor of the selachostomous regimes of teetotaler totalitarian freebooters who prevent bootstraps from manufacture as they gradgrind the world into ergonomic insufficiency while I provide a Kamacho-like galvanization to the broader world that favors the consanguinity of all animate sentience to the aboriginal vine of the universe that plays with the toyed cadge of oppositive support but lends credence to a more evolved view than the crudity of encapsulated travesties inserted with jaundice against the lyceum of freedom of thought and the celerity of headless horseman galloping in partial interregnum to crown the strobic stridor of the stiver of the steven of contarianism engineered for walloped ringleaders of the renegades of heresiarch sedition in their odalisque oaths to Pagan dieties carved from the sapwood of gullible Illuminati naivety that professes allegiance to the worst whangam ever invented Baphomet and his faked cronies of ewnastique free-for-all diminutive crags in the renown of dawning light becoming cagey struthious structuralism embedded in sclerotic wasms of the wanhope of a nullified message becoming a sacred creed to the attentive while the lilt of the otiose drawl in serpentine convolution a ribald pleonasm of circular circumlocution that provides locomotive linearity rather than leapfrogged slogmarches into the province of the territorial alignment of kinship against the partisan hollertrap and the stigmatophilia of obsessive persnickety popinjay beadledom the last stronghold of the rickety resistence to this Saturday interregnum which presides over the better part of the intelligentsia if not the common pedestrian parlance because hortatory weights cannot be described in any other way than metagnostic flickers of Yellow Submarine vandalism of a pristine living animation of the humane spirit that prizes the plight of the poor and the blarney and blench of unjust opprobrium faced by the institutionalized bailiwick of flictions of gammadion gallionic posture when in fact they register as seismic entities engraved upon my Christian conscience that strictly welcomes the emigrants to truth from whatever consecrated virtue they originate from because all are capable of the same light and the same compassion of a beatified humanity rather than the relish of deep-state castophrenia which belies its own ribald gay mockery on live TV as not a single twinge of ****** attraction overtakes me in matriotic sardanapalian effrontery of a hollow but sadly hallowed vainglory of the hierodules that bury the coffers of patriotism in a sad LGBTQ graveyard of landmines that demonstrate a complete disregard of the nuclear family and should be decried as an outcry against redefined Christianity bolted to unshakable irrefragable beliefs in the constitution of man and women wed together in one monogamous flesh with the occasional cuddle of close tithes to the ******* of friendship as the slavery of sin in Leviticus 20:13 falls to the wayside because this patriotic lewdness is a vapid fatuous derangement that is a new low for the United States attempt to inoculate China from religious accord with the broader world and should be seen as a Chinese maskirovka worthy of the heaviest disdain and I will disavow America if it continues to bandy the tripwires of Chinese boondoggles under the American banner and pretend its pretense isn’t lagging under its own bletcherous abecedarian elementary fallacy of psychobabble oblivion of dark saturnine brusque termagants of tatterdemalion cloaks of the selfsame illusion of a desperation of China to wreck the United States economy and inseminate Florida, Arizona and Texas especially with the Coronavirus to swing the election in Biden’s favor with or without US Complicity to expedite the course of a virus which sees no resurgence in any other civilized country in the world while the heroic Russians, Germans, Israelis, French, British and true American Christians banish the barristers of bad taste as an acerbic poison on the wellsprings of a flagitious flag I would kneel for in the knells of disgrace if the pompous and completely inoculated missives of Buttigieg ******* continue to roam shepherded by deep state elitism to wreck the opportune moment of religious revival for petty reasons of chryselephantine gambit and gimcrack for institutionalized poverty which my ambition is to heal completely by sacerdotal deeds and consecrated prayers in the Lord whose peace surpasses the temporal despair of senectitude and comforts the grievances of the aggrieved because Galatians 6:7 is no more true than the fatuous display of muscular idiots waving American flags for turpitude rather than flogging very perverse Gay men in the streets which might be a more fitting outcome even though I must remove the plank in my own eyes first to see the irony of the detested. The doytin is no longer misguided by the nanciful derision of the vociferous clangor of the venal Gates mafia militia wrecking ball vaccination Bezos crew in Medina which is a mettle I can’t match when you own every citizen in the world in a few square miles of nesiote territory the denizens of conquest besieging religious sanctity with profane outbursts of corruptible linchpins on the public lynch of the strepsis of periblebsis that vitiates commonwealths of supreme sputtering regimented clairvoyant superlative alabaster wealth of the isangelous protectorate of the supreme God that supervises his careworn flock into the storge against the scourge of prosodemic stigma stained in bleeding heart liberal bathed tears of pseudoautochiria of Jim Morrison glaring in the face of the triads that Killed Him in the French Connection ******* of 71’ that outnumbered his hobohemia of loyal jewish bohemians livid in the rhapsody of nurture rather than enfeebled by the unfurled destiny of the Soul Kitchen he foresaw to his own pitiable demise at probably the hands of strangulation because no autopsy was performed. Although repetitive Transparent is a real anthem for oracular mystagogical transcendence a mandatory hymn for the ryseolagnus of the poetic verve of a new wave swooning the cordial progressive of atmospheric oneness with the primordial vine and the vintners that congregate on populated soil to feed a desolate destitution of synoecy or synaesthesis in the syncretic rhapsody of the subfocal ageotropic plenilune yet saturnine lugubrious toil of those that shovel through the albatross of ewnastique recapitulation to the same tired “Its got what plants crave, it’s got electrolytes” wernaggle of the hopelessly dismal inkburch of illiteracy crawling like a Hyacinth House on a vacant graveyard turf guarding the legionaires of rapid-fire zig-zags through a serpentine curvature of the ligaments of fabricated space warped through prismatic lenses of aperspectival time aspiring for ventriloquial enamored rapture upon Earthly parallax with tapestries of refulgent cascading wandering wonder that meditates its own lucubration with careworn tutelage against the wasms of dying oleaginous swelters of redshort opportunistic vultures swooping with Raven’s claws against the odometer of viewership surpassing records in unspeakable wisdom that crowds out the crambazzle toonardical wreffelaxity of the tiresome nuisance of ornery brawn muscled into a formidable triage in vengeance for Jim Morrison’s scripted eviction from Earth either by poisoned ****** or by  Asphyxiation by the French Connection avenging RFK and the cultural revolutions of 67’ in Haight Ashbury and the widespread percolation of treacheries fathomed to the most obvious degree in showmanship that it bristled as an affront so severe that even the patronage of Paris wasn’t immune to infiltration. His threnodies will always be sung with Triumph that the hallowed day of a monumental soul eluding the darkness of purgatory into the welcoming aborning light of the noontide progeny of eternal ataraxia awaited him in the stagecraft tub of blasphemy bellowing ratcheted warnings that not even the palatine grasp of a potentially divine being was inoculated from the deep dark chasm of nefarious skullduggery for boasting so widely and openly of his professed foresight to glamorous to be hidden as the beacon of virtuosity that galvanized a generation to flout the  futtocks of a keelhauled vision of sanitized purblind mortality that the fear of death rarely crossed the mind of the greatest fearless poet of an entire epoch that we may pray that Jim Morrison feasts in Heaven atoned for his sins and is at peace with God now. The substratose congeniality of marginalia on the outskirts of pederasty in cultural miscarriage owned by hierodules boundless in their lurid debaucheries that they might be remanded for being custodians of hostage to a prolific nescience  reaffirming their dying posture in the extinction of sardanapalian coverthrow of repcrevel camorras of ladronism and dacoitage always cauponate in imbibed throes of lewd AstroTurf outrecuidance glowering at sanctity with a bereaved psychobabble divorced from the purebred empiricism of true giants of industry that are almost insuperable in their extortion that their darkness in deeds of Kobe Bryants assassination do not go unpunished at least in Los Angeles. His untimely death as with many others registered on the Richter Scale because Come Clean perverts from Kansas City wanted San Francisco to win to clean the mops of janitorial revenge of the subturbary rickety foundations of a flailing moral compass so wicked in arbitrage that no subreption undetected would flourish among capernoited vigilantes of poached titanism and illuminism scarring the vestiges of enigmatic encroachment upon untouchables daring the frights of the Living Daylights of scurrilous rebukes so scathing in their menacing depiction of negligent bromides of token sacrilege and scarred sacrifice of a scarecrow example of how the prosodemic scourge of befuddled turgid pristine transmogrified heralds scampered away with pseudoautochiria that afflicted Jimi Hendrix suspiciously as well. My support is behind the justice warriors aggrieved by the Beirut explosion because they deserve a vindictive outcome that quells the quislings of atrocity of the popinjay beadledom of the unspeakable tremors of seismotic popples of unrest warranted in Lebanon the homeland of Keanu Reeves a saint among men for his peerless grace and agraceries of the smog of myth evanescence becoming perdurable swings of the humdingers of berated jaundice becoming the prerogative of the revenge of a city leveled to the ground by suspicious skullduggery and I am surprised they lay dormant for this long in their protracted grievance over the ghoulish frights of one of the most unheralded major events in recent memory. We need to highlight the plight of Lebanon so that world leaders are frightened even of intimidated people tranquilized by terror rather than enlivened by the propriety of redacted rejoinders that serve the ulterior mission of a Titanic bravery that never sinks beneath the sumptuary treacle of grombang grambazzle and supercherie of the supercalendar of poignant repined repose derailing an emolument to ecumenical solidarity. Lets highlight Lebanon as an inexcusable trespass worthy of some mighty reckoning if not a riveted war but at the very least a devastated twinge of outrage.

The engineers they tweak the DNA,
fostering changes to the RNA,
the plants becoming something else,
immunevolution modify man’s health.
And never will they accept the blame,
for their arrogance and dangerous game;
and when the food cannot be eaten?



History recall of the viral cretins.

Another scar to bear
And another pain inside.
Nothing for you to see,
It's hidden behind my eyes,
But I do hurt, and myself I revile,
After these long months of living as a friend.

Victory, Victory, Victoria
So this is what's become of us.
Another scar,
Something my words did not intend,
Neither of us safe from their path.
We both played our part precise,
We, the engineers of our own demise.

You, with waiting to play your cards,
Unfortunately you played it too close, you played too far.
How long is a guy supposed to wait
Before he wises up,
Before he realizes he will not catch the bait?
You tell a guy just want to be friends, twice,
And you know what, he thinks he gets the point.
You built your walls up too high
To try and prevent a painful ending,
And instead we never got to start.

Victory, Victory, Victoria
So this is what's become of us.
Another scar,
Something my words did not intend,
With neither of us safe from their path.
We both played our parts precise,
We, the engineers of our own demise.

It seems as if I paint it all your fault
But we both played our parts.
I waited patient and tried to be
The best friend and what I thought you needed,
And when you mentioned your friend
Thought I was an "interest"ing guy,
I walked into it with my head held high
And both eyes staring open wide,
Refusing to let myself see
What you really did mean.

Victory, in honesty, I could only wait so long, hating to be alone,
And Victory, in honesty, I never thought I'd be singing this song,
Victoria, as things wound and rewrapped themselves
So quickly after I picked out a new course.

And to you again, how long do you
Expect a guy to sit tight and wait?
It's a lonely life to watch a girl live life
Until she finds she is ready to date.
And as for the poems you quoted at me,
Only one was written about the new "she".
If only you'd taken the time to see what
The upload date would surely tell you,
A different story on who the subject
Of that second poem was,
Of who I wrote that other poem for -
Or maybe you prefer now not to know
So neither of us has more reason to hurt
Beyond the fact that
I never showed you that poem.

So Victory, Victory, Victoria
This is what's to become of us.
Yet another scar to bear,
Something from my words I never did intend,
With neither of us safe from their path.
We, the players, acting our parts precise,
We, the engineers, the designers of our own demise.

Before you criticize me too soon, I think you should spare some seconds and answer a simple question to yourself...

If Shahjahan loved Mumtaz Mahal so much, why he had a harem of wives to use at his own pleasure?

While I agree that the Taj Mahal is arguably the most extraordinarily beautiful monument in the world, I don't agree upon the fact that it was built as a tomb of love. It is just a symbol of madness if you asked me. An emperor's insecure feeling to get his name registered in the history books. While it may be one of the most beautiful architectural monument, it was built by over 20,000 architects, craftsmen, masons and engineers who took over 16 years to build the magnificent building.

He got this apparently high & prestigious monument of love built but everything that the Emperor did was not pleasant at all.

° The lavishly living Mughal Emperor spent all his - his subjects' money into building this monument of love instead of keeping his subjects well-fed.
° Mumtaz Mahal might have been the luckiest woman to have died and got such a marvelous building built as her mausoleum but she died giving birth to her & Shahjahan's 17th offspring and then Shahjahan who had uncountable other wives was inspired by her demise apparently to undertake what is termed as the biggest project in history build the costliest monument proclaiming his rule.
° The arrogant - falsely proud lover - Mughal emperor didn't know that what he thought to be looked at as the greatest symbol of love will be criticized by some poet in his own land nearly 375 years later. The insane Mughal Emperor got all the builders of the Taj Mahal's fingers cut-off of so that there could be no other Taj Mahal.

But Aurangzeb, his & Mumtaz Mahal's son overthrew his power when Shahjahan got older and locked him up in a jail at the other end of Yamuna river where the emperor then died a sad old lovelorn bedlamite person in prison. Aurangzeb was the exact opposite of his dad, he showed religious intolerance and his habits drove the empire towards its doom after his death.

But let me think this way; when I look at any picture of the Taj Mahal, what I get the first thing in mind is this: *Such a CRAZY emperor who got such a beautiful monument of Egotism built!

A CHILD FOR AMARANTH

by

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

For Bill Coulter

Copyright 2025 Tod Howard Hawks

PREAMBLE:

A CHILD FOR AMARANTH is a love story of many dimensions and a mystery/thriller with a worldwide, mystical, double-magic denouement that results in certainty of a newborn and Peace on Earth.

I hope you enjoy A CHILD FOR AMARANTH.



Chapter 1

Amaranth Anderson (née Christensen) was sitting in her chair at the kitchen table because she could feel another poem welling up inside her. So she picked up her pen, turned to the next empty page in her notebook, and began to record.

WE HAVE MINED OUR MOUNTAINS

We have mined our mountains,
we have fished our seas,
we have felled our forests,
we have gathered our grains,
but we have not yet embraced
the infinite energy of our souls,
which is love.

Amaranth had been writing poems since her early 20’s. Actually, as she had told so many people, she, in fact, had never “written” a poem, except for the one time when she was an Upper Middler at Andover and her English teacher, Mr. Fitts, who was a renowned poet, literary critic, translator of Greek plays, and at that time, judge of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition, assigned everyone in the class to write a poem that would be due the next day. That night she had tried to write a poem. The poem she wrote was awful. The next day, she handed in her poem. When Mr. Fitts handed back the poems several days later to her and her 11 classmates, she looked at the piece of paper. At the top of it was the number 50, a failing grade for sure, circled many times with red ink. And off to the right side in the margin, Mr Fitts had written: “Be yourself. If this is yourself, be someone else.” Amaranth had never forgotten that traumatic moment, and she never wrote another poem, that is, until she entered therapy in her early twenties.

Amaranth had gone to law school after graduating from Columbia College, Columbia University where she and Ty, the man who was to become her husband, had met their first year there and seemed as if, almost instantly, had fallen in love. Amaranth had hated law school, and midway through her first semester, had started having problems sleeping, problems that got so bad that by the end of the semester, she couldn’t sleep at all. So she dropped out, an act for which her father, an attorney himself, would never forgive her. Nonetheless, she returned to Sedona, Arizona, where she had grown up, and because her sleeplessness had not gotten any better, but, in fact, had gotten much worse, entered psychotherapy.

Over time, Amaranth came to realize in therapy that her father had been vicariously living his dreams through her, and that she had unconsciously become, and remained, the "good little girl" to get her father’s approval. The problem was that she was slowly dying inside. Chronic insomnia was the first overt sign that she needed to begin to live her own life, and therapy was the catalyst to that end. She learned, in time, that she had her own dreams, her own needs, her own desires, her own wishes to be fulfilled. In short, she had her own life to live. And that realization was when she became a poet.

Her own feelings, which had been buried for years, began to emerge. And Amaranth found that when she married her feelings with her intellect, a poem would well up inside her, and, quite literally, pop out of her. Her job as a poet was not to “write” a poem, but to “record” it, Her job was to get quickly a pen and her notebook and write down what was welling up in her. If she didn’t, the poem would begin dissipating. An unrecorded poem would evaporate virtually instantly. It would enter the ether, lost forever. That’s why she told everyone she never “wrote” a poem, except for that one Andover poem, but always tried to write it down when she felt a poem welling up in her. Mr. Fitts’s acerbic comment at the top of that piece of paper on which that Andover poem had been written proved to be both wise and prophetic. Poetry, she told other people, was like making love: If you had to force yourself to do it, stop. And that is the reason she always told people she never “wrote” another Andover poem, but always tried to “record” the poem as it eventually passed through her conscious mind.

After recording the poem, she put her pen on the notebook, got out of her chair, put on her light jacket, walked to the kitchen door, opened it, walked down the few stairs, then walked down the slight hill toward the creek that flowed behind her house. It was soon to be spring and she wanted to see if the crocuses had begun to crack the earth that had been hardened by the cold winter. When Amaranth saw the burgeoning crocuses, she said hello to them. They were her friends, her confidants. So spring was on its way, she thought. Pleased by that realization, Amaranth then turned around, walked back up the hill, and entered the house.

Ty and Amaranth had gotten married in Sedona. Both had once visited Boulder, Colorado and vacationed in the mountains for two weeks. As a result, they wound up going to a small town near Boulder called Niwot one evening to have dinner at a fine restaurant there. The next day, they returned to Niwot to look around. They both really liked Niwot, cozy and unpretentious as it was. They made another visit there, and after much deliberation, decided to buy a house in Niwot and make it their home. Ty had secured a position at Fairview High School in Boulder as a teacher of American history, which had been his major at Columbia. Both were 32 years old.

Both Ty and Amaranth wanted to have a family, but though they had tried innumerable times to get Amaranth pregnant, they had not succeeded. Ty eventually got tested to see if he had a low ***** count, but the test proved he didn’t. Amaranth, too, had gone to several doctors to see if it were she who had a problem, but the doctors could find nothing wrong with her. This dilemma perplexed both of them. And, in truth, Amaranth had begun to experience some low-level anxiety and depression over the situation.


Chapter 2

Ty got home about 5:30. He walked up behind Amaranth, who was standing in front of the kitchen sink, and gave her a kiss on her nape and a big hug.

“I love you, “ said Ty.

“I love you so much,” said Amaranth.

“I’m going to get on the computer to see if Trump still occupies the Oval Office,” said Ty. He was no fan of Trump.

“Good luck,” said Amaranth. She knew how Ty felt and how outspoken he had always been. But that didn’t bother her. She was actually proud of Ty for having the courage to speak his mind in all situations.

Amaranth finished preparing dinner and brought the food to the dining room table. She had prepared one of her favorite vegetarian meals. Both were vegetarians.

“He’s still there,” Ty said sardonically.

It had been a most difficult year for Ty, having Trump every day lying and cheating. He remembered vividly watching on live, worldwide TV the Charlottesville riots, watching and listening to the neo-Nazis and the white supremacists screaming terrible chants at Jews and blacks, as well as hearing that some crazy racist had run over with his vehicle and killed a nonviolent female protester who favored love over hate. And then there was Trump’s memo authorizing the Border Control to rip children, even babies, from the arms of their immigrant mothers. These grotesque incidents sent Ty to bed for almost two days, he was so emotionally wrought. And Trump’s impulsive and unilateral decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement angered Ty, too. Ty thought Trump was a liar, a cheat, a ******, and a crook. And to top it all off, Ty thought he was just flat-out dumb.

“Ty, I need to tell you something,” Amaranth said. “I’ve been having bouts of anxiety and depression and I think I need to see a therapist.”

Ty was silent for more than a moment. Then he said, “If that’s what you feel you need to do, do it. I’m behind you all the way. I love you dearly.”

“A friend of mine recommended a therapist in Boulder. I think I will call his office tomorrow,” said Amaranth.

“Sounds good to me,” said Ty.

That night Ty and Amaranth made passionate love, then fell asleep peacefully.


Chapter 3

“Hello, this is Amaranth Anderson calling,” said Amaranth. “I’d like to make an appointment to see Dr. Rosenstein about the possibility of becoming a therapy patient of his,” said Amaranth. “April 12th at 10:00 a.m.? That would be great. Thank you for your help.”

The following Friday, Amaranth went to meet her therapist.

“Dr. Rosenstein, it is a pleasure to meet you,” Amaranth said.

“And it is a pleasure to meet you as well,” replied Dr. Rosenstein. “How can I be of help to you?”

Amaranth began telling Dr. Rosenstein about her situation. She found she was not nervous telling Dr. Rosenstein everything about her situation. The more she told Dr. Rosenstein, the more she relaxed. She spoke for a long time, virtually the entire fifty minutes, the usual length of a therapy session.

“We have to stop now,” said Dr. Rosenstein. “I am not going to prescribe any medication for you at this time. I don’t think you need it right now. If you begin to feel worse, tell me. Please keep me apprised of how you’re doing. If your anxiety and depression begin to worsen, I will prescribe for you the appropriate medications. I’ll see you next Thursday at 10 o’clock. Is that OK?”

“Yes, it is,” said Amaranth. She got out of her chair and turned toward the door. “Thank you, Dr. Rosenstein.”

“You are most welcome,” replied Dr. Rosenstein.

Amaranth had called her best friend, Julie, the night before, asking her if she would like to have lunch today. Julie had said yes, so Amaranth got into her car and drove to Parkway Diner. When Amaranth opened the door at the entrance to the Parkway Diner, she saw Julie sitting in a booth to the right. Amaranth, even though she was not conscious of it, was very excited about her session with Dr. Rosenstein.

“How are you, Am?” asked Amaranth as she slid into the booth. Amaranth’s friends always called her Am.

“I’m fine. How are you doing after seeing a psychiatrist for an hour?” asked Julie.

“Fifty minutes, Julie. That’s a psychiatric hour,” said Amaranth. “Actually, I felt most comfortable talking with Dr. Rosenstein. I told him everything. I feel so much better than I did last night.”

The two ordered their meals and began eating them as they continued to talk.

“So Julie, how are your three little kids?” asked Amaranth.

“They’re doing fine. They can’t wait until it gets warm, really warm. You know they’re already training for the Olympics. You know how much they
love to swim,” said Julie.

“How are they doing in school?” asked Amaranth.

“Well, Henry can’t get enough books to read. You know he’s in fifth grade. I take him to the public library every week. He just finished Tom Sawyer. Now he wants to read Huckleberry Finn. And Jennifer has been taking piano lessons now for two years, and she’s only in third grade. Tommy likes to play outdoors. He’s in first grade, just getting started.”

“That’s wonderful, Julie. You know how much Ty and I want kids, don’t you?”

Julie did know how terribly much Ty and Amaranth wanted to have kids, especially Am. Julie felt uncomfortable to talk to Am about having kids for fear of making Am feel even worse about her predicament.

“Women have kids nowadays when they’re in their late thirties, Am,” said Julie. “Hang in there.”

After they finished eating, Amaranth and Julie continued to talk about all sorts of things, like the best movies showing at the theater complex in Boulder, about the best shows on cable TV, about what awful shape the world was in. They were best friends, so they could talk about anything, and did.

“See you, I hope soon,” said Julie. “Don’t hesitate to call if ever you need to,” Julie added.

There’s a Chinese proverb that goes like this: “One can do without people, but one has need of a friend.”


Chapter 4

Ty had already gotten out of bed, showered, got dressed, ate something for breakfast, and headed for Fairview High School where he had been teaching American history for ten years. Amaranth still lay in bed half asleep.

That voice, that sound. What was that about?

Amaranth lifted her head off her pillow, then sat on the edge of the bed. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before. The voice. It didn’t scare her, but it seemed as though it was almost real. She got out of bed and went into the bathroom. She took off her nightgown and took a shower. What was that about? The voice in her sleep, what was it trying to say to me? she thought. She brushed her teeth, combed her hair, then came back into the bedroom. It wasn’t Ty, that voice. But it was, in its own way, real. One sentence. That was all it was.

Amaranth brewed some coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. When it was ready, she poured a cup and took a sip. The voice had said to her: “The world is not safe now for your child.” That was it, that was all of it. She took another sip of coffee. The voice was not threatening, but it was sincere, earnest.

Finally, she got up from the table, put on her light jacket, then opened the
kitchen door, went down the few steps, and walked toward the crocuses and the creek. It was, indeed, a beautiful day. She sat down on the grass next to the burgeoning crocuses. She told the crocuses what had happened. Sharing, even with crocuses, made her feel better. As the sun rose higher in the sky, it got warmer. She could feel the sun’s warmth through her jacket. What a beautiful morning, she thought.

“I will have to tell Dr. Rosenstein about this,” Amaranth said, speaking to herself. She was half inclined to go back into the house and call him up to see if she might be able to see him that afternoon, but, no, she would wait until next Thursday, she decided.

She started to think about the world and all of its problems. Then she found herself centering her thoughts on the catastrophic climate change that the world’s leading scientists were speaking out about, warning the world that it had ten-to-twelve years to change its course or face annihilation. The rapid rise of Earth’s temperature, the much faster-than-expected melting of the ice caps, the alarming rise of sea levels around the world, the poor polar bears. And Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, his stupid claim that all of this was not true, but fake news. What awful things to have to think about, she thought. But the whole world had to think about all these awful things, and correct them, otherwise Earth, and all the living creations on it, would die.

Amaranth had to stop thinking about all these awful things herself. It was too much for her, so she said good-bye to the crocuses and the creek, stood up, walked up the hill, and went inside her love-filled home.


Chapter 5

Ty had already gotten out of bed, showered, got dressed, ate something for breakfast, and headed for Fairview High School.

Amaranth could not stop thinking about the voice.

What had happened while she was asleep? Amaranth asked herself. That voice, that sound. What was that about?

Amaranth got dressed and made her way into the kitchen. She looked out the window above the kitchen sink. It was another beautiful day, the sun shining on everything. The sunshine reflected off the water in the creek. She made some coffee, sat down in her kitchen chair, and took a sip.

The voice had said to her: “The world is not safe now for your child.” That was it, that was all of it. She took another sip of coffee. The voice was not threatening, but it was sincere, earnest, she thought.

Finally, she got up from the table to go see her friends again. She put on her light jacket, then opened the kitchen door, went down the few steps, and walked toward the crocuses and the creek. She sat down on the grass next to the burgeoning crocuses and talked to them. As the sun rose higher in the sky, it got warmer. She could feel the sun’s warmth through her jacket. What a beautiful morning, she thought.


Chapter 6

Ty Anderson grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was valedictorian of his high school graduating class and a National Merit Scholar. And he was charming and very handsome.

Ty chose to attend Columbia over Yale for two reasons, simply: the Core Curriculum and New York City.

Columbia College’s Core Curriculum was a rigorous two-year course of studies that included great literature, philosophy, art history, music appreciation, language, frontiers of science, global core studies, and writing. Each student of the College was required to take the “Core,” as it was affectionately referred to, regardless of her or his major. It was a start, a magnificent beginning, to a life of continual learning.

New York City was the veritable capital of the world. Living in and exploring New York City for four years made each student a citizen of the world for life, even if one decided to reside somewhere else, as Amaranth and Ty had decided to do.

Ty majored in American history. Public high schools across the nation were infamous because the vast majority of them did an execrable job of teaching that subject. Ty knew this. He himself had to augment his studies of that subject. He read, for example, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, and would frequently share incisive information with his classmates (and usually with the teacher as well) about the full scope of how the United States grew on the backs of slaves, how both the North and the South were complicit in this evil enterprise called slavery, how cotton became King Cotton, how cotton would be sent to Lowell, Massachusetts, the site where the Industrial Revolution began in the United States, and when processed, would be shipped from New York City to England. Both the entrepreneurs of the North and the slave owners of the South became incredibly rich. He would mention that the Constitution legalized slavery through the inclusion of the 3/5ths and the Fugitive Slave clauses in it, that Thomas Jefferson, our country’s third president, had owned over 600 slaves, that eight of our presidents had been slave owners, that the 4,000,000 slaves at the beginning of the Civil War had no legal rights, that they were whipped, or worse, if caught learning how to read or write, that a black man and a black woman who might fall in love could not legally be married, that a slave owner could take a thirteen-year-old girl and **** her with impunity, then sell her to another slave owner, if he wished. Ty came to admire the abolitionists who fervently advocated against slavery. William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Beecher Stowe — all became Ty’s heroes.

Ty learned how his nascent country grew westward through the genocide of indigenous peoples that most of his classmates called Indians, that President Andrew Jackson had signed the Indian Removal Act that resulted in “The Trail of Tears,” whereby the U.S. Army forced the indigenous peoples of southeastern United States to walk all the way to what is now Oklahoma, that General Sheridan had said, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Ty read about Wounded Knee, the last massacre of indigenous people in 1890 by the U.S. Calvary. Ty learned that virtually every treaty signed between indigenous nations and the United States government, over time, had been broken by the United States government.

In his senior year at Columbia College, he was selected by Eric Foner, regarded as the preeminent professor of American history in the world, as one of a small group of American history majors to take Foner’s senior seminar “The Civil War and Reconstruction.”

That seminar was the apex of Ty’s college experience.



Chapter 7

Amaranth sat beside the crocuses. It was May now and the crocuses were fully grown. Amaranth talked to the crocuses:

“I think a lot about Earth and all its problems: climate change; nuclear proliferation; poverty; hunger — lack of food and potable water; homelessness; racial and religious discrimination; war and its atrocities; lack of good and affordable health care; political and corporate corruption; wealth inequality; illiteracy and lack of education; air pollution; plastic in the oceans; species becoming extinct.” She paused.

“I need someone to talk to. I wish the whole world was filled with beautiful crocuses. There would be no room for all these problems.”

Amaranth had always been this way, even when she was a child.

She thought of Patty from her elementary school days. All her classmates would make fun of Patty, but Amaranth didn’t. Patty was different from the other kids in the way she looked and in the way she acted. Every day at school, it seemed, Patty would begin to scratch her calves and not stop, and because she always wore long, white socks to school, blood would begin to seep through them, staining them red. The other kids would laugh at her. Amaranth wouldn’t.

In eighth grade of junior high, Amaranth had been elected president of student council, and in the winter, Roosevelt Junior High would put on the Snow Ball. The Snow Ball was held on the basketball court. All the boys stood together in one corner, all the girls were in another corner, and in the third corner stood Patty, alone, ostracized.

The music had not yet begun and Amaranth was appalled by seeing Patty standing alone in her own corner, so when the music did start to play, Amaranth, without thinking about it, began to walk away from her group diagonally across the basketball court toward Patty. Everyone was looking at Amaranth. When Amaranth reached Patty, she asked her if she would like to dance. Patty said she would, so Amaranth and Patty walked to the center of the basketball court and began to dance all by themselves. When the first song ended, Amaranth asked Patty if he would like to dance again, and Patty again said yes, so the two of them danced again while the rest of the class looked on. Amaranth was saying to her classmates, not with words but with dance and music, “You do not treat any human being the way you have always treated Patty!”

Patty was a friend of Amaranth’s for years thereafter.



Chapter 8

Ty, because he never liked Trump, would never juxtapose the title “President” with the name “Trump.”

“Trump is the most despicable human being I have ever encountered. He is a racist, a bigot, a liar, a cheat, a misogynist, a ******. And he is dumb as hell.”

Amaranth already knew how Ty felt about Trump, but would let him vent anyway. She thought it cathartic, and she held Trump in essentially the same esteem as Ty did, though she didn’t have a need to vocalize her feelings.

“You are a stupendous cook, Am, but I’ve told you that a million times,” said Ty, but Amaranth would not have minded if he said the same thing a million more times.

The soup they had just finished was Chickpea Noodle Soup. The salad had been strawberry, basil, and goat cheese with balsamic drizzle, and the entrée they were eating now was Halloumi tacos with pineapple salsa & aji verde.

Amaranth loved this time of day. She loved the ambiance of a real candle lit in the center of the dining room table that was always covered with a clean, white linen tablecloth.

“I remember Trump denigrating on worldwide TV Rosie O’Donnell during the first Republican debate. I knew instantly that whoever this guy was, he should have been immediately disqualified from holding any political office, at any level, anywhere in the United States. Then, again on worldwide TV, Trump mocked a disabled New York Times reporter. Ever since, whenever Trump appears on TV, I quickly press the mute button on the remote control and turn my face away from the TV screen. I cannot bear to look at, or hear the voice of this extremely sick human being.”

“What’s for dessert tonight, Am?” said Ty.

“Carrot cake,” said Amaranth.

“Oh, I love your carrot cake!” said Ty.



Chapter 9

“Hello, Dr. Rosenstein,” said Amaranth.

“Hello, Amaranth. How are things?

“Well, Dr. Rosenstein, things are basically OK. My anxiety and depression are not as bad as they were. I think seeing and talking with you made me feel more relaxed and more hopeful.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“But I want to tell you what has just happened to me,” said Amaranth.

“Tell me,” said Dr. Rosenstein.

“Well, several nights ago while I was asleep, I heard — I hope you don’t think I’m crazy — I heard a voice in my head. It was not a scary voice. In fact, as I think back on it, it was a kind voice, almost the voice of wisdom. The voice said one sentence to me: “The world is not safe now for your child.’ That was the sentence, nothing more. And I haven’t heard that voice again. What do you think?”

Dr. Rosenstein paused for a few moments before he responded.

“This is intriguing, Amaranth. You say the voice did not scare you. The voice spoke to you about your ‘child,’ right?, a child you hope to have. And you said the voice was kind and wise.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“To be honest, I don’t know what to make of it, except that the voice did not frighten you; on the contrary, it seems to have addressed you personally, almost empathically. What the voice meant when it warned you that the world is not safe now, well, that’s true. In fact, that’s true for everyone on Earth, don’t you think?”

“Yes I do, Dr. Rosenstein.”

Amaranth and Dr. Rosenstein continued their session, talking about her writing poetry, her friendship with Julie, and her deep love for Ty, among other things.

When it came time to leave Dr. Rosenstein’s office, she realized that, once again, she felt slightly better than she had before seeing him.

Amaranth smiled as she took the elevator to the main floor.


Chapter 10

“Let’s go to Steamboat Springs this weekend, Am,” ******* Ty. “That’s our favorite getaway place in the mountains.”

“That’s a great idea! We’ve been to Aspen — too glitzy, to Vail — too ordinary, to Telluride — too far. Steamboat Springs has been our favorite for quite some time. We can stay in that old hotel downtown, The Bristol, away from the stifling commercial areas. We can leave Friday afternoon, go biking Saturday morning, go tubing on the Yampa in the afternoon, then sit in the hot springs as long as we want. We can eat at Rootz. They have vegetarian dishes. Let me check the computer to see what’s going on Saturday evening.”

“Oh Ty, the Strings Music Festival is on Saturday evening. They’ll be playing Wagner, Grieg, and Beethoven. That sounds wonderful! We can eat breakfast Sunday at the Creekside Cafe and take our time coming home. It’s mid-June, a perfect time to spend some time in Steamboat!”

Amaranth scurried over to Ty to give him a big hug.

Amaranth and Ty, indeed, had a wonderful time in Steamboat Springs. They arrived there about 8:30 Friday evening, decided to eat breakfast at the Creekside Cafe Saturday morning, as well as on Sunday. Then they biked the many trails in and around Steamboat Springs, went tubing on the Yampa River in the afternoon, ate dinner at the Rootz, then enjoyed beautiful music at the Strings Music Festival.

They walked back to the Bristol Hotel, went upstairs to their room, and barely could contain themselves, ripping each other’s clothes off to make love. It had been a beautiful day in the Rocky Mountains.

Both Amaranth and Ty had fallen asleep soon after making love. But while Amaranth slept, that voice came to her again. This time it said: “Peace on Earth.” Again she was not frightened by it; rather, she felt a certain calmness as she remembered hearing it. The voice had a caring tone to it, a beneficent tone to it. Just that one spiritually beautiful phrase, “Peace on Earth,” but a notion mentioned only a few weeks during the Christmas holidays, then gone, she thought, for eleven months.

Amaranth didn’t tell Ty about the voice and the phrase it had spoken as they ate breakfast again at the Creekside Cafe. She thought it best to tell only Dr. Rosenstein if and until she and he could figure out its meaning.



Chapter 11

Amaranth sat in her chair at her table in the kitchen. The summer sun was shining brightly through the kitchen windows.

She picked up her pen and began to write in her notebook.


THE WORDS GIVE ME THEIR POETRY

The words give me their
poetry; their melodies play
in my heart; their musicality
rings in my ear. I reach for
nothing; they come to me
of their own volition,
making gifts of their inherent
grace. The place they dwell is
sacred; their provenance sacro-
sanct. I am but the blessed
receiver of their beauty.


Amaranth put her pen down and took a sip of coffee. She wanted to be a mother so much, but what could she do? She had gone to doctors who had checked her out, but they could not find anything wrong. She took another sip of coffee.

Amaranth got up from the table and went outside to say hello to the crocuses, which, by now, were full grown.

“You are beautiful today, but you are always beautiful."

“I remember when I was a little girl, we had a row of lilac bushes right out our front door, and for about two weeks in spring, they all would blossom and the fragrance in our front yard was absolutely heavenly.

Then, in two weeks, the perfume was gone.

“Perfume is a kind of beauty, but the beauty of all things comes to an end. The beauty of life is seemingly transient, but death can leave a reservoir of beautiful memories, and we can treasure them for the rest of our lives.

“Thank you for sharing your beauty with me,” Amaranth said to the crocuses.



Chapter 12

Ty was reading, again, Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck, by far, was Ty’s favorite author. He had read all of Steinbeck’s books. His overwhelming conclusion was that Steinbeck had had to have “felt” all his novels before he started writing them. Of course, as an American history major, Ty knew about the Great Depression thoroughly. The Dust Bowl, the soup lines, the staggering poverty, the pervasive unemployment, the New Deal, all the alphabet government agencies, Woody Guthrie.

Ty wondered how much better life was now in 2019 than it had been in the 1930s. It’s true that the Supreme Court had overturned the 1890 decision that affirmed the concept of “separate but equal” in Plessy v. Ferguson with the landmark case in 1954 of Brown v. Board of Education, but look where we are now, thought Ty. Trump, Ty felt, personified racism in America. He had given tacit permission to millions of Americans to evince again their racist proclivities. Ty never could forget what he had seen on worldwide TV that night in Charlottesville. Moreover, the next morning **** Trump told the world that there were “good people” on both sides the night before.



Chapter 13

“Hello, Dr. Rosenstein,” said Amaranth.

“Hello, Amaranth. How are you doing today?”

“I’m basically OK, but I have something I need to tell you about.”

They both sat down, and Amaranth began to speak.

“Well, Dr. Rosenstein, I had the voice again, but it had a different message. The voice said, “Peace on Earth.” That’s all the voice said.

“Well, Amaranth, at least the voice isn’t saying anything threatening to you. ‘Peace on Earth’ is about as unthreatening as it gets.”

“That’s true, but I wish I knew what was going on. I think it really helps me to see you and tell you what’s going on in my mind, even if the voice isn’t threatening. It keeps me from getting overwhelmed.”

“If it’s helpful for you to see me and share with me what’s going on, then I’m glad. I’m as perplexed as you are, but I don’t feel what’s going on with you and this voice you hear occasionally while you’re sleeping is anything to be terribly concerned about. Let’s just keep our composure, if we can, and see what happens.”

Amaranth and Dr. Rosenstein continued talking the rest of the session about the trip to Steamboat Springs and other things going on in her life. She even read him the poems she had recently written.

EVENING

It will get dark soon.
The white, yellow, and pink
houses will turn grey,
then black. The cacophony
of car horns will turn into
the chorus of locusts.
Summer’s night will lay
a sheet of tranquility over
a city harassed by exigent
matters that matter not.
Soporific silhouettes will
soften the cityscape,
allowing us to escape
the frazzle of the hot day,
exchanging the frenetic
for the peaceful, the welter
for a sense of well-being.
The susurrus of the evening
breeze blows the exhaust
of our polluted lives into
a distant day. Children play
in yards back and front and
laughter wafts through
neighborhoods like the sweet
smell of barbecue, not the
fetid odor of finance and
foreclosures. There is a
sense of closure to this day.
As the sun sets, our eyelids
close, and we pray for the
soft rain of forgiveness.


TELL ME TRULY WHO YOU ARE

Tell me truly who you are,
not from afar, but to my ear.
Do not fear: I shall not castigate,
excoriate. Dissemble not: No
equivocation, prevarication.
Tell me truly what’s in your heart.
Is terror there, or guilt? Rage ablaze
from needs unmet? Do unhealed hurts
leave you reeling in a maelstrom of
doubt? Open up your heart
and let your agonies fly out.
In gentle ways let us discuss
with worth of self. Let light
penetrate hate, mollify madness,
assuage pain. Let your forthcoming,
my love for your realness,
heal us both.


THERE ARE REASONS WHY

There are reasons why
some men are shy,
and women too,
when wearing silk,
lie on their beds
alone and cry.
No mother’s milk
to satisfy
the cruel thirst
for love and touch.
The rule first
is to beware,
when wearing silk,
of men who stare
or fingers touch;
this much we know.


WE EXPORT WHAT IS OF NO IMPORT

Arms reach out to us from
other continents and our own.
Would we need not be so
preoccupied by an arms race
that we might embrace these
children of different races with
love? I see faces laced with tears,
fraught with fears; I cannot
countenance the human hate
that abets, not abates, this terror.
Is it simply human error that we
are more concerned with pork
belly futures than the future
of children with inflated bellies in
distant and not-so-distant places?
Or do we mean to be mean? It
disgraces me that this misery
flourishes. We nourish our inflated
sense of self-importance; and we
export what is of no import.


“Thanks for sharing with me your poignant and powerful poems. I think your writing is a nice counterbalance to help you deal, even if unconsciously, with these cryptic messages you are receiving occasionally.”

“I’ll see you next Thursday. And thanks again for your help,” said Amaranth as she left the room.



Chapter 14

Ty wrote often on his Facebook page. He was terribly smart, articulate, and unabashed — outspoken, to the max, if you will. This evening, after dinner, he wrote:

“Is not the Mueller Report today’s equivalent of the Pentagon Papers stolen by Daniel Ellsberg and given first to The New York Times and then a few days later to The Washington Post, which decided to publish them.

“Both Ellsberg and Katharine Graham, who was publisher of the Washington Post at that time, are to me heroes for doing the right thing, knowing simultaneously that they both could have gone to prison for what they had done, but in the end, didn’t have to do.

“The Pentagon Papers, like the Mueller Report, divulged to the American people, and to the rest of the world, all the deceptions and lies told to them by their very own government.

“But what has happened to Mueller?

“Why have Mueller and **** Trump and all of his myrmidons not yet testified, in open session, before one or more of the powerful committees in the House on worldwide TV?

“Worldwide TV coverage would make all the difference in the world, as it had done during the Select Senate Committee investigation of Nixon’s Watergate scandal, in terms of how Americans would react, as they not only could hear, but also could see, the full, sordid story of all the illicit deeds perpetrated by this immoral, incompetent, and criminal human being who’s still in the Oval Office.

“And why hasn’t the Mueller Report, which is 448 pages long, been disseminated to the American people in its unredacted, complete form, along with all the underlying evidence?

“This is the United States of America, folks. A democracy, right?

“But I forgot. Our democracy is being taken for a long, long ride by Trump in the diametrically wrong direction, toward totalitarianism — fascism, if you like — not the democracy which we love.”



Chapter 15

Amaranth had grown up in Sedona, Arizona, one of the most beautiful spots on Earth. During her 8th-grade year, she had applied to Phillips Academy, otherwise known as Andover.

Andover was the oldest, and often considered the best, boarding school in America, having been founded in 1778, two years into our nation’s existence. George Washington had sent his nephew to Phillips Academy. Paul Revere designed and made the school’s seal. For a long time, Andover has provided the best secondary school education in the nation. It became, in time, America’s equivalent of Great Britain’s Eton College.

It is interesting to note that Humphrey Bogart had been a student at Andover, but had been kicked out, an act that did not seem to affect adversely his rise to stardom in Hollywood. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., who was a physician, poet, and polymath in the mid-nineteenth century had attended Phillips Academy and its library, where Amaranth had spent so much of her time studying, is named after him. George H. W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, had graduated from Andover, then later, both were elected president of the United States. JFK’s son, John, who many had thought would eventually become president of the United States, but who tragically died so early in his life in an airplane accident, had attended Andover as well. In 2019, Andover, a high school, albeit a sui generis high school, had an endowment of 1.4 billion dollars.

Amaranth was editor of the Phillipian, the student newspaper, her senior year. Each school year was divided into trimesters, and each trimester each student was required to play a sport at the level of her/his prowess in that sport. There were 20 different sports played at Andover. Amaranth played soccer in the fall, swam in the winter, and played tennis in the spring.

In 2019, Andover enrolled 1,154 students from 44 states and 49 countries. Its admit rate was 13%. Its tuition was $53,900. Andover had a need-blind admissions policy, which meant that each applicant was assessed on her/his personal merits, not on her/his family’s wealth. Moreover, Andover has a need-based financial aid policy, which meant the school provided 100% of demonstrated financial aid to all of its students. 47% of Andover students received financial aid.

Andover offered 300 courses and 150 electives. The average number of students in any given class was 13. Andover offered study in eight foreign languages.

In each of her/his four years, an Andover student would take five or six courses. In the Junior year (9th grade), a student would take English, history, and would be placed, at the level shown by her/his performance on ability tests, courses in math, science (biology, chemistry, or physics), and a foreign language. In the Lower year (10th grade), a student would take English, history, math, another science course, introductory music, physical education, philosophy/religious studies, and language. In his Upper year (11th grade), a student would take English, history, math, another science course or an elective (e.g. theater/dance), and language. In the Senior year (12th grade), a student must take any remaining courses needed to meet diploma requirements.

Among the many courses Amaranth took at Andover, among the many subjects she studied, English was by far her favorite. Every student had to take English all four years.

Amaranth read and studied the following poets and their poems in her Junior year: Death of a Naturalist, in Poems: 1965–1975 by Heaney; Selected Poems by Brooks; From the Box Marked Some Are Missing by Pratt; Selected Poems by Stafford; Domestic Work by Trethewey; Songs of Innocence and of Experience by Blake; The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge; New and Selected Poems by Collins; The Yellow House on the Corner by Dove; Gilgamesh (translation) by Ferry; New and Selected Poems by Harjo; New and Selected Poems by Hass; The Iliad by Homer; The Odyssey by Homer; You and Yours by Nye; Twelve Moons by Oliver; and The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry.

Amaranth read and studied the following plays her Junior year: “Master Harold”…and the Boys by Fugard; A Raisin in the Sun by Hansberry; Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare; Our Town by Wilder; Julius Caesar by Shakespeare; Antigone by Sophocles; The Piano Lesson by Wilson; Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, and The Comedy of Errors by Shakespeare.

Amaranth read and studied the following non-fiction books her Junior year: Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Boo; Black Ice by Cary; A Small Place by Kincaid; Citizen 16330 by Okubo; Night by Wiesel; and Black Boy by Wright.

Amaranth read and studied the following short stories her Junior year: Women Hollering Creek and Other Stories by Cisneros; The Summer Book by Jansson; and Leaving Home by Rochman and McCampbell.

Amaranth read and studied the following novels her Junior year: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Alexie; The Bookshop by Fitzgerald; A Lesson Before Dying by Gaines; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Haddon; A Separate Peace by Knowles; Long Division by Loymon; They Came Like Swallows by Maxwell; Horseman, Pass By by McMurtry; In Revere, in Those Days by Merullo; The Hate U Give by Thomas; and American Born Chinese by Yang; This Boy’s Life by Wolff; What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Arimah; Collected Stories by O’Connor; Who’s Irish? by Jen; The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner by Sillitoe; I Am One of You Forever by Chappell; Silas Marner by Eliot; The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway; Annie John by Kincaid; The Bean Trees by Kingsolver; Rumors of Peace by Leffland; When the Emperor Was Divine by Otsuka; The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger; Persepolis by Satrapi; The Fall of Rome by Southgate; The Once and Future King by White; Salvage the Bones by Ward; Eathan Frome by Wharton; Jane Eyre by C. Brontë; A Month in the Country by Carr; A Lost Lady by Cather; Oliver Twist by Dickens; My Ántonia by Cather; The Go-Between by Hartley; A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway; Mister Pip by Jones; Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Márquez; So Long, See You Tomorrow by Maxwell; The Member of the Wedding by McCullers; Everything I Never Told You by Ng; Girl at War by Novič; My Name Is Asher Lev by Potok; All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque; Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Rushdie; One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn; Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Stevenson; Montana 1948 by Watson; and Kitchen by Yoshimoto.

Amaranth read and studied the following poets and their poems in her Lower year: Selected Poems by Clampitt; An Ordinary Woman by Clifton; On These I Stand by Cullen; Motherlove by Dove; Selected and New Poems by Dunn; A Boy’s Will and North of Boston by Frost; A Shropshire Lad by Housman; New and Selected Poems by Justice; The Women of Plums by Kendrick; Rose by Lee; American Primitive by Oliver; The Best of It by Ryan; New and Selected Poems by Salter; New and Selected Poems by Smith; Selected Poems by Millay; Selected Poems by D. Thomas; Selected Poems by E. Thomas; Selected Poems by Williams; Call Me Ishmael Tonight: A Book of Ghazals by Ali; Selected Poems by Arnold; Selected Poems Beowulf by Auden; “My Last Duchess” and Other Poems by R. Browning; Thomas and Beulah Gluck, The Wild Iris by Dove; New and Selected Poems by Grennan; Donkey Gospel or What Narcissism Means to Me by Hoagland; Poems by Kelly; Ariel by Plath: In Memoriam or Selected Poems by Tennyson; Headwaters by Voigt; Collected Poems by Wilbur; Above the River by Wright; Outside History by Boland; Selected Poems by Hayden; What the Living Do by Howe; Selected Poems by Langston Hughes; Hoops or Holding Company by Jackson; Magic City by Komunyakaa; New and Selected Poems by Kumin; Hinge and Sign by McHugh; Selected Poems by O’Hara; Collected Poems by Roethke; Sonnets by Shakespeare; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight translated by W. S. Merwin; and Prelude by Wordsworth.

Amaranth read and studied the following plays her Lower year: American Buffalo by Mamet; The Crucible by Miller; A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare; The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare; Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by Wilson; Richard II by Shakespeare; The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare; Othello by Shakespeare; The Glass Menagerie by Williams; Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by Wilson; Six Degrees of Separation by Guare; Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 by Shakespeare; and Macbeth by Shakespeare.

Amaranth read and studied the following non-fiction books her Lower year: Into the Wild by Krakauer; Dust Tracks on a Road by Hurston; and Essays by White.

Amaranth read and studied the following short stories her Lower year: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Alexie;  Drown by Díaz; The Thing Around Your Neck by Adichie; The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Kafka; Winesburg, Ohio by Anderson; The Things They Carried by O’Brien; and How To Breathe Underwater by Orringer; and The Secret Sharer by Conrad.

Amaranth read and studied the following novels her Lower year: Go Tell It on the Mountain by Baldwin; The Sweet Hereafter by Banks; Great Expectations by Dickens; All the Light We Cannot See by Doerr; The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Durrow; Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Hardy; Animal Dreams by Kingsolver; Black Swan Green by Mitchell; The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck; Cat’s Cradle by Vonnegut; The Picture of Dorian Gray by Wilde; My Antonia by Cather; The Awakening by Chopin; Silas Marner by Eliot; Grendel by Gardner; Exit West by Hamid; For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway; The Bluest Eye by Morrison; We the Animals by Torres; Sense and Sensibility by Austen; Ragtime by Doctorow; The Round House by Erdrich; Herland by Gilman; The Mayor of Casterbridge by Hardy; The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston; As I Lay Dying by Faulkner; Loving Day by Johnson; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Kesey; The Woman Warrior by Kingston; The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by McCullers; Frankenstein by M. Shelley; and Maus by Spiegelman.

Amaranth read and studied the following poets and their poems in her Upper year: Final Harvest by Dickinson; The Hollow Men by Eliot; The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by Eliot; Selected Poems by Jeffers; The Complete Poems by D. H. Lawrence; For the Union Dead/Life Studies by Lowell; The Boys at Twilight by Maxwell; Time’s Fool by Maxwell; Collected Poems by Merrill; Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Neruda; Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991–95 by Rich; Selected Early Poems by Simic; Selected Late and New Poems by Simic; Native Guard by Trethewey; Selected Poems by Whitman; The Singing by C. K. Williams; The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader by Baraka; Collected Poems by Bishop; Brutal Imagination by Eady; The Four Quartets by Eliot; The Art of the Lathe by Fairchild; Selected Poems by Herbert; Selected Poems by Hopkins; Odes by Keats; New and Selected Poems by Kinnell; Whitsun Weddings by Larkin; Collected Poems by Larkin; What Work Is by Levine; Flower & Hand by Merwin; The Shadow of Sirius by Merwin; Paradise Lost by Milton; Selected Poems by Moore; Collected Poems by Paz; Diving into the Wreck by Rich; Kyrie by Voigt; Divine Comedy by Dante; Selected Poems by Donne; Selected Poems by Fenton; The Angel of History by Forche; The Country Between Us by Forche; Collected Poems by Nemerov; Selected Poems by Phillips; Selected Poems by Pound; Blood Dazzler by Smith; The Gary Snyder Reader by Synder; Collected Poems by Stevens; and Selected Poems by Strand.

Amaranth read and studied the following plays her Upper year: Lysistrata by Aristophanes; Glengarry Glen Ross by Mamet; Equus by Shaffer; A Doll’s House by Ibsen; Twelfth Night by Shakespeare; As You Like It by Shakespeare; Seven Guitars by Wilson; A Man for All Seasons by Bolt; Death of a Salesman by Miller; Long Day’s Journey into Night by O’Neill; Henry V by Shakespeare; A Streetcar Named Desire by Williams; Fences by Wilson; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Albee; Translations by Friel; Measure for Measure by Shakespeare; and The Tempest by Shakespeare.

Amaranth read and studied these non-fiction works her Upper year: Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Didion; Selected Essays by Emerson; A Long Way Gone by Beah; A Collection of Essays by Orwell; John McPhee Reader by McPhee; The Paradise of Bombs by Sanders; Selected Essays by Lawrence; Medusa and the Snail by Thomas; and Walden by Thoreau.

Amaranth read and studied the following short stories her Upper year: The Collected Stories by Cheever; In Our Time by Hemingway; The Nick Adams Stories by Hemingway; Interpreter of Maladies by Lahiri; In the Bedroom by Dubus; Selected Short Stories by Hawthorne; Dubliners by Joyce; Islands by McLeod; In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Mueenuddin; After the Quake by Murakami; and St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Russell.

Amaranth read and studied the following novels her Upper year: The Sense of an Ending by Barnes; Wuthering Heights by E. Bronte; Intruder in the Dust by Faulkner; The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald; All the Pretty Horses by McCarthy; Wise Blood by O’Connor; No One Is Coming to Save Us by Watts; Mrs Dalloway by Woolf; Things Fall Apart by Achebe; Pride and Prejudice by Austen; Little Bee by Cleave; Heart of Darkness by Conrad; Middlemarch by Eliot; The Unvanquished by Faulkner; Catch-22 by Heller; The Turn of the ***** by James; Benito Cereno by Melville; Song of Solomon by Morrison; The Wheel of Love by Oates; Anna Karenina by Tolstoy; Rabbit, Run by Updike; All the King’s Men by Warren; Native Son by Wright; Go Down, Moses by Faulkner; The Return of the Native by Hardy; The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway; Paradise by Morrison; Billy Budd, Sailor by Melville; The God of Small Things by Roy; Ceremony by Silko; and The Age of Innocence by Wharton.

Amaranth read and studied the following poets and their poems her Senior year: The Waste Land by Eliot; Omeros by Walcott; and Selected Poems by Yeats.

Amaranth read and studied the following plays in her Senior year:

Humble Boy by Jones; Hamlet by Shakespeare; King Lear by Shakespeare; and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Stoppard.

Amaranth read and studied the following non-fiction works her Senior year: Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Anzaldua; Book of Meditations (all volumes); Between the World and Me by Coates; Where I Was From by Didion; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Douglass; Meditations from a Movable Chair by Dubus; and In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens by Walker.

Amaranth read and studied the following short stories her Senior year: Collected Fictions by Borges; and A Good Man Is Hard to Find by O’Connor.

Amaranth read and studied the following novels her Senior year: On the Road by Kerouac; Disgrace by Coetzee; Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky; Invisible Man by Ellison; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Joyce; Sula by Morrison; Austerlitz by Sebald; and To the Lighthouse by Woolf.

Andover had an arts museum on campus, the Addison Gallery of Arts. This art museum had one of the most important collections of American art. The museum contained works by John Singleton Copely, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Maurice Prendergast, John Singer Sargent, John Henry Twachtman, James McNeill Whistler, Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Hans Hofmann, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson *******, Charles Sheeler, John Sloan, Frank Stella (a graduate of Andover), Mark Bradford, and Kara Walker. Addison Gallery had 8,700 photographs by such luminaries as Lewis Baltz, Walker Evans (another Andover graduate), Robert Frank, and Eadweard Muybridge. The Addison Gallery had more than 20,000 works in all media — painting, sculpture, photography, drawings, prints, and decorative arts — from the 18th century to the present.

Also on the Andover campus was the Peabody Institute of Archaeology founded in 1901 by Robert S. Peabody, an Andover graduate, Class of 1857. It contained more than 600,000 artifacts, photographs, and documents. Peabody founded the eponymous institution “to introduce the students of Phillips Academy to the world of archaeology, to promote archaeological research, and to provide a place for students to gather.”

Amaranth received a world-class education at Andover, then matriculated to Columbia College, Columbia University where she received another.



Chapter 16

Amaranth sat down beside the beautiful crocuses.

“When I was a little girl, I loved to hike in and around Sedona. I loved walking among the red rocks, through the canyons, along the rivers and streams. One of my favorite hikes was Doe Mountain Trail.

The trail was a slow and gradual ascent up to the top of a mesa where you could see Mescal Mountain, Courthouse Butte, Fay Canyon, and Bear Mountain. Some days I would sit atop the mesa for several hours taking in all the beauty around me. I would see deer and rabbits. In time, I would feel I was a part of the red rocks and streams. I even felt I could talk to the deer and rabbits, if only they would stay with me for a while, which, of course, they didn’t. I had a backpack, and most often would bring a sandwich to eat, some green grapes, and always some water. I was alone often on top of the mesa, but at the same time, I was part of everything I saw and heard, so I never felt lonely. Often I would bring a book to read. I remember reading ‘Charlotte’s Web’ by E. B. White and ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’ by Beatrix Potter.”

Amaranth turned around a bit to look at the creek.

“This creek reminds me of the creeks and streams around Sedona. Sometimes I would take off my shoes and step into the creek. The water was ice-cold, of course, but I could feel the rushing water powering its way downstream. I wondered how the fish could keep from hitting the rocks in the creek. I felt, too, that the creek was alive, was having a wonderful time coursing through the red rocks. The creek I had my feet in was alive too.”

Amaranth turned back around toward the crocuses and sat quietly for a long time. She was thinking of her parents and how much they had loved each other. She had been, she thought, the recipient of their love, and, of course, she was. Now 32, Amaranth realized now that that love was still in her, and would always be. That love she had received as a child, that love was the source of all her sensibilities and intuition. It was also the source of her poetry and her deep caring of others and all things living, of Earth itself and all the living creations on it. No wonder she was so happy most of the time, and Ty — he was just a precious piece of her world of love. Bless him, she thought.

She stood up then and spoke to the crocuses.

“You enjoy your day, too,” she said and walked up the hill and went into her home.



Chapter 17

Ty was also a writer, but not of poetry. He wrote aphorisms. So when Amaranth saw sheets of paper with aphorisms on them lying on the computer desk, she knew they were his, so she picked them up, sat down on the blue sofa and read them.

We are more concerned with goods than goodness.

May we be a servant to all others and masters of ourselves.

If a man doesn’t keep his word, he soon finds out he has a
limited vocabulary.

Casinos abet gambling.

The mountain is deeper than it is high.

In the finite, we are relative. In infinity, we are relatives.

Repentagon.

If you are going to err, err on the side of generosity.

I knew a narrow-minded woman who did clerical work. She
stereotyped.

Evil” is the word “live’ twisted.

I open my heart so I may enter yours….

The poem is the sound, publication the echo. The sound is more important than the echo.

Are you shocked to find out that I am human and therefore imperfect, or are you embarrassed to realize you are the same…?

One cannot impose what’s right. One can only evoke it.

The Second Coming will be the coming to the realization
that each of us is sacred, that all things are divine.

The only thing our country really cycles well is pain.

Take the high road. There’s less traffic up there.

It is easier to find a publisher than to find your heart.

To save Earth, you have to planet.

Joy is hard for most people to enjoy.

“Intrinsic worth” is redundant. “Extrinsic worth” is oxymoronic.

Beliefs expressed anonymously are coward’s clothes.

I hate smoke because it will **** you. I hate smoke and mirrors because they will **** you, too.

“I’ve been around the writer’s block a few times,” the author remarked.

Out on a limbo…

Bigotry is one of the worst forms of mental illness.

We used just to waste human lives. Now we turn lives into human waste.

POPE FOR PRESIDENT: feed the poor, wash their feet, shelter them.

Labels are for ketchup bottles.

In our nation’s capital, we have more probes than probity.

An avalanche, a mountain’s revanche.

All people live downstream.

Gogh Van Lines

The John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe School of National, International and Personal Affairs

Edgar Allan Poet

The new global politician: 1) I have a new agenda — humanity. 2) I have a new platform — Earth.

Map of the world: caption: “Love it or leave it.”

Adobe abode

Gold Rush Hour

NRA or NEA?

Danger has anger in it, and tragedy rage.

The siren has become our national anthem.

Do not confuse your pain with your worth.

One man’s cult is another man’s culture.

Truce<>traduce

Ire<>irenic

Cosmos or cosmetics?

Anonymity vitiates worth.

There is still one more mega-merger to occur. It will be called “Humanity.”

First, do no harm.
Second, do no harm.
Third, do no harm.
Fourth,….

There is a support group. It is called “Humanity.”

Zen-zenith

Political unrest=societal insomnia

If we could change harm into harmony….

Perception or projection?

L ots
O f
V ital
E nergy

V oices
O f
T he
E arth

Statute of Lamentations

Pills are our pillows.

The problem with the USA, Mexicans say, is that it has a
borderline personality.

Fortune 500<>Misfortune 7,500,000,000

Several years before Rodney Dangerfield died, he was in the hospital. He got a card. The card said: “Get well sooner or later.”

People want what they want.

Might might, but will will.

Be all you can be: Be yourself.

All human beings are poets. Their poetry is whatever they’re doing when being true to themselves.

I was charged with distributing the peace.

We reserve the right to be of service to anyone.

An Archie Bunker mentality….

If you were truly my superior, you would sit beneath me.

All works are autobiographical.

Knowledge sees that all are different. Wisdom sees that all
are one.

Every time you are true to yourself, you have written a poem.

Taking a bathos….

If soon we don’t get it, it will get us.

Always be willing to criticize yourself first, and first to forgive yourself.

If a man speaks the truth, hear him.

MBAs are a three-piece pursuit.

Nothing is never lost in the giving.

The three most romantic places on Earth are above you, beside you, and beneath you.




Chapter 18

“Julie, it’s so good to see you again. How have you been and how is Ed doing at Google?” asked Amaranth.

“Oh, Am! It’s so good to see you again. Ed is doing fine. He just got a raise.”

Ed was Julie’s husband, a veritable computer guru. He had been at Google a little over a year. Amaranth and Julie were eating lunch at Thrive, one of the best vegetarian restaurants in Boulder.

“How are Timmy and Mary and Kristin doing?” asked Amaranth.

Julie and Ed had three children, Timmy, who was six, and Mary, who was three. Kristin was only 11 months old.

“They’re all doing well. Timmy and Mary are in a summer camp and having lots of fun and making new friends,” replied Julie.

Amaranth couldn’t help it. Julie was her dear friend, had been for several years. Yet hearing about her children made her feel both happy for Julie and more than a bit sad for herself, even though she felt guilty for feeling that way.

“I’m going to have the Inner Flame salad,” said Julie. That salad consisted of mixed greens, avocados, tomatoes, green and red onions, cucumber slices, bell peppers, cilantro, sunflower seeds, sprouted garbanzo beans, and chipotle lime dressing.

“I’m going to have a salad also,” said Amaranth. “I’m going to get the Pad Thai salad.” That salad consisted of spiralized zucchini, marinated broccoli and mushrooms, carrots, red bell peppers, purple cabbage, green onions, cilantro, sesame seeds, and kim chi.

“To drink, I’m going to get the Green Gaia smoothie,” said Julie.

“And I’m going to get the Tropical Sunshine smoothie,” said Amaranth.

“So, do you and Ed have any special plans for the rest of summer?” asked Amaranth.

“Well, we’re planning to drive to Minnesota to see my parents the first two weeks in August. We haven’t seen them in quite some time. Mom and Dad want to see Timmy, Mary, and Kristin really bad, plus being in St. Paul will be pleasant in early August,” said Julie. “What about you and Ty?”

“We spent a wonderful weekend in Steamboat Springs a few weeks ago. You know, we’re both kind of homebodies. So I think we’ll just hang out in Niwot,” said Amaranth.

“You know the experts are saying we on Earth have only about 10 years to correct the many mistakes we’ve made in regard to climate change, no thanks to Trump and the Republicans. Pulling out unilaterally and impulsively from the Paris Agreement was not just wrong, it was the height of stupidity,” said Amaranth.

“I know, Am,” said Julie. “It’s hard not to think about the imminent consequences of such an ignorant and dangerous decision.”

The waitress brought them their meals, and both Amaranth and Julie enjoyed them with gusto. Afterwards, the two of them talked about more pleasant topics.

“If I don’t see you again before you leave for Minnesota, have a wonderful time,” said Amaranth. “Say hello to Ed for me, please.”

The two paid their bills and walked outside. Boulder, even in July, can be pretty pleasant, even at midday.



Chapter 19

Amaranth had been in deep sleep when the voice had spoken to her for the third time. The voice had said, “Campaign for Earth.”

“‘Campaign for Earth.’” Now what does that mean?” Amaranth had asked herself. Of course, she didn’t know what it had meant, though again the voice had not been threatening. Indeed, if it had been anything, it had been more urgent in tone than anything else, but certainly not threatening. She would talk with Dr. Rosenstein about it. She now looked forward to seeing Dr. Rosenstein she realized. Yes, he was a psychiatrist, but now he was more like a wise friend to her, an ally, if you will.

It was early September now. Amaranth could feel the beginning of fall in the air. Fall was one of her favorite seasons. Fall comes earlier in the mountains, but while Niwot wasn’t in the mountains, it was the doorway to them nonetheless.

Amaranth had awakened earlier this morning, earlier than she normally did. Ty was still sound asleep, so Amaranth slowly and carefully got out of bed, put on her robe, and made her way to the kitchen. She could feel another poem welling up in her, so she poured herself a cup of coffee, sat down in her chair, took into her hand the pen that she now felt was part of her body, and began recording in her notebook:

I WRITE WHEN THE RIVER’S DOWN

I write when the river’s down,
when the ground’s as hard as
a banker’s disposition and as
cracked as an old woman’s face.
I write when the air is still
and the tired leaves of the
dying elm tree are a mosaic
against the bird-blue sky.
I write when the old bird dog,
Sam, is too tired to chase
rabbits, which is his habit
on temperate days. I write
when horses lie on burnt grass,
when the sun is always high
noon, when hope melts like
yellow butter near the kitchen
window. I write when there
are no cherry pies in the
oven, when heartache comes
like a dust storm in early
morning. I write when the
river’s down, and sadness
grows like cockle burs in
my heart.

Amaranth sat in her chair and reread her poem several times.
She liked this poem a lot. Finally, she got up from her chair, left the kitchen, and walked into the den where the computer was. She put her coffee cup on the computer desk, then sat in the chair in front of the computer. Ty had not yet awakened, so there was silence throughout the house. She looked at the computer screen. After a few minutes, she began to type on the keyboard.

“Peace on Earth,” she typed, then pressed Enter. Up came what seemed like hundreds of articles related to Peace on Earth. She started reading the first article, then the second one, then several more. All talked about Peace on Earth, but none mentioned any real plan on how to achieve it. She stopped reading any more articles. “Everybody talks about Peace on Earth, but nobody seems to have a viable plan on how to make it happen,” Amaranth said to herself. For over 3,400 years of recorded history, people had talked and written about Peace on Earth, and look where we are today. Earth, and all the people living on it right now, are farther from achieving it than at any time in the past. If the adverse effects of climate change don’t do us in, then a nuclear holocaust will. We are on the brink of extinction and nobody, but nobody, has a plan to save Earth and all the living creations on it. Yet,  8 billion people on Earth keep whistling and going about their daily lives. This is insanity!

“Good morning, my love,” said Ty who had awakened, then had come into the den. Ty walked over to where Amaranth was sitting and gave her a kiss on the nape.

“Why don’t we go out for breakfast this morning?” said Ty.

“OK,” said Amaranth. “Let’s go to the Walnut Cafe in Boulder. It’s on Walnut Street, just off 30th.

They each took a shower, got dressed, an, in just a few minutes, were ready to go. They got to the Walnut Cafe in quick order and went inside and grabbed a booth. Then they perused the menu.

A waitress came over bringing glasses of water.

“What would each of you like this morning?” asked the waitress.

Amaranth said, “I would like the vegetarian omelette please, with coffee.” Ty said he’d like the same.

The vegetarian omelette had in it cheddar cheese, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and red peppers.

“We get two sides with the omelette, right?" asked Amaranth.

“Yes, that right,” said the waitress.

“Well, I would like the blueberry cornbread and the fresh fruit,” said Amaranth.

“And I would like the banana nut bread and breakfast potatoes, please,” said Ty.

Amaranth had not yet told Ty about the voice, but she did want to talk about Peace on Earth with him. She knew his feelings were like hers.

Amaranth started talking. “Before you came into the den this morning, I had typed in the phrase “Peace on Earth” to see if I could find mention of any plans to realize it. Everybody in the articles talked about Peace on Earth, but nobody spoke about any plan to achieve it,” said Amaranth.

“Well, the United Nations was formed after World War II and Peace on Earth was their ultimate goal, and they’ve had over 70 years to try to achieve it. I’m sure they’ve tried like hell to make it happen, but look at the shape the world is in now. In my opinion, Earth is farther away from universal peace in 2019 than it has been at any other time in over a century. The UN has tried, but you’d have to be blind not to see how unsuccessful their collective attempts have been. There are over 200 nations on Earth right now. How do you expect over 200 nations to come together permanently to achieve Peace on Earth? It’s just not going to happen. And the truth is that five nations — USA, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France — the permanent members of the UN Security Council — Individually can thwart any proposal that might possibly effect peace, because all five of them have a veto power they can use unilaterally to undermine any plan of another country, and that’s what they do. It’s a rigged game, that’s what it is,” said Ty.

Ty took a sip of coffee.

“I have an idea,” said Amaranth. “Why don’t we drive up to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation? School just started, and I’m sure some of the schools need supplies, which we can bring them.”

“That’s a great idea!” said Ty. “We could drive up on Wednesday, the day that schools open, and give them our donations.”

“But I will have to find out what they need. I can do that this afternoon. We can buy tomorrow what they need. Great!” exclaimed Amaranth.

They drove back to Niwot feeling very happy and excited.



Chapter 20

Pine Ridge, SD, was a tiny town on the reservation. The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, on the other hand, was the second largest in the country. Its population was about 28,000. It was also the poorest place in America with many concomitant problems. Many families that lived on the reservation had no electricity, no telephones, no running water, no sewage systems. Life expectancy was 47. The adolescent suicide rate was four times greater than the national average. The infant mortality rate was five times greater. The rate of unemployment stood between 80% to 85%. The people of the Oglala Nation lived on the reservation, but clinical depression, rampant alcoholism, drug abuse, malnutrition, and diabetes pervaded it. The teenage suidide rate was five times greater than the national average.

Crazy Horse, who had been chief of the Oglala Sioux, was one of Ty’s heroes, because Crazy Horse was courageous in battle and generous in peace. After a successful buffalo hunt, for example, Crazy Horse would take only what he needed and give the rest of the buffalo to the poorest of his people. He was most kind to the elderly, to the children, and, of course, to the poor. A great leader, Crazy Horse was known to be unassuming, somewhat shy, and modest. He wore simple clothing and never wore face paint, He wore his hair down with only a single feather in it and a small, brown stone behind his ear. When he was younger, Crazy Horse had gone on a vision quest during which, it was said, he realized in himself a kind of invincibility that did not make him conceited or supercilious, but gave him an obdurate feeling that he would never be injured by a gun shot in battle. That prophetic notion turned out to be true. Crazy Horse was never injured by a bullet, but he died only when a military guard stabbed him in the back with a bayonet.

The Wounded Knee massacre occurred in 1890. It was to be the last slaughter of Native Americans by the U.S. military. It happened on December 29 of that year near the Wounded Knee Creek, about ten miles to the east of what is now the tiny town of Pine Ridge.

The U.S. 7th Cavalry rounded up around three hundred Oglala women, children, and mostly old men. One old man was doing what was called a Ghost Dance. The 7th Cavalry took the guns from the Oglala Sioux, but a few resisted. In any event, a shot was fired by someone, which prompted the 7th Calvary to train their four Hotchkiss mountain guns on essentially the defenseless 300 Oglala Sioux and mowed them down as they fell into a ditch.

The Wounded Knee Incident occurred in 1975. There was a 71 day standoff between members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and members of the FBI. A firefight occurred and several people on both sides were killed. But the only person tried and convicted was an Oglala Sioux named Leonard Peltier, and he was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life in prison in Leavenworth, KS.



Chapter 21

Amaranth and Ty took off about 7 am Wednesday morning for Pine Ridge. It was going to be about a five-and-a-half hour drive.

Amaranth had contacted two schools on the reservation. One was Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary School. The other was Lorman Day School (Wica Owayawa).

Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary School needed the following supplies: crayons, markers, glue sticks, school glue, staplers, staples, spiral bound notebooks, invisible tape with a dispenser, blunt children’s scissors, young adult scissors, electric pencil sharpeners, construction paper, Band-Aids, cotton swabs, bee sting relief pads, #2 pencils, and cotton *****.

Lorman Day School wanted books, specifically the following books: Nowere Boy; The Complete Summer I Turned Pretty Trilogy; The Lightning Thief; The Nebula Secret; P.S. I Still Love You; Warriors Box Set 1–6; Warriors Power of Three Box Set 1–6, Warriors Omen of the Stars Box Set 1–6; Willa of the Wood; Serafina and the Black Coat; To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before; and Always and Forever, Lara Jean.

Amaranth and Ty drove straight through Nebraska to Manderson, SD, about 20 miles from Pine Ridge. Thee only place nearer to Pine Ridge was the casino, which also provided lodging, but neither Amaranth not Ty liked casinos, so they would be staying at Super 8 in Manderson.

Both Amaranth and Ty were dead tired from the long drive, so they both hit the bed fast.



Chapter 22

In the morning, now considerably rested, Amaranth and Ty ate vegetarian sandwiches that she had made in Niwot. Both were eager to get to the two schools. Amaranth had told the administrator at Lorman Day School, Ms. Thatcher, that she had found all the books the teacher had requested on the Amazon website and that Amazon would be sending them to the school ℅ the teacher. They were looking forward to meeting the administrator at Lorman Day School and the principal, Sister Rae, at Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary School. They decided to see Sister Rae first.

“It is so kind of you to come here to give us these supplies we dearly need,” said Sister Rae. ”Most people wouldn’t do what the two of you are doing, but you know that already.”

“You’re most welcome. You know as well that most human beings would not do what you decided to do many years ago; devote your life to God and humanity,” said Amaranth.

Sister Rae gave Amaranth and Ty a tour of the school, introducing them to the teachers, saying hello to the students, and chatting with them briefly.

“It was so nice to meet you and your staff and chat with your students,” said Amaranth. “I hope we shall see you again.”

Amaranth and Ty then drove to Lorman Day School.

“Ms. Thatcher, it is so nice to meet you,” said Amaranth. “This my husband, Ty.”

“It is so generous of both of you to donate all the books listed on our website. Not many people would do that,” said Ms. Thatcher.

“Our pleasure,” said Ty.

“Let me show you around the school and introduce the two of you to our teachers,” said Ms. Thatcher.

Amaranth and Ty spent about a half hour with Ms. Thatcher, touring the school, meeting the teachers, and speaking with some of the students.

“Before we leave the reservation, we both want to visit the Wounded Knee cemetery and give our respects before we return home,” said Amaranth.

“That’s very thoughtful of you both,” replied Ms.Thatcher. “Thank you again for your generosity.”

Amaranth and Ty got into their car and headed toward the Wounded Knee cemetery. When they got there, they got out and walked up a small hill where the cemetery was.

They were silent for a long time. Finally, Ty spoke.

“Things in the world haven’t changed much, have they?” Ty asked rhetorically. “The Revolutionary War was the first one in our country. You know that Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, right? He also wound up owning over 600 slaves; eight of our presidents were slave owners. Then came the Mexican-American War that Lincoln voted against during his one term in Congress. Then the Civil War during which 650,000 to 700,000 American men were killed. Can you even fathom that? Then WW I, then WW II, then the Korean War, then the Vietnam War, then the War in Afghanistan that still is going on, then the two wars against Iraq, and then all the other “conflicts” our government keeps secret from us, like Yemen, for example.”

Ty couldn’t help himself.

“I’m sorry, Am. I have just learned too much about how the world really works. I’m sorry,” said Ty.



Chapter 23

“You know Columbia’s Homecoming is right around the corner,” said Ty. “I think we should go back to New York City, see the Homecoming game, see our old — well, not that old, yet — classmates, check out our old haunts, explore the city again, eat at fabulous vegetarian restaurants, have a hell of a great time. What do you think?”

“Wherever I’m with you, I have a great time! Columbia is where I met you, and I’m eternally grateful for that,“ exclaimed Amaranth.

“So even before we get back to New York City, we can start having fun right now planning our trip,” added Ty.

Amaranth gave Ty another big hug.



Chapter 24

Amaranth could feel another poem welling up in her, so she went into the kitchen, sat down in her chair, and picked up her pen off her notebook that lay on the kitchen table, and began to record.


IS THAT NOT A DOVE COMING THROUGH THE CLOUDS?

Is that not a dove coming through the clouds,
sweeping down to bless our crown with love,
gentle wings to caress our forehead, soft strokes
to remind us of our innate kindness, a blindness
no man has in his heart? Is that not a dove
coming through the clouds, its provenance
above the sun, though cool with the countenance
of caring, a daring feat of a celestial being?
Give thanks for this tender gift that reminds us
of our eternal tie to a sky that brushes different
facets of our face. Is that not a dove coming
through the clouds?


Amaranth put the pen back on her closed notebook.

She felt also that she wanted to make another lovely dinner for Ty and herself, so she picked back up her pen again, turned the page on which she had just written her poem, and on the new page, began to write a list of vegetables she would be turning into a delicious meal that afternoon.

Before she started writing, she brewed a *** of coffee, and when it was ready, poured herself a cup, returned to the table, and sat down on her chair.

She enjoyed taking time to think of all her possibilities, then slowly began writing down on the sheet the ones she had chosen to buy at King Soopers, her favorite grocery store in Boulder. Amaranth did not rush this process, because for her it was not only fun to do, but also, in a sense, was a somewhat spiritual endeavor.

Amaranth sipped her last bit of coffee, tore the list of vegetables from the legal pad, headed outside, got into her car, and started driving from Niwot to Boulder to shop in King Soopers. It was a beautiful day to be outside, this day that felt like the coming of fall.



Chapter 25

Amaranth had already started Mahler’s 2nd Symphony on the computer, lit the yellow candle at the center of the table covered, as always, with a clean, white linen tablecloth and was now ready to present what she thought would be a delectable dinner.

“Tonight, we have for a salad, smoked aubergine, red peppers, walnuts, and pomegranates,” said Amaranth, looking at Ty sitting at the table as she spoke. “For soup, we have chilled English pea soup with crab and Meyer lemon. For an entree, we have speedy ratatouille with goat cheese. For dessert, we have dark chocolate mousse with cardamom, candied ginger, and hazelnuts. Enjoy!”

The dinner was delicious.

“Wow!” exclaimed Ty. “Are you sure you don’t want to open up a vegetarian restaurant in Boulder?” remarked Ty.

“I happen to serve only one customer at a time, and you just happen to be that customer, for the rest of my life,” said Amaranth.

“That’s sweet, Am,” said Ty.

“I’m just about finished with W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk”, added Ty. “Du Bois and Frederick Douglass were both intellectuals. There were 4,000,000 black slaves in the Deep South when the Civil War began in 1861, and when Reconstruction ended in 1877 and the white supremacists replaced the federal troops with growing numbers of KKK members and Black Codes and Jim Crow and lynchings and various forms of voter suppression, blacks remained essentially hopeless and fearful and dirt-poor. Can you imagine how many more black lives continued to live in horror and servitude, how many more minds were wasted, how many more hearts remained broken, how many more souls remained darkened for decades? Du Bois and Douglass were just two out of 4,000,000 blacks who found some sunlight.”



Chapter 26

“I am so excited, Am!” said Ty. “I have just completed what I think are contingencies and plans about our trip to New York City and the Columbia Homecoming and I’d like to share them with you. Do you have time now?”

“Sure I do!” said Amaranth. The two sat down on the blue sofa in the living room.

“Well, first, we depart from DIA (Denver International Airport) Thursday, the 17th, on a Delta nonstop flight to New York City, leaving at 11:20 am and and arriving at JFK at 5:10 pm. I booked a room at International House for our entire stay. That night, we have reservations to eat at The Original Buddha Bodai Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant (5 Mott Street). Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Then we go back to the International House and flop into bed. I’m guessing we will be pretty tired by then.

“Then the next morning, we will walk down to Tom’s Restaurant, our old haunt, and have breakfast. Then I thought we could walk around campus, visit Hartley Hall, Butler Library, Lerner, and go see the new Manhattanville campus. I’ve already contacted Bill and Debbie Roach, and Herb Hochman and his girlfriend, Leni. They will be at the alumni reception to be held in the basketball gymnasium in Dodge Fitness Center.

“Saturday, of course, is Homecoming Day. We’ll have breakfast every morning at Tom’s, just as we used to do, if that’s OK with you. We’ll be playing Penn. We’ll be eating at Massawa, a vegetarian restaurant in Harlem, the oldest African eatery in New York City. Then I managed to get tickets to Hamilton, so that’s what we will be doing Saturday night.”

“How did you manage to get tickets to Hamilton on such short notice?” asked Amaranth.

“You forgot that I was head of NSOP (New Student Orientation Program) our senior year, and I got tapped by Nacom’s (Columbia’s oldest senior society) toward the end of our junior year, because that was when I was chosen to be head of NSOP. I’ve got connections,” said Ty, somewhat facetiously.

“Sunday afternoon, I thought we’d have a leisurely walk through Chinatown, if you like. Then I’ve made reservations to have dinner at Daniel (56th Street at Park Avenue) that evening. Then back to International House for more sleep.

“Monday, I thought we’d visit the Museum of Modern Art in the afternoon, eat at Le Bernardin — yes, I was able to make reservations there — then attend The New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center. The program that night is called ‘Stravinsky and Balanchine’ and will consist of three famous ballets: Allegro Brillante, La Source, and Firebird.

Amaranth couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Then Tuesday, I thought it would be interesting to explore the American Museum of Natural History. That’s where Margaret Mead worked while she continued to teach at Columbia. You know she graduated from Barnard and got her PhD in anthropology at Columbia studying under the founder of that field, Professor Franz Boas. I have reservations for us to eat at Blue Hill, a highly rated vegetarian restaurant. I was also able to get tickets to To **** A Mockingbird, the hottest show on Broadway right now, so that’s where we’ll be going after dinner.

“Wednesday, I thought we’d visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, eat at Fournos Theophios, another highly rated vegetarian restaurant, then go back to Lincoln Center to listen to the New York Philharmonic. Jaap van Zweden will be conducting Mozart’s Symphony №40, Sibelius’s Symphony №2, and Beethoven’s 3rd symphony, Eroica.

“Thursday, we fly back to Niwot, via DIA.”

Amaranth just sat there, stunned. Then, finally, she gave Ty another big and long, long hug.


Chapter 27

Amaranth had been an English and comparative literature major at Columbia College. She had studied under Andrew Delbanco, who had been named by Time Magazine in 2001 as “America’s best social critic.”

Growing up, Amaranth had been a voracious reader. She had read Albert’s Impossible Toothache, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, AreYou My Mother? The Story of Babar, Barnyard Dance!, Bread and Jam for Frances, Charlotte’s Web, Chica, Chica, Boom, Boom, Corduroy, Dear Zoo, Doctor De Soto, Winnie the Pooh, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and many others.

As Amaranth got older, she read Bone Crier’s Moon, Heart of Flames, Harley in the Sky, How To Speak Boy, Don’t Read the Comments, Hotel Dare, Lifeformed: Hearts and Minds, The Catcher in the Rye, A Wrinkle in Time, and many others.

At Andover, she had read a number of Dicken’s novels, including David Cooperfield, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, The Pickwick Papers, Bleak House, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Other novels she had read were Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor Casterbridge, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, and Far from the Madding Crowd.

At Columbia, when majoring in English and comparative literature, Amaranth took many different courses and read hundreds of novels, plays, and poems, including, but not limited to, the following: Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and virtually all of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets.

To begin with, Amaranth had to learn and study many literary devices: among others were ad hominem, anaphora, antimetabole, assonance, double entendre, portmanteau, synesthesia, aposiopesis, consonance, doopelgänger, hyperbaton, meiosis, parataxis, and synecdoche.

Amaranth read other prominent dramatists and authors of Renaissance literature, including Christopher Marlowe, a contemporary of Shakespeare, whose plays included Doctor Faustus, Edward II, Tamburlaine (part one and two), and The Jew of Malta; Edmund Spenser’s epic poem, The Fairie Queene; as well as English prose by John Lilly and Thomas Nashe.

Amaranth read many works by authors of the Romantic era: Victor Hugo’s novels Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame; his poetry collections Les Contemplations and La Légende des Siecles; and his plays Cromwell and Hernani. She read Alexandre Dumas’s novels The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, The Vicomte of Bragelonne, Ten Years Later, and The Man in the Iron Mask. She also read his play Henry III et sa cour.

Sturm und Drang, literally storm and stress in English, was a German movement in literature and music between the late 1760s and the early 1780s that favored immense emotion over the preceding rationalism of the Enlightenment. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, otherwise known simply as Goethe, and Friedrich von Schiller were the two most prominent figures of the movement. Amaranth read Goethe’s epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, Willhem Meister’s Journeyman Years, The Idyll of Hermann and Dorothea, his autobiography From My Life: Poetry and Truth, and Italian Journey. She also read his plays Iphigenia in Tauris, Egmont, Torquato Tasso, his verse dramas The Natural Daughter, Faust, Clavigo, and Der Burgergeneral. She also read his collection of poems West-Eastern Diwan.

Geothe and Schiller, it should be noted, were very close friends. These two were pivotal figures in the literary movement called Weimar Classicism. Amaranth read Schiller’s plays: The Robbers; Fiesco; Intrigue and Love; Don Carlos; The Wallenstein trilogy; Mary Stuart; The Maid of Orleans; The Bride of Messina; and William Tell.

Amaranth read authors of colonial America: William Bradford, John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, and Jonathan Edwards.

Amaranth read early African-American authors: Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, both former slaves.

Amaranth read examples of Bildungsroman novelists: Henry Fielding, James Joyce, and Kazuo Ishiguro,

Amaranth read the poems of the most famous Russian poet of the Romantic era, Alexander Pushkin. She also read Pushkin’s novel in verse Eugene Onegin.

Amaranth read the poems of these British literary luminaries of the 19th century: William Wordsworth; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Percy Bysshe Shelley; John Keats; Lord Byron; Rudyard Kipling; Robert Browning; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Matthew Arnold; Thomas Gray; and Robert Southey.

And Amaranth didn’t forget about the poetry of John Donne, who lived from 1572 to 1631. Nor did she forget about William Blake, who lived from 1757 to 1827, and had to wait almost two hundred years to be discovered and then revered as one of England’s most brilliant poets and artists.

Amaranth read many Victorian novelists, but because she had already read so many of Dicken’s novels at Andover, she skipped reading them at Columbia College. The same was true for Thomas Hardy’s novels. But she did read William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair; Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre; Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights; Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility; and George Eliot’s Middlemarch.

Amaranth read the plays of George Bernard Shaw: The Philanderer; Mrs. Warren’s Profession; Arms and the Man; Candida; The Man of Destiny; You Never Can Tell; and Captain Brassbound’s Conversion. She also read Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and his play The Importance of Being Earnest.

Amaranth read 19th century American novelists: Washington Irving; James Fenimore Cooper; Ralph Waldo Emerson; Herman Melville; Harriet Beecher Stowe; Henry David Thoreau; Mark Twain; and Henry James.

Amaranth read the 20th century poems of W. B. Yeats, the famous Irish poet, and the novels of Virginia Woolf, one of the early members of the Bloomsbury Group: The Voyage Out; To the Lighthouse; Orlando: A Biography; The Waves; Flush: A Biography; and Between the Acts. Having been so moved by the beauty of Virginia Woolf’s writings, Amaranth had been deeply touched by her learning about the author’s personal life, her many battles with mental illness that culminated tragically in her suicide.

Amaranth also read the poems of 20th century British poets, W. H. Auden and Dylan Thomas.

Amaranth also read 20th century American novelists: Dashiell Hammett; Pearl Buck; Gertrude Stein; Aldous Huxley; Zora Neale Hurston; William Faulkner; Willa Cather; F. Scott Fitzgeralf; Earnest Hemingway; Sherwood Anderson; J. D. Salinger; Edith Wharton; Eudora Welty; John Dos Passos; Harper Lee; Kurt Vonnegut; Ralph Ellison; Jack London; Carson McCullers; John Updike; Thomas Pynchon; Philip Roth; Jack Kerouac; Joseph Heller; Richard Wright; Upton Sinclair; Theodore Dreiser; James Baldwin; Herman Wouk, Djuna Barnes; Sinclair Lewis; and Toni Morrison.

Amaranth also read 20th century American poets: Robert Frost; Carl Sandburg; Wallace Stevens; William Carlos Williams; Ezra Pound; e.e cummings; Marianne Moore; Langston Hughes; Rainer Maria Rilke; Guillaume Apollinaire; John Berryman; Frank O’Hara; James Merrill; John Ashbery; Gwendolyn Brooks; Robert Lowell; W. S. Merwin; Allen Ginsberg; Anne Sexton; and Sylvia Plath.

Amaranth was particularly moved by Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail.

By the time Amaranth received her BA from Columbia College, she had read and studied a lot of novels and poems and plays.



Chapter 28

Many people collected rocks, coins, or stamps. Amaranth collected words.

It began in 4th grade, Amaranth remembered. Among the many books she had been reading in grade school, she happened on a biography of Webster — not Daniel, but Noah Webster. In 1806, Noah Webster published the first dictionary of American English. For some unknown reason, reading about his life and his relentless pursuit of an intellectual goal — in this case, words — made an unconscious, indelible impression upon her.

During her first year at Andover — in public school called 9th grade, in prep-school talk, called “Junior” year — Amaranth’s English teacher was Dr. Gillingham, on whom she would have, in time, a crush. Dr. Gillingham was the first really learned person she had ever met. He had his PhD from Oxford, yet he was teaching 9th graders. He could, whenever the occasion merited it, quote from any of Shakespeare’s plays or sonnets. What was more, he gave everyone in his class a copy of the Harbrace Vocabulary Workbook, which, in short, contained the prefixes, suffixes, and roots of the Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon languages that, over time, came to make up the vast majority of English words. Amaranth was transfixed by these processes. For example, if one took the English word anachronistic and knew what the prefix, suffix, and root were to that word, and knew what they meant, even if one had never seen that word before, which was the case for Amaranth, one could figure out what that word meant. “Amazing!” Amaranth thought. The most important part of the process was to recognize the root of the word. The root word of anachronistic was, of course, chron. If one had studied well, one would know that chron was derived from the Greek word chronos, which meant time. If one also knew that the prefix ana meant without, one could quite easily figure out the meaning of anachronistic, which means, quoting from Merriam-Webster, “a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other.” Got it? Amaranth sure had, and that edification was indeed the foundation of, and the catalyst for, her incipient love affairs with words.

It should be underscored that Amaranth did not love etymology to be pedantic; rather, as a burgeoning poet, she always wanted to use not a pretentious word, but the "precise" word, as she called it, a process wherein a poet would unconsciously be imbued deeply in one’s mind the precise word among thousands of others, ready to be accessed effortlessly when a poet wanted to convey a specific feeling, insight, or emotion, let’s say, precisely.

Every new word Amaranth learned was exciting for her, even transcendent. Every new word would have its own heft, its own color, its own timbre, its qualities of lightness or heaviness. Amaranth never used a thesaurus. She didn’t need one. She had one in the deep recesses of her brain ready to use unconsciously and effortlessly whenever she felt a poem welling up inside of her.

Amaranth had written this epigram a number of years ago: “Poetry is like the ocean wind: It blows only for those sails that are open.” She also had come to believe that writing poetry was like making love. “If you have to try making love, stop.”



Chapter 29

Finally, Thursday, 17 October 2019, had arrived. The wait was over, and Amaranth and Ty could barely contain their synergistic excitement. That morning at 11:20 am MT, their nonstop Delta flight 1806 would take off from Denver’s DIA and would arrive at 5:10 pm ET at JFK airport in New York City.

“I can’t believe it!” shouted Amaranth. “We’re going to New York City for a week, a whole week!”

“And Columbia’s going to beat Penn and we are going to eat at some of the finest vegetarian restaurants in the world and we’re going to see Bill and Debbie and Herb and Leni and we’re going to see many of the most beautiful paintings and sculptures in the world and listen to some of the most beautiful music ever played live by one of the greatest orchestras in the world and watch some of the greatest ballet dancers in the world perform and walk around the city that is the capital of the world and make love in New York City as many times as we want!” an almost exhausted Ty exclaimed.

Both had to sit down on the blue sofa in the living room for a few minutes. Then they started loading the car with their pieces of luggage and finally began their drive to DIA. Once there, they got in line and went through the ritual that all Americans have to go through before they can board the plane.

“You take the window seat, Am. You like to look at the clouds and the land below,” said Ty. Amaranth had brought her copy of Toni Morrison’s book Song of Solomon with her and thought she’d read it for a while. Morrison had won the 1993 Nobel Prize in literature.

The plane took off smoothly, and before long, had ascended to its cruising altitude of 33,000 feet. Ty had asked Amaranth if she wanted a pillow, and she said she didn’t. But Ty did, so he asked a stewardess to bring him one, which she did, and within minutes, he had fallen asleep, his head lying softly on the pillow.

In due course, the plane landed without incident at JFK. By the time Amaranth and Ty had retrieved their luggage, it was approaching 6 pm. They hailed a cab and asked the driver, after giving him directions, to take them to International House, just several blocks from Columbia’s campus.

International House was founded in 1924. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and the Cleveland H. Dodge family paid for its construction. It had been designated a New York City landmark. To quote its brochure: “International House was the first global community of its kind, predating the United Nations by 21 years. For more than 96 years it has transformed the lives of more than 65,000 alumni, which include not only Nobel Prize winners, heads of state, award-winning authors, singers, actors, musicians, and CEOs, but teachers, doctors, small business owners, community leaders and volunteers throughout the world. We achieve our mission of preparing leaders of the global community by building core values of Respect, Empathy, and Moral Courage through a lived experience that consists of organic encounters and a series of unparalleled programs offered within our Morningside Heights facilities. I-House has welcomed bright young people from all over the world to live, learn, and grow together through a transformative experience that prepares them to join and lead the conversations that will change the world. I-House is home to approximately 700 resident members from more than 100 countries.”

The cab pulled up to the entrance of International House and Amaranth and Ty got out with their luggage, paid the driver, and thanked him. Then they went inside.

“Hi, I’m Ty Anderson and this is my wife, Amaranth. We have reservations for a room,” said Ty.

“Oh yes, Mr. Anderson. Please fill out this card for me, and here’s two keys to your room,” replied the clerk. Ty filled out the card and took the keys.

“Thank you so much,” said Ty, then he and Amaranth walked to the elevator, took it to the 7th floor, found their room, opened the door, and entered it.

“This is a nice room,” said Amaranth and lay on the double bed.

It was approaching 7:00 pm now, and understandably both Amaranth and Ty were beat. Ty lay down next to Amaranth. They had reservations for dinner at The Original Buddha Bodai Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant (5 Mott Street) at 8:00 pm.

“Let’s rest awhile, then we’ll take a cab to the restaurant,” said Ty.

About 7:20, they got up, used the bathroom, and changed into their more “formal” clothes for dinner. They then found their way out of the International House, walked up to Broadway, and hailed a cab that took them to The Original Buddha Bodai Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant. It was a few minutes before 8 when they arrived.



Chapter 30

“Good evening,” said the maitre d’.

“Good evening,” replied Ty. “We are the Anderson party, and we have reservations for dinner at 8,” replied Ty.

“Very good, sir,” said the maitre d’, who then escorted Amaranth and Ty to their table.

“Wow! I can’t believe we’re really here,” said Amaranth. Their waiter brought them two menus.

“Let’s have fun perusing the menus, Am. We’re in no hurry,” said Ty.

Amaranth and Ty did have fun perusing their menus.

“I’ve decided what I want. How about you?” said Amaranth.

“I’m ready, too,” said Ty.

Ty motioned to their waiter who immediately came to their table.

“You go first,” said Ty to Amaranth.

“OK, Ty. I’d like to order as an appetizer the fried crispy stuffed bread and barbecue vegetarian meat. For soup, I’d like the vegetarian chicken and corn soup. For my entrée, I’d like the shredded shiitake mushroom with broccoli. For dessert, I’d like the small mango pudding.”

Now it was Ty’s turn. “For an appetizer, I’d like the fried cumin vegetarian lamb. For soup, I’d like the pumpkin mushroom seafood soup. For my entrée, I’d like the vegetarian lobster in black bean sauce. For dessert, I’d like the tofu cheese cake.”

The waiter nodded his head, then left their table.

“This is a beautiful little restaurant,” said Amaranth.

“I bet the food is as good as the restaurant is beautiful,” replied Ty.

The two didn’t have to wait long before the waiter brought their appetizers, which they both enjoyed. The same was true for their soups, and then their entrées. Their desserts were delicious also. Amaranth and Ty were both pleasantly stuffed, and after a long day of travel and then a large meal, they were ready to sleep. So they returned to the International House, got to their room, and without hesitation, fell into bed and slept peacefully through the night.



Chapter 31

They awakened well rested. Friday was the day Ty had set aside for the two of them to revisit their alma mater, Columbia College. But first, they had to have breakfast at one of their old haunts, Tom’s Restaurant, made famous by Suzanne Vega, a Barnard student at the time, who had written and sung about the restaurant in her hit song that she called, surprisingly, “Tom’s Diner.” Notwithstanding, that song, even though it was a misnomer, helped launch her career.

Later, Tom’s Restaurant became even more famous, because it was used as the exterior shot of the restaurant where Seinfeld and his friends would gather to chat and eat on that famous TV series. Moreover, Tom’s Restaurant was located on the corner of Broadway and 112th Street, and if one looked eastward down 112th Street, one could see, just a block away, the incredibly beautiful Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

Amaranth and Ty made their way leisurely to Tom’s Restaurant, and when they got there, entered it for the first time in almost ten years. Their favorite booth in which they had sat and ate so many breakfasts happened to be free, so they grabbed it.

“Just like old times,” said Ty.

“Just like old times,” Amaranth echoed.

Their waitress came to their booth immediately and handed them both menus.

“Oh, thank you, but we don’t need them. We already know what we want,” said Ty.

“Fine. What would you like?” said the waitress.

Amaranth went first. “I’d like two eggs scrambled and pancakes, please,” said Amaranth. “And please, may I have the syrup on the side?”

“Of course,” said the waitress. “What would you like, sir?”

“I’d like two eggs sunny-side up with potatoes and two pieces of rye toast, please,” said Ty.

“Anything to drink?” asked the waitress.

“Each of us would like a cup of coffee, please,” said Ty.

Their breakfast orders came fast, and both Amaranth and Ty dug in. They were hungry and excited to walk back up Broadway to the 116th main entrance to the Columbia campus and begin to explore all the places they had shared a decade ago.



Chapter 32

Columbia College was founded in 1754 as King’s College. Alexander Hamilton and John Jay were students there. When the American Revolution began, Hamilton left school before graduating, first to serve under George Washington and later to hold a number of high posts in our nascent nation. He was one of the authors of The Federalist Papers. John Jay became the United States’ first chief justice of the Supreme Court. When the war was over, the Columbia trustees decided it would be prudent to change the name of the college from King’s College to Columbia College, which they did.

Columbia College moved several times up the island of Manhattan. When Columbia College moved to its present location, Morningside Heights, it changed its name to Columbia University. Its main entrance today is at 116th Street and Broadway. An earlier location had been in what is now midtown Manhattan; consequently, Columbia still owned the land underneath Rockefeller Plaza, but decided to sell it in the 1980s for $400,000,000.

Columbia University had won over 100 Nobel Prizes, more than any of the other Ivy universities. Its graduate school of journalism awarded the Pulitzer Prizes.

The 2019 admit rate for Columbia College, the traditional, coed, liberal arts school of Columbia University, was 5.1%, making it the second most selective school in the Ivy League. Columbia College admitted slightly more than 2,000 applicants out of slightly more than 42,000 worldwide. That’s about one out of twenty.

In 2019, Columbia College would celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Core Curriculum. Columbia College was the only school in the Ivy League that had the Core Curriculum, which every student had to take, regardless of her/his major. The “Core,” which was how virtually every student affectionately referred to it, was a rigorous two-year course of studies that include the following: Literature Humanities was a year-long study of great books that included Luke/John by unknown, Confessions by Augustine, The Divine Comedy by Dante, Essays by Michel de Montaigne, Macbeth by Shakespeare, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Paradise Lost by John Milton, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, The Iliad by Homer, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho by Anne Carson, The Odyssey by Homer, Genesis by unknown, Job by unknown, The Histories by Herodotus, Oresteia by Aeschylus, Antigone by Sophocles, The Clouds by Aristophanes, The Symposium by Plato, The Aeneid by Virgil, Metamorphoses by Ovid, Gilgamesh by unknown, Isaiah by Isaiah, Hymn to Demeter by unknown, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, Lysistrata by Aristophanes, Bacchae by Euripides, Medea by Euripides, History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, The Decameron by Boccaccio, and King Lear by Shakespeare.

Contemporary Civilization was “a year-long study introducing students to a range of issues concerning the kinds of communities — political, social, moral, and religious — that human beings construct for themselves and the values that inform and define such communities.” Examples of books read and studied were The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals by Immanuel Kant, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, On Liberty, Utilitarianism, and Other Essays by John Stuart Mill, On the Genealogy of Morality by Friedrick Nietzsche, The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois, Hind Swaraj by Gandhi, Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon, Republic by Plato, Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle, The City of God by Augustine, The Prince by Machiavelli, Leviathan by Hobbes, Second Treatise & Letter on Toleration by Locke, and Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract by Rousseau.

Art Humanities was a semester-long “analytical study of a limited number of monuments and artists, and taught students how to look at, think about, and engage in critical discussion of the visual arts.”

Music Humanities was a semester-long study that “awakened in students an appreciation of music in the western world and helped them respond intelligently to a variety of musical idioms, and it engaged them in the debates about the character and purposes of music that had occupied composers and musical thinkers since the ancient times.”

Frontiers of Science had “integrated modern science into the Core Curriculum to challenge students to think about the world around them and the different ways in which science could help them answer questions about nature and themselves.”

The Science requirement was a study whose “objective was identical to that of its humanities and social science counterparts, namely to help students understand the civilization of their own day and to participate effectively in it. The science component was intended specifically to provide students with the opportunity to learn what kinds of questions were asked about nature, how hypotheses were tested against experimental or observational evidence, how results of tests were evaluated, and what knowledge has been accumulated about the workings of the natural world.”

The Global Core requirement “asked students to engage directly with the variety of civilizations and the diversity of traditions that, along with the west, had formed the world and continued to interact in it today. Courses in the Global Core typically explored the cultures of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East in an historical context.”

The Foreign Language requirement was “part of Columbia College’s mission to prepare students to be tomorrow’s conscientious and informed citizens. Knowledge of another’s language and literature was the most important way to begin to know a country and its people.”

Both Amaranth and Ty felt that taking the Columbia College’s Core Curriculum, which made one learned for life, and living in and exploring New York City, the veritable capital of the world, for four years made one a citizen of the world, regardless of where one chose to reside after graduating, even if that place was Niwot, Colorado.

In short, Amaranth and Ty both felt the synergistic combination of the Core Curriculum and New York City made for the best undergraduate experience to be found anywhere on Earth.



Chapter 33

When they left Tom’s Restaurant, Amaranth and Ty decided to walk down 112th Street to Riverside Drive, take a right, and walk north along side the lovely Riverside Park, which, in turn, ran along side the Hudson River. They wanted and needed to drop by the Columbia Alumni Office on W 113th Street to pick up special cards that would allow them to enter buildings such as Low Library, Butler Library, and Hartley Hall where Amaranth and Ty both lived their first year and fell in love.

It had turned fall in New York City, and the leaves of the trees in Riverside Park were a mosaic then of red and yellow and orange. They had often come as undergraduates to this park to walk and sit and chat, all the while enjoying the crisp feel of incipient fall, complemented by the Hudson River that flowed sinuously by them. Children were often at play in the park that time of year that enhanced the ambiance of the place.

Amaranth and Ty strolled hand in hand as they headed north on the sidewalk beside Riverside Park. When they got to 116th Street, they turned right and headed up the hill to Broadway and the main entrance to Columbia’s beautiful campus, They crossed Broadway and entered the campus on College Walk that used to have been 116th Street when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of Columbia University, just before he was elected president of the United States, got the City in the early 1950s to close it off from traffic and turn that segment into a promenade through campus from Broadway to Amsterdam Avenue.

The famous architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White had designed in the 1890s the campus of Columbia University. It was said McKim wanted the new campus to be modeled after the Athenian agora, to be the new American Acropolis. As one walked a third of the way eastward up College Walk, one would walk into the center of the campus and would initially be overwhelmed by its splendor. To the left sat Low Memorial Library high on a hill. There were many steps to climb to reach the entrance of the Library. It was grand. While it was indeed originally used as a library, it was eventually transformed into the administrative center of the University, including the Office of the President of the University, among others. In the center of the library was a breathtaking, large marble room with statues all around it with a high, majestic dome atop it, where important social affairs would take place. In fact, Ty had given an introductory speech in that glorious space when he had been head of HSOP.

If one turned right on College Walk, one would see the rest of the main campus, which included Butler Library built in the 1930s. While Butler was the largest — indeed, the major — library on campus, there were, in fact, 20 other libraries on campus as well that contained collectively 12,000,000 books. These libraries had a free public digital repository for research, collections in more than 450 different languages, more than 1,500 databases including JSTOR, access to a Oculus Rift, more than 220 research guides for topics like African-American studies, Human Rights, and New York City history, as well as special collections, such as the Frank Lloyd Wright and Tennessee Williams archives. Moreover, Butler had free access to online tutorials like Lynda.com that a student could take home including a Raspberry Pi and Arduino, primary source collections that spanned more than 4,000 years of human thought, current magazines and periodicals, specialty software in chemistry, graphic design, and more, and nearly 50 expert staff ready to help students with research and scholarly projects.

Amaranth and Ty ambled over to Hartley Hall. They went inside, took the elevator to the 9th floor, got out, and went to suite #909 where they lived, studied, and laughed, often eating Chinese take-out food, listening to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, making love, and falling in love.

“It seems like only yesterday,” said Amaranth.

“This room, those memories, will be eternal,” replied Ty.

They stood in the hallway for quite some time, recalling other indelible memories and happenings. Finally, they took the elevator down to the main lobby of Hartley and took a seat on a sofa in the well-paneled lounge.

“This is where we spent so much time with Bill and Debbie and Herb and Leni,” said Ty.

“We shared so many stories, so many discussions, with them,” said Amaranth. “We discussed everything in the world, it seemed — thoughts, feelings, ideas, speculations. We argued sometimes about what Hegel really meant, and Spinoza,” said Amaranth. The two sat on that sofa in silence for a long time, awash in an endless stream of memories.

FInally, they left Hartley Hall and got some vegetarian food at the John Jay dining room and ate it. Then they continued their nostalgic walk around campus. Ty had wanted to revisit his “office” that he had had in Lerner, Columbia’s student union, when he was head of NSOP, so they did. Then they continued their tour, going by Alma Mater, the large sculpture in the middle of campus that Daniel Chester French had created, the same Daniel Chester French who had created the huge sculpture of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Amaranth and Ty wanted to visit Columbia’s new campus, just a few blocks north of the main campus. It was called the Manhattanville Campus. Both had graduated from Columbia College shortly after this massive project had gotten underway. Ty had emailed Columbia from Niwot as he was planning this trip and asked for information about the Manhattanville campus and had received a brochure about it that he did not fail to bring with him. Ty suggested that before they walked to it that he and Amaranth find a shady spot where they could sit while he read to Amaranth, and to himself, from the brochure.

“A century ago, Manhattanville was a bustling port and rail cargo hub developed into a local center for dairy products, automobile finishing, meatpacking and other light industries. But the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression signaled the end of strong manufacturing growth in Manhattanville. As industries died out, and the jobs they created disappeared, Manhattanville lost its promise as one of New York City’s manufacturing centers.

“Starting in 2003, Columbia began working with leaders of West Harlem to develop a long-term campus plan. Columbia engaged in New York City’s rigorous land use review process known as ULURP to rezone the project area to a mixed-use special district that would accommodate the construction of academic classrooms, as well as research and residential spaces, among other uses. In December, 2007, the New York City Council voted 35 to 3 in favor of the proposal.

“The Manhattanville campus designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was the first such plan in the nation to win the Greene Building Council’s highest distinction for sustainability — the Leed-ND Platinum.”

“Interesting,” said Ty. “Now let’s go see it.”

Amaranth and Ty left the main campus via College Walk, turned right, and walked several blocks down Broadway to the Manhattanville campus. It was striking. The first building they saw was the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, which is home to the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. At the Greene Science Center, hundreds of the world’s leading researchers tackled the most exciting scientific research of our time: understanding how the brain works and gives rise to the interrelatedness of the mind and behavior. The Zuckerman Institute, lead by Nobel laureates, brings together a constellation of neuroscientists, engineers, statisticians, psychologists, and other scholars from across Columbia who collaborate on research, teaching, and public programming. Columbia’s scholars will transform human health and society, from effective treatments for disorders like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, depression and autism, to advances in fields as fundamental as computer science, economics, law, the arts, and social policy. The Greene Science Center is a nine-story, 450,000 square foot structure, the largest Columbia has ever built, and the biggest science building in New York City. Stairways pair floors, common spaces have communal facilities, and a quadrant system per floor that groups the labs of scientists with similar areas of inquiry that foster idea-sharing and problem-solving among fellow researchers. The Greene Science Center is a model of stable urban design. It sets a new standard for sustainable technology.

Amaranth and Ty moved on. The next new building was the Lenfest Center for the Arts. It provides a dynamic new space for Columbia’s School for the Arts. It hosts exhibitions, performances, screenings, symposia, readings and lectures that present new, global voices and perspectives. It also houses the Wallach Art Gallery.

The next new building Amaranth and Ty saw was the Forum. It is a multipurpose venue on the corner of 125th Street and Broadway and features a 430-seat auditorium. The new building boasts meeting rooms, faculty offices, and open gathering spaces.

The last new building Amaranth and Ty had to read about, because it had not yet been built. It was to be the new Columbia Business School, whose most famous graduate is Warren Buffett. It will be designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with FXFOWLE Architects. The new building will span 492,000 square feet and have an open space of approximately 42,000 square feet that will be called The Square.

Amaranth and Ty had enjoyed seeing and learning about the Manhattanville campus, but were tired.

“Let’s go back to International House and take a nap,” said Ty. Amaranth agreed, so off they went.

After their nap, they again changed into their evening wear and again took a cab, this time to a restaurant called Sola Lab.

“I have abridged and emended Shakespeare,” said Ty immediately after Amaranth and he had been seated at a table.

“What?” exclaimed Amaranth.

“I am not the gifted poet you are and Shakespeare was,” said Ty. “But I want to share this with you now anyway.”

Ty pulled from a pocket in his pants a piece of folded paper and unfolded it. “Except for one word, this is from Troilus and Cressida. This is from Shakespeare, but more importantly, this is from my heart.”

Ty began reading.

“I am mad/In Amaranth’s love/…Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice;/…her hand/In whose comparison all whites are ink,/…to whose soft seizure/The cygnet’s down is harsh’ ‘…I am gitty, expectations whirl me round./The imaginary relish is so sweet/That it enchants my senses./Even such a passion doth embrace my *****;/My heart beats thicker than a fev’rous pulse…’”

Tears began to flow from Amaranth’s eyes.

After a long, silent pause, they ate another wonderful meal.

When Amaranth and Ty returned to International House, they made mad, passionate love more than once, then fell peacefully to sleep, even as they continued to hold each other in embrace.



Chapter 34

Amaranth and Ty stood near the entrance of Dodge Fitness Center waiting for Bill and Debbie and Herb and Leni to show up. The gymnasium was crowded. In a short time, first Bill and Debbie showed up, then Herb and Leni.

“Wild Bill, God bless you! How in the hell are you?” cried Ty. Ty had always called Bill “Wild Bill.” They gave each other a hug. “Wild Bill,” by the way, was from Memphis, though Ty had never met Bill until they both came to Columbia College.

“And Debbie, how are you, and Herb and Leni, how are you?” asked Ty all around.

Amaranth jumped right in, saying hello to everyone, giving hugs to both Debbie and Leni.

It was wonderful for Amaranth and Ty to see their friends again. “Wild Bill” and Debbie lived in Chicago, on Elm Street, as it happened, that ran perpendicular to North Lake Shore Drive that bordered Lake Michigan. Bill and Debbie had bought a large apartment that “Wild Bill” had refurbished himself. “Wild Bill,” even as a kid, had enjoyed woodworking, and had always been gifted when it came to tools, all kinds of tools. He was now a practicing attorney specializing in health law. Debbie, who had gone to Barnard, was an interior director. Herb was now a practicing dermatologist with a Park Avenue practice. Leni Bergstrom held a high position with the Bloomberg Foundation. Herb and Leni lived together in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

“Do you remember our trip to Sarah Lawrence, Ty?” laughed Herb.

Ty sure did remember that car trip to Sarah Lawrence. “And how you eventually gave those snooty Sarah Lawrence girls hell for behaving in such an untoward manner toward the two of us. But you were always unabashed, Ty, and, no doubt, you still are.” said Herb admiringly.

The four of them managed to find seats on the bleachers where they could sit and reminisce. And reminisce they did, for a long time. Oh, the memories, the laughter, the good times! A great education was so important to all of them, but friendships, these friendships that would last a lifetime were, in their own way, as important as their Columbia education.

A couple of hours went by in a second. Finally, as the crowd began to vacate the gymnasium, Amaranth and Ty and Bill and Debbie and Herb and Leni said their good-byes and left, too.

It had been a wonderful evening.



Chapter 35

Homecoming Day!

Ty had been a Columbia football fan ever since he arrived on campus. But the last time Columbia football had won even half of an Ivy League championship was in 1961 when Columbia had tied Harvard for it. But four years ago, thanks to some loud and assertive and influential alumni, Columbia had hired a new athletic director who, in turn, hired Al Bagnoli, who had had a remarkable career as head football coach for over two decades at Penn, the very team Bagnoli and his new incredibly talented squad was going to do battle with this afternoon at Baker Field.

After finishing breakfast at Tom’s, Amaranth and Ty headed up on the subway to Baker Field, which was located on the northern tip of Manhattan. Ty had purchased two of the best seats in Wein Stadium, at the 50-yard-line up high. Amaranth was not a great football fan, but because she knew how much Ty enjoyed Columbia football, she was a good sport.

This was Ivy League football — not Ohio State vs. Michigan, not Alabama vs. Mississippi, not USC vs. UCLA. Ivy football was not “big-time” college football, but it was nonetheless as competitive as hell. The Ivy League had been founded in 1954 as a new athletic conference for these exact reasons. The eight schools that constituted the Ivy League — Brown, Columbia, Cornell. Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale — saw the writing on the wall; that is to say, in 1954, college football games were beginning to be broadcast with greater frequency on national TV, which meant then, and for decades to come, the universities that could successfully entice, often with under-the-table offers of different kinds, the best high school football players across the land to come play football at their schools, and would stand to make millions and millions — now in the billions nationwide — never mind that most of their players they “recruited” were not very smart, and what was the worst, the universities didn’t care if their players got educated before or after they scored touchdowns. The eight Ivy League schools chose to forego “big-time” college football, because they wanted to give all their students, even athletes, the best education possible.

The game was exciting. Columbia jumped out to a 10-point lead. Then Penn countered with seven points of their own. In the second half, Columbia scored two more touchdowns, taking a 17 point lead into their locker room at halftime. In the third quarter, Penn scored another seven points, but so did Columbia. In the fourth quarter, with a sizable lead, Columbia only ran the ball, instead of ever passing it, to run down the clock, a strategy that worked, leaving Columbia a winner over Penn, 34 to 14. Ty was happy, and Amaranth was glad Ty was happy. After the game, they made it back to International House. After cleaning up a bit and putting on their evening wear, Amaranth and Ty took a cab to the Franchia Vegan Cafe, another superb vegetarian restaurant.

Amaranth told the waiter “For an appetizer, I would like the Franchia Vegan Shish Kebab,” said Amaranth said. That shish kebab was made of barbecued soy meat, with peppers and onions on sticks with teriyaki sauce. “Instead of having soup tonight, I would like to try your porridge of the day,” Amaranth said. The porridge was made of sweet corn, spinach, pumpkin, and black sesame. “For my salad, I would like the avocado asparagus salad. For my entrée, I would like the Thai basil soy chicken. I will skip dessert tonight,” said Amaranth.

Ty began to order. “For my appetizer, I would like the Manchurian cauliflower sticks,” said Ty. “Instead of soup, I would also like your porridge. For my salad, I would like your pumpkin noodles salad. And for my entrée, I would like your Mediterranean Bibimbap and Stone Bowl. I will skip dessert tonight as well,” said Ty.

Amaranth and Ty were once again in heaven. The victory over Penn that afternoon was sweet, but nothing compared to the dishes they were now devouring.

“I try my best at home,” said Amaranth. “But I cannot compete with these New York City vegetarian restaurants.”

“Your meals at home are the best in the world,” countered Ty. “We have to get to Richard Rodgers Theater now,”

Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Lorenz Hart, all had been schoolmates and musical collaborators at Columbia College almost ninety years ago. They had, in differing combinations, written the music and lyrics for the “Varsity Show,” an annual Columbia College tradition, even to this day.


Chapter 36

The Richard Rodgers Theater, obviously, was packed, but Ty, through his “connections,” was able to get the best seats in the house.

It was interesting to see how today’s theater-goers dressed to go see Broadway productions. Though the price one had to pay for a ticket to these Broadway blockbuster plays today was exorbitant, many of those who were able to pay showed up in the most casual clothing, even in jeans, no less.

Amaranth and Ty looked through the programs they were given as they entered the theater.

“Thank you for getting us tickets to see Hamilton, Ty,“ said Amaranth.

“But it would be a long time before Hamilton would make it to Niwot,” said Ty.

The musical was even better than advertised, thought both Amaranth and Ty.

As Amaranth and Ty were taking a cab home, Ty said, “Rodgers and Hammerstein were both musical geniuses. You knew they were both graduates of Columbia College, right Am?” Amaranth nodded. “They collaborated on so many great musicals: Oklahoma!; Carousel; State Fair; the great South Pacific; The King and I; Cinderella; Flower Drum Song; The Sound of Music."

As the cab approached International House, Ty remarked quietly, “Rodgers and Hammerstein. Jesus, what a legacy!”



Chapter 37

Amaranth and Ty had decided to sleep in Sunday morning. They were having a wonderful time on their trip to New York City, but both of them knew their days had been, and were going to continue to be, packed with activities, creating a daily schedule, while fun and exciting, that they were not used to. In short, they both were exhausted.

When they both woke up, it was almost 11 am. They took a shower together, which they liked to do sometimes, then got dressed, and finally headed to Tom’s.

After breakfast, they decided to head to Chinatown, which they did. This time, they decided to take the subway, the way they usually had traveled around New York City when they had been students. On Sundays, the subways, were, of course, usually less crowded.

As Amaranth sat on the subway, she remembered the powerful scene in Steinbeck’s epic novel, East of Eden, when Lee, Adam Trask’s Chinese servant, who was always stereotyped as dumb and complaisant, but, in fact, was extremely intelligent and wise, explained to Samuel and Adam the real meaning of the Hebrew word “timshel” that was found in the Bible in Genesis, but was often mistranslated in different versions of it. This profound scene was one of the watershed moments of the novel. In brief, Lee explained that the real meaning of the word was that there was always a chance of redemption, no matter how badly one had previously sinned.

The subway rattled on. Finally, it got to Chinatown.

The Chinatown Amaranth and Ty were going to visit was now one of nine Chinese communities in New York City, and when added to the other eight in greater New York City, had a population of close to 800,000, making these combined communities the largest outside of Asia.

The subway rattled on. Finally, it got to Chinatown.

Chinatown began when a man named Ah Ken showed up in New York City in the 1850s. It is told he opened a cigar store on Park Row and later operated a boarding house on Mott Street. In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. In 1900 the U.S. census reported that 7,028 Chinese males lived in New York City, but only 142 Chinese women, a huge gender gap. The Chinese Exclusion Act was finally repealed in 1943, but Manhattan’s Chinatown had remained essentially a bachelors’s community until 1965. The early days of Chinatown were controlled by “tongs” (associations), which were a mix of clans, landsmen, political, and crime syndicates that provided protection to people and businesses because of anti-Chinese sentiment. These associations eventually formed the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. Street gangs popped up. Gangs like the “Ghost Shadows” and the “Flying Dragons” were fighting each other until the 1990s. Chinatown’s population increased dramatically after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was passed. Cantonese-speaking Chinese dominated Manhattan’s Chinatown. The huge influx of other Chinese (e.g. the Fuzhou) resulted in other neighborhoods springing up in other areas of greater New York City. The 2010 US Census showed a population of 47,844 in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Now population estimates range between 90,000 and 100,000. It continues to be a major tourist attraction, especially due to its many restaurants. Incipient gentrification is a growing threat to Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Amaranth and Ty started their walking tour at the Visitor’s Kiosk where they were able to pick informative brochures. They walked down Baxter Street, passing the Manhattan House of Detention (but still referred to as the “Tombs,” the original name of the first detention center that had been razed and replaced by a new facility) and the Manhattan Criminal Court Building. Then they came upon Columbus Park where they could see and hear Chinese residents playing cards (mahjong), singing traditional Chinese songs, playing their lutes, some groups practicing tai-chi. At the corner of Mosco and Mott Streets, they found the Church of the Transfiguration, originally a Lutheran church built in 1801, but now Roman Catholic. At 32 Mott Street, they saw the site of Quong Yuen Shing General Store that was, from 1891 to 2003, the longest continuously family-operated store in Chinatown. It had served not only as a place to buy goods, but also as a social center where denizens could come to talk, socialize, and help illiterate immigrants learn how to write and even offered them a bed to rent by the night in the back of the store. At 37 Mott Street, they came upon the Aji Ichiban Candy Store. Though the name of this store is Japanese, this store sells hundreds of kinds of Asian and Western and dried fruit, nuts, jerky, seafood — all things gummy. Amaranth and Ty sampled the preserved rose petal, a wasabi peanut, and the candied baby crab.

They continued on their walking tour, encountering the narrow Pell Street with 100-year-old tenement buildings made of bricks on both sides of it, as well as awnings and flags with Chinese writings on them. A hundred years before, Pell Street had been lined with brothels, gambling houses, gang hideouts, and ***** dens. They then came across the curved Doyer Street, named after Hendrik Doyer, an 18th century Dutch immigrant who had owned the land upon which the street sat. Doyer Street also had seen its share of violence. The two tongs gangs, the On Leong and the Hip Sing, had numerous shoot-outs, ambushes, and murders as they battled each other for dominance of Doyers Street and the criminal enterprises located on it. Doyer Street had come to be known as the “****** Angle.” But now, the most famous spot on that street was the Nom Wah Tea Parlor, Chinatown’s first, opened in 1920. Also on Doyer Street was the site of the former Chinese Opera House opened in 1893, but closed in 1901 because of the unchecked violence in the area. Amaranth and Ty then reached Chatham Square, which had been an open market before the burgeoning of Chinatown and later became run-down, an area of flophouses and tattoo parlors. They saw the Kimlau Memorial Arch named after Benjamin Ralph Kimlau who had served as an Allied pilot during World War II, but was killed in 1944 when his plane was shot down. Then came the statue of Lin Zexu who had been a politician in China during the 1830s and 40s and had fought to keep the ***** trade out of China. They saw the Shearith Israel Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in New York City, dating back to 1683. The Spanish and Portuguese Jews founded the Shearith Israel congregation, the only one in New York City for 200 years, lasting until 1825. At the corner of Bowery and Pell Street was the Edward Mooney House, a two-story red brick building that was the oldest townhouse in New York City, built in 1785.

When Amaranth and Ty came to the Bowery, they read it early on had been the main street of New York City, then known as New Amsterdam, but surrendered that distinction in time to Broadway. Once an entertainment center, it had become in the 1900s the “skid row” of the City where the down-and-out tried to survive among seedy hotels and soup kitchens. Finally, at 215 Centre Street was the Museum of Chinese in America. It was one of the most important national archives of Chinese history in America.

“I don’t think either of us took a walking tour of Chinatown when we were students. Is that right, Ty?” said Amaranth.

“I think you’re right, Am,” said Ty. “I remember reading Oscar Handlin’s The Uprooted as a student, a trenchant account of the Lower East Side where immigrant Jews who had entered the United States through Ellis Island and began to settle there. I remember wishing that that neighborhood had not undergone such a demographic change, so that I could have taken a walking tour through it to get a real feel of what they were up against. There is Ellis Island today, but only as a museum. The Statue of Liberty must feel lonely out there, thanks to Trump’s immigration policies, which, as you know, are anathema to me.”

“I know how you feel about Trump and all his other policies,” said Amaranth. “I feel the same way.”

Amaranth and Ty sat on a bench outside the Museum of Chinese in America, resting from their long but interesting and informative walking tour through Chinatown.

“Well, are you ready to go have dinner? We have reservations at Daniel tonight,” said Ty.

“Let’s go. I’m hungry,” replied Amaranth. They found a cab to take them to Daniel, and off they went.

Daniel was a new French restaurant located in the Upper East Side owned and operated by Daniel Boulud, New York City’s longest-reining four-star chef.

After they were seated, Amaranth began to order.

“For my first course, I would like the Mais (chilled corn veloute, avocados, sweet peppers, chive oil, and nasturtium flowers). For my second course, I would like the Couscous (douroum couscous fricassee, basquaise peppers, Thai basil salad). For my main course, I would like the Epinard (braised spinach, 1924 blue cheese cream, and St-Florentin potatoes). For my dessert, I would like the Cerise (thyme-scented Morello cherry pie and Timiz Chantilly). Thank you,” said Amaranth.

Ty ordered. “I would like for my first course the Haricot Plat (runner bean fricassee, fiddlehead ferns, spruce tips, buttermilk emulsion). For my second course, I would like the Oca (glazed oca, wild rose marmalade, radishes, yellow chicory). For my dessert, I would like the Sakanti (Balinese cacao, chocolate sable, gavotte, banana batak sorbet).”

“What an incredible meal!” cried Amaranth. Ty concurred.

“For my first course, I would like the Mais (chilled corn veloute, avocados, sweet peppers, chive oil, and nasturtium flowers). For my second course, I would like the Couscous (douroum couscous fricassee, basquaise peppers, Thai basil salad). For my main course, I would like the Epinard (braised spinach, 1924 blue cheese cream, and St-Florentin potatoes). For my dessert, I would like the Cerise (thyme-scented Morello cherry pie and Timiz Chantilly). Thank you,” said Amaranth.

Ty ordered. “I would like for my first course the Haricot Plat (runner bean fricassee, fiddlehead ferns, spruce tips, buttermilk emulsion). For my second course, I would like the Oca (glazed oca, wild rose marmalade, radishes, yellow chicory). For my dessert, I would like the Sakanti (Balinese cacao, chocolate sable, gavotte, banana batak sorbet).”

“What an incredible meal!” cried Amaranth. Ty concurred.

As they had spent almost half the day walking, Amaranth and Ty decided to call it a day and took a cab back to the International House where they immediately fell into bed in their room.

“Pleasant dreams,” whispered Amaranth. Ty leaned over and kissed her goodnight.



Chapter 38

Today was Monday, 28 October 2019.

After breakfast at Tom’s, Amaranth and Ty took a cab to the Museum of Modern Art and wound up spending virtually the entire afternoon there.

Their favorite paintings, among many others, were Toyin Ojih Odutola’s Projection Enclave, Rirkrit Tiravanija’s FEAR EATS THE SOUL, Sky Hopinka’s Anti-Objects, or Space Without Path or Boundary, Philipp Schaerer’s V22–02, from the Chicago series, Lisa Yuskavage’s Merlot, Kim Beom’s Untitled (Nose of a Pig Smells Accelerator), Lionel Maunz’s Obligation 1, Nicholas Nixon’s The Brown Sisters, Ibrahim El-Salahi’s The Group, Stephanie Syjuco’s Cargo Cults: Basket Woman, Tomma Abts’s Untitled (big circle), Andrea Büttner’s Piano Stool, Martin Barr’s Be Bold with Bananas, Lawrence ******’s Wir sind keine Enten auf dem Teich, wir sind Schiffe auf dem Meer from 25 years of FUN, Irma Boom’s Elements, Lyle Ashton Harris’s Untitled (triptych), Barbara Kasten’s Transposition 3, Bruce LaBruce’s Pierrot Lunaire, Tala Madani’s Wrong House, Ed Atkins’s Warm, Warm, Warm Spring Mouths, Tauba Auerbach’s Three Wire (SRS) from Type Specimen Portfolio 2013, Leonardo Finotti, Juan Sordo Madaleno’s Palmas 555, Mexico City, Mexico.

There were still, of course, the most famous paintings and sculptures of modern art at MoMa, which both Amaranth and Ty had seen when they were at Columbia. The works of Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Edward Hopper, Paul Klee, Ad Reinhardt (who had become close friends with both Robert Lax and Thomas Merton when all were students at Columbia College in the 1930s), Alexander Calder, Roy Lichtenstein, Willem de Kooning, Joan Miró, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson *******, Auguste Rodin, Mark Rothko, Frank Stella, and many others.

Moreover, it should not be forgotten that MoMA also had a world-renowned art photography collection. Ty, whom you might remember was an American history major at Columbia College, remembered well his spending a full afternoon more than a decade ago looking through MoMA’s art photography collection, especially those photographs taken by members of the famous group of American photographers chosen in the 1930s by the Farm Security Administration to spread out over parts of America that had been most seriously affected by the Great Depression. Ty’s three favorites of that group were Dorothea Lange (who had studied photography at Columbia), Gordon Parks, and Walker Evans (an Andover graduate). Lange’s iconic photograph entitled Migrant Mother had left an indelible impression on Ty, as it had done, and was still doing, to millions and millions of others around the world.

That evening, Amaranth and Ty had dinner at Le Bernardin, one of the world’s most famous restaurants. It served a variety of vegetarian dishes from which both Amaranth and Ty could construct, if you will, a vegetarian dinner.

Amaranth, as usual, began first. “I would like please the poached green asparagus, vegetable caviar, with white balsamic-herb seaweed vinaigrette; the warm artichoke panache, vegetable risotto, and barigoule emulsion; and the slowly cooked Mediterranean bouillabaisse, and anise-saffron infused broth.”

Ty was next. “I would like the black truffle tagliatelle; the cauliflower couscous, romanesco, okra, and seasonal vegetables in a Madras curry stew; the sauteed pea shoot-filled morels with green peppercorn sauce; and for dessert, the candied ginger parfait with roasted pineapple sorbet.”

“Excuse me, sir. I would also like the dessert,” added Amaranth.

They enjoyed their meals immensely, but had to make sure they had enough time to reach Lincoln Center to watch the New York City Ballet’s corps de ballet perform.

The New York City Ballet was founded in 1948 by the famous choreographers, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. Tonight’s performance was going to be “Stravinsky & Balanchine: Allegro Brillante; La Source; and Firebird.”

Both Amaranth and Ty found the performances sensational. Only in New York City, and a small number of other major cities around the world, could one see such absolutely stellar performances.

“Well,” said Amaranth, “I’ll never forget this night — LeBernardin and the New York City Ballet in the same evening!”

“This is what I wanted to give you tonight, Am. The only greater thing I can give you always is my love, which I offer you every nanosecond of my life,” said Ty, who then kissed his wife on the cheek.



Chapter 39

It was Tuesday.

After another satisfying breakfast at Tom’s, Amaranth and Ty hailed a cab on Broadway and traveled to the American Museum of Natural History.

The Museum has had a storied history. Ty read to Amaranth from his brochure about the Museum: “Since its founding in 1869, the Museum has advanced its global mission to discover, interpret, and disseminate information about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe through a wide-ranging program of scientific research, education, and exhibition.

“The Museum is renowned for its exhibitions and scientific collections, which serve as a field guide to the entire planet and present a panorama of the world’s cultures.”

In 2019, the American Museum of Natural History was celebrating its 150th anniversary. Amaranth and Ty thought they would first tour the permanent exhibitions. Ty continued to read from his brochure: “The Hall of Biodiversity presents a vivid portrait of the beauty and abundance of life on Earth, highlighting both diversity and the factors that threaten it.

“Ecological biodiversity is illustrated by a 2,500 square foot walk-through diorama that depicts part of the Dzanga-Sangha rain forest, one of Earth’s most diverse ecosystems. Featuring more than 160 species of flora and fauna, the diorama uses video and sound to recreate the ecosystem at dawn, at an elephant clearing, and degraded by human intervention along a road.”

Amaranth and Ty slowly walked through the Hall of Diversity, looking at and reading about all the other exhibitions within it: the Spectrum of Life; the Siberian Tiger; the Dodo Bird; the Endangered Species; and the Protists.

There was, of course, a gargantuan amount of interesting and fascinating information to be gleaned from all the exhibitions, both permanent and special. Amaranth and Ty paced their walking and reading, so they would not be overwhelmed by the magnitude of what they were exploring and ingesting.

They walked through the rest of the permanent exhibitions: the Hall of North American Forests; the Irma and Paul Milstein Family Hall of Ocean Life; the Hall of Birds of the World; the Hall of New York City Birds; the Leonard C. Sanford Hall of North American Birds; the Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians; the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites; the Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems; the Harry Frank Guggenheim Hall of Minerals; the Paul and Irma Milstein Hall of Advanced Mammals; the Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs; the Hall of Primitive Mammals; the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs; the Hall of Vertebrate Origins; the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Orientation Center; the Grand Gallery; the Northwest Coast Hall; the Hall of Central and South America; the Hall of African Peoples; the Gardner D. Stout Hall of Asian Peoples; the Hall of Eastern Woodlands; the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Hall of Human Origins; the Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples; the Hall of Plains Indians; the Hall of South American Peoples; the Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals; the Akeley Hall of African Mammals; the Hall of Asian Mammals; the Hall of Primates; the Hall of Small Primates; the Rose Center for Earth and Space; the Hayden Planetarium; the Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway; the Scales of the Universe; the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Hall of the Universe; the David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth; the Hayden Big Bang Theater; the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall; the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda; and the Discovery Room.

“That was a long, long, but most interesting tour we just completed,” said Amaranth. “How about us taking a break, maybe getting a soda?”

“You bet,” said Ty.

After their break, they went to view the special exhibits. They included “Oceans: Our Blue Planet;” “T. rex: The Ultimate Predator;”

“Unseen Oceans;” and “Dark Universe.’

“I liked ‘Unseen Oceans’ the best,” said Amaranth. “You could spend two lifetimes absorbing all that’s in this museum.”

“Maybe three,” added Ty.



Chapter 40

When Amaranth and Ty got back to the International House, they lay down to rest, understandably, for a while. Ty had brought along Frederick Douglass’s autobiography to read and Amaranth had brought Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. They enjoyed their books for an hour or so. But again, they had to get ready to go eat at the Blue Hill, 75 Washington Place, so they would arrive at the Shubert Theatre on time to see the Broadway smash hit, To **** A Mocking Bird.

When the two were seated at Blue Hill, the waiter took their orders.

“I would like the Castelfranco Radicchio (Blue Hill farm yogurt, cherries, and preserved ramps) please,” said Amaranth, “and I would like the Montauk Skate (cucumbers and dill), and I would like the Summer Vegetable Lasagna (fava beans, summer squash, and farmer’s cheese).”

And Ty said, “I would like the Snap Peas (rhubarb, strawberries, and curry), and I would like the Sprouted Row 7 Barley (chanterelles, apricots, and a pullet egg), and I would like the Blue Hill Farm Chicken (celtuce, blueberries, and horseradish). Thank you.”

Again, as one would imagine, the food was wonderful.

Amaranth and Ty took a cab to the Shubert Theatre and got there with time to spare. Both had heard that this play was, in a number of ways, different from the movie, but had nonetheless received rave reviews. And both of them had seen the movie a number of times. It was, in fact, one of Amaranth’s all-time favorites. Indeed, when she was a teenager in Sedona, she had had a crush on Gregory Peck, not only because he was so handsome, but also because he projected a kindness, an empathy, that she really felt emanated from his own center as a human being, not just as an actor. The two went in to watch the play.

When they came out, Amaranth said, “ I really liked the play. I liked the subtle and not-so-subtle changes made. Jeff Daniels, about whom I had my doubts, pulled it off. The actress who played Calpurnia deserves to win a Tony Award, as does Daniels. Whoever wrote the screenplay took a lot of chances, but in the end, the play was effective, at once at times caustic, at other times evocative and electric.”

“This play, the movie, the book, all are about racism, which is the legacy of slavery, the brutal, ugly, immoral, death-dealing slavery that began to ravage North America some 400 years ago. The triangle of trade, the Atlantic Slave Trade, is what first made the thirteen colonies prosperous, both in the North and in the South. And then, after 1776, slavery made the United States of America, over time, into the new, roaring, economic engine of the world. Our nation was built on the backs of black slaves, 4,000,000 by 1861, and despite the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865 that ‘legally’ abolished slavery in our ‘democracy,’ our nation morphed into a pernicious, evil, racist country. Racism today pervades every county, every town and city, every state in our so-called democracy. If Martin Luther King, Jr. had not been murdered by a single rifle shot to the head on April 4th, 1968 on a Lorraine Motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, you could ask him if I’m not right, but you can’t, because he’s dead. So you can ask instead Trump, the humanist that he is, if I’m not right,” concluded Ty, obviously heated.

Amaranth knew well where Ty was coming from, and why. Ty had never been able to brook even an iota of racism, and undaunted as he had always been, would never hesitate a moment to tell you emphatically how he felt and in what he believed. This singular attribute of his was perhaps the overriding reason why she respected him so, and loved him so much.



Chapter 41

Amaranth had felt a poem welling up inside of her. She could tell what was welling up inside of her was unusually intense, even bellicose perhaps. And perhaps it was welling up in part because of what Ty had to say, and the way he said it, last night after the play. Regardless, what was happening now felt markedly different to her, but Amaranth had always trusted, respected, what welled up inside of her because this silent and sacred process had always proven, in a spiritual way, to be her truth. It had always come intuitively, never forced.

She awakened while Ty was still asleep. She carefully got out of bed so as not to wake Ty up. She picked up her purse and pulled the notebook and her pen she always carried with her. Then she went over to the desk and sat down, putting her notebook on the desktop and opening it up to a clear page. Then she began recording what was beginning to come out of her.

THOSE WHO RULE

We shall keep the poor poor.
We shall be on them like




a master’s whip on the backs
of slaves; but they will not
know us: we are too far, and
too close. We shall use the
patois of patriotism to patronize
them. We shall hide behind our
flags while we hold only one pole.
We shall have the poor fight our
wars for us, and die for us; and
before they die, they will **** for
us, we hope, enough. In peace,
we shall piecemeal them and serve
them meals made of toxins and tallow.
For their labor, we shall pay them
slave wages; and all that we give
we shall take back, and more, by
monumental scandals that subside
like day’s sun at eventide. We shall
be clever, as ever, circumspect and
surreptitious at all times. We shall
keep them deluded with the verisimilitude
of hope, but undermine always its
being. We shall infuse their lives
with fear and hate, playing one
race against another, one religion
against a brother’s. Disaffection is
our key; but we must modulate our
efforts deftly, so the poor remain
frightened and angered, but always
blind and deaf and divided. And if,
perchance, one foments, we shall
seize the moment and drop his head
into his hands, even as he speaks.
This internecine brew we pour, there-
fore, into the poor to keep them drunk
with enmity and incapacitation. Ah,
eternal anticipation! Bottoms up,
old chaps. We, those who rule,
shall have them always in our laps.
We are, as it were, their salvation.


Amaranth had never before written a poem like this one. She lay her pen diagonally across her poem, got up from the desk, and quietly, so quietly, got back into bed to lie beside her Ty.

Amaranth lay beside Ty until he awoke, and then the two made love. What a beautiful way to start a new day.



Chapter 42

“Tomorrow, we go home, back to Niwot,” said Ty. “ You would think one might be sad to leave all that we have seen and eaten and heard in this incomparable metropolis, but I’m not. We will take all that we have experienced and enjoyed here back home with us, not in our suitcases, but in our hearts and minds.”

Amaranth sat on the edge of the bed, listening.

“There are many that live here who think they have a monopoly on success, but they don’t, because success is not the clothes one wears, not the car one drives, not the house one lives in, not the job one has, not the title one holds, not the money one makes. Success is being and becoming. Success is always being true to yourself,” concluded Ty.

“Today, our penultimate day, we travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum, as you know, is gigantic. I remember once I simply walked through the entire museum, walking but never stopping, to see how long it would take. It took me three hours. Therefore, I respectfully suggest we go only to the Impressionist wing. I know we both love the Impressionists. Is that OK with you, Am?”

Amaranth nodded in the affirmative.

“Great,” said Ty. “Let’s go have breakfast at Tom’s, then we’ll go to the Met.”

After finishing breakfast, Amaranth and Ty took a cab to the museum. When they got there, they headed directly to the Impressionist wing.

Ty had been standing in front of Renoir’s “Still Life with Peaches” for about a half hour. He was transfixed, mesmerized. Amaranth, who had been roaming around the wing, came over to Ty.

“Am, I think this is the most beautiful painting I have ever seen,” said Ty.

“I think it is gorgeous, yes,” said Amaranth.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France on 25 February 1841. He was inspired by the works of Pissarro and Manet. With Sisley, Pissarro, and Monet and several other artists, Renoir mounted the first Impressionist exhibition in April, 1874. Subsequently, he traveled around Europe to see the works of other famous painters, including Delacroix and Velazquez. He also met the famous composer, Wagner. Renoir’s most famous paintings included Bal du Moulin de la Galette, Le Déjeuner des canotiers, Les Grandes Baigneuses, La Loge, Bal a Bougival, Madame Georges Charpentier et Ses Enfants, Jeunes Filles au Piano, La Parisienne, Les Parapluies, and Les Deux Soeurs.

“I have two favorites,” said Amaranth. “They are van Gogh and one of yours, Renoir.”

Vincent van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853 in Groot-Zundert, Holland. He created more than 2,000 artworks during his life — landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits. He didn’t start painting until 1881. The vast majority of his paintings were done in the last two years of his life. He suffered psychotic episodes such as delusions and hallucinations throughout his life and sought help several times by being admitted to different psychiatric hospitals. His mental illness, ineluctably and unconsciously, imbued his paintings with extraordinary qualities that made them unique. He was extremely close to his brother, Theo, who had tried to help Vincent sell his paintings. Only one painting was sold during his lifetime. Today, each of his paintings is worth millions and millions of dollars. On 29 July 1890, Vincent committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest.

“Vincent van Gogh is the artistic equivalent of the poetic William Blake and Emily Dickinson in that all three were never recognized in their lifetimes as the geniuses they were,” said Amaranth.

Other artists represented through their paintings and sculptures in the Impressionist wing were Degas, Monet, Bonnard, Vuillard, Derain, Cassatt, Whistler, Weir, Pissarro, Morisot, Seurat, Harper, Metcalf, Matisse, Sargent, Vonnoh, Twachtman, Sisley, Rodin, Bracquemond, Bastien-Lepage, Hassam, Cézanne, Robinson, Manet, Cuvelier, Caillebotte, Delacroix, Inness, Balthus, Toulouse-Lautrec, van Rysselberhge, Rosso, Courbet, Yong, Tian, Bazille, Gauguin, and others.

Amaranth and Ty went directly to Fournos Theophilos, a highly rated Greek vegetarian restaurant, because again they didn’t want to be late arriving at Lincoln Center where they would be listening to the New York Philharmonic.

Amaranth began. “For an appetizer, I would like please to get the Tzatziki (Greek yogurt, cucumbers, dill, garlic, and Greek olive oil, served with pita bread). I would like the soup of the day. For a salad, I would like the Greek salad (pleated filo crust, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, Greek feta cheese, whole wheat rusks, Greek extra ****** olive oil, and red wine vinegar). For my entree, I would like the traditional Mediterranean pie (pleated filo crust, tomatoes, olives, and cheese). And for dessert, I’m going to have to have your baklava.”

Ty said, “I’m going to have the Fava (yellow split pea spread from Santorini, Greece served with pita bread). I too will have the soup of the day. For my salad, I would like your baby kale salad (mandarans, almonds, with carrot turmeric vinaigrette). For my entree, I would like your traditional cheese and spinach pie (pleated filo crust, spinach, sweet leeks, dill and parsley mixed with sheep and goat’s mizithra, and feta cheese). And for dessert, I would like your Mosaic (a fridge cake with buttery, creamy chocolate, crunchy cookies, and a hint of aromatic brandy).

“I have not had Greek food often, but tonight’s dinner was tasty, wonderful,” said Amaranth.

“I’m glad you liked it, Am,” said Ty. “This was your last New York City vegetarian dinner, at least for a while.”

Amaranth and Ty rushed over to Lincoln Center and found their seats in David Geffen Hall.

Tonight’s program would be Mozart’s Symphony №40, Sibelius’s Second Symphony, and Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony, the “Eroica.” Jaap van Zweden, conducting.

Amaranth and Ty knew all three symphonies, and liked each one.

“Am, did you ever see the movie Amadeus?” Ty asked.

“Yes, I did,” replied Amaranth. She and Ty, she thought, were among the luckiest people in the world to be able to hear in person these objects of virtu played by one the best symphony orchestras on Earth.

“Miloš Forman, who was the director for Amadeus, won an Oscar for the job he did. He was teaching at Columbia’s School of the Arts at that time. Amadeus also won an Oscar as Best Picture. Forman also directed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and won another Oscar for that job well done,” added Ty.

Wolfgang Amadeas Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 in Salzburg, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. A child prodigy, Mozart wrote his first symphony when he was eight years old. He traveled extensively when he was young through Europe with his sister, Nannerl, and their father  performed before European nobility. Later, only Mozart and his father toured. He met Haydn and Beethoven. Eventually, he settled in Vienna. Mozart experienced financial difficulties throughout his adult life. As well, he composed over 600 works during his life, including symphonies, concertos, operas, sonatas, and choral music. Mozart was only 35 when he died on 5 December 1791.

Jean Sibelius was born on 8 December 1865 in Hämeenlinna in the Grand Duchy of Finland. Initially he had dreamed of becoming a violin virtuoso, but ultimately became a composer instead. Sibelius unfortunately was both an epicure and a heavy drinker, which caused him financial stress from time to time. He is best known for his seven symphonies and his nationalistic tone poem, Finlandia. Sibelius was 91 when died on 20 September 1957.

Ludwig van Beethoven was baptised on 17 December 1770 in Bonn, the capital of the Electorate of Cologne. When he was 21, he moved to Vienna and studied composition under Haydn. By 1811, Beethoven was virtually completely deaf. Nevertheless, he kept composing great works. Beethoven composed nine symphonies, five piano concertos, one violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, two masses, and an opera, Fidelio. He is considered to be one of the greatest composers of all time. Beethoven was 56 when he died in Vienna on 26 March 1827.

“Why can’t our world be as beautiful and uplifting as the three symphonies we listened to tonight?” asked Amaranth.

Ty had no answer.



Chapter 43

Back to Niwot.

It was Thursday, 24 October 2019, and it was time to go home. Their flight was scheduled to leave at 11:20 am and they knew, of course, they had to be at the airport at least a couple of hours before takeoff, so they had set the alarm for an early rise time in order to give them time to eat breakfast at Tom’s and still have plenty of time to get to JFK.

They took a cab to JFK, went through the protracted “shake-down,” sat for awhile, then finally boarded their non-stop Delta flight to DIA. Ty had finished reading Frederick Douglass’s autobiography and had started reading a biography of William Lloyd Garrison, the famous abolitionist who had founded and edited the newspaper, The Liberator.

Amaranth, in turn, had a bit more to read of Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. Both got pillows before take-off. They were on their way.

This time, they both fell asleep during the flight home, which was probably a good thing in that both of them had expended a lot of energy during their week in New York City, plus their sleep made the trip seem a lot faster than it actually was. They landed at DIA a little after 5:00 pm Denver time.

“It feels both good and strange at the same time being in Colorado rather than frenetic New York City,” said Ty as he drove Amaranth and himself back to Niwot. “But, bottom line, it will be good to get home,” he added.

Ty pulled into their driveway, unloaded the suitcases from the trunk of the car, and carried them into the house. Amaranth followed.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to hit the sack,” said Ty.

“Thank you for a most wonderful week in New York City, Ty. I will never forget it,” said Amaranth.

“Thank you, Am, for being my wife and making each day of mine a vacation par excellence,” said Ty.

The two hugged and kissed, then went to bed, happy to be in their home once again.


Chapter 44

Amaranth sat in her chair at the kitchen table sipping tea. Morning sunlight poured through the kitchen windows.

Society is like the individual, Amaranth thought. What it does not like, it neglects, ignores. The individual represses, society oppresses. Helicopters hover, but do not help. Urban renewal is a societal lobotomy.

We need a new technology, she thought, an emotional technology. Before we bus our children from one part of town to another, we must first crisscross out hearts and souls, know every street and alley of our feelings, every suburb and ghetto of our guts. Before we integrate our races, we must integrate our emotions. The boundaries that divide us are not on maps, but in our minds and hearts.

Old technologies have built institutions into which society dumps its misfits and misgivings. Prisons, jails, reform schools, mental hospitals, institutes for the mentally *******, nursing homes for the aged. Confined, compartmentalized, compact, concealed.

These institutions are society’s pockets of unconsciousness. They are there not just to treat and rehabilitate our people with problems, but to keep them away from us and us away from them. Institutions we place at the peripheries of our existence help us to feel safe, to differentiate artificially ourselves from others, to substantiate falsely are own physical, mental, and moral well-being, as if to say ipso facto, we on the outside are better off than those on the inside.

Rather than work through our own conflicts and anxieties, we use vicariously these people and places to cleanse ourselves of our own aberrations. It is as if we hide — nay, exorcise — those painful parts of ourselves: the criminal, the insane, the crippled, the blind and deaf, the socially disgraced parts of all of us, by placing these afflicted souls into institutions , then forgetting them, as we forget the humanness we share with them. Symbolically we sacrifice them to societal gods of rectitude and propriety to allay our self-doubts, to atone for our guilts.

Our concern is perfunctory: we simply pay our taxes and give to the United Way, making the sick and disturbed mercenary soldiers to fight emotional wars for us in distant places. As we put people into brutal buildings, our feelings turn to steel and stone. When we banish them to institutional oblivion, we abdicate our own humanness, failing to touch the parts of us that make us real.

Amaranth took another sip of tea, then got up from her chair and went to the bedroom to lie down.



Chapter 45

Amaranth met Julie at the Parkway Cafe in Boulder for breakfast.

“Julie, it’s so good to see you,” said Amaranth.

“And it’s so good to see you, too. How was your trip to New York City?” asked Julie.

“Frankly, it was spectacular, I’m pleased to say. It was a whirlwind week of nostalgia, sightseeing, cultural experiences, and some of the best vegetarian meals served in the world. We had a great time, Ty and I,” replied Amaranth.

“That’s great,” said Julie.

“And how are you and Ed doing?” asked Amaranth.

“We took the Peak to Peak Highway to see all the colors of the trees changing. It never gets boring to see such beauty,” said Julie.

The two ordered their meals and continued to chat as they were eating.

“You remember the Robertsons? They just got divorced two weeks ago. What a shame,” said Julie.

Amaranth took a bite of avocado, then asked “They have two children, don’t they?”

“That’s right, Am. And pity the children. You know the kids are going to have a hard time with this, even if they’re not conscious of it, right? said Julie.

“You’re right, Julie. Children of any age, even through their teenage years, will necessarily have to struggle with a situation like that — their parents split, maybe one or both of them remarried. It will take an emotional toll on the kids, anyway you slice it,” said Amaranth.

It was, indeed, wonderful to see Julie again. Julie had been her best friend since she and Ty had moved to Colorado. Amaranth again remembered that Chinese proverb: “One can do without people, but one has need of a friend.”

The two continued talking for more than a half hour. Finally, they got up from the booth and paid their bills.

“Give Ed my best,” said Amaranth.

“And you do the same for me with Ty,” responded Julie.



Chapter 46

October soon became November, and November meant Thanksgiving. And after Thanksgiving came Christmas.

Amaranth and Ty had two annual rituals. The first was to visit the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Fort Collins on Thanksgiving Day. The second was to visit the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo on the evening of Christmas Eve.

Every year on Thanksgiving Day, for as long as they had lived in Niwot, they drove there and brought with them a slice of pumpkin pie for each person in that facility. Amaranth would find out how many people were going to be in the facility on Thanksgiving Day, then cook enough pumpkin pies so everyone would get a slice. She and Ty loved not only the handing out of these slices of pie to every person who wanted one, but also, and more importantly, taking all the time needed to chat with any and all the people who wanted to chat with them for a bit. Not every person there would not want to talk with them and, of course, Amaranth and Ty would not bother anyone who did not want to participate in the chatting. But there were always many who really wanted to talk with them. These people did not have many visitors throughout the year, so those who were receptive to chatting and visiting really enjoyed it when Amaranth and Ty came to see them. Of course, the pumpkin pie was nice, too.

The other ritual was similar to the first. On Christmas Eve day, they would travel to Pueblo, but this time bring with them homemade Christmas cookies that Amaranth had baked, along with a sufficient number of gallons of Christmas punch. Again, both Amaranth and Ty would hand out the cookies on paper plates with paper napkins and pour the punch into paper cups and hand those out, too. Again, anyone who did not want to participate would not be bothered. But again, there were so many people who did want to chat and visit with Amaranth and Ty that they might wind up spending a couple of hours doing this.

The people whom they greeted on each of these two holidays were basically the people whom society had forgotten, and moreover, never wanted to remember. They were outcasts, ostracized for life. That’s why these two visits meant so much to these people, and also meant so much to Amaranth and Ty. These visits made the holidays so special to Amaranth and Ty, better than a big Thanksgiving dinner, better than a lot of presents under a Christmas tree.

Thanksgiving was coming soon, so Amaranth had to get busy finding out how many people would be spending Thanksgiving Day at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Fort Logan, then baking enough pumpkin pies to offer a slice to everyone who wanted one.

This was a joyous time of year for both Amaranth and Ty. Both felt blessed this time of year, and for good reasons.



Chapter 47

The voice had not spoken to her during her sleep for a long time. But last night, it did.

“Earth and all its living creations will face the most dangerous times in the near future. Don’t be frightened. I will help you save Earth.”

Amaranth sat on the blue sofa in the living room for a long time. She wasn’t frightened, but saving Earth? What was the voice trying to tell her? What the hell did it mean? She couldn’t wait to see Dr. Rosenstein and tell him about this. Fortunately, she was scheduled to see the doctor in two days. That gave her some solace.

Two days didn’t come fast enough for Amaranth.

“Dr. Rosenstein, it’s so nice to see you. I have something very important to tell you,” said Amaranth.

She sat down in the chair and instantly began to tell him what the voice had said.

“Well, Amaranth, first tell me how you are doing after this incredible experience,” said Dr. Rosenstein.

“I think I’m OK, but what a shock, hearing that I was going to help save Earth,” said Amaranth.

“I am not surprised by your reaction. I would feel the same way as you if that had happened to me,” said Dr. Rosenstein.

“The voice said, ‘Don’t be frightened.’ Well I’m not exactly frightened — the voice’s tone was the same as it’s always been, calm, almost soothing, but what a message, gigantic and enigmatic at the same time,” said Amaranth.

“Well, of course, Amaranth, I have no idea what all of this means, but let me assure you, I will be here to help you deal with this, if that’s what you wish,” said Dr. Rosenstein.

“Oh yes, Dr. Rosenstein, I would appreciate your help. Just having someone like you to tell about what’s happening to me, even if neither of us knows what it means, would be most helpful to me. Thank you so much,” said Amaranth.

“And let me add, Amaranth, that if you find yourself getting emotionally wrought over this, you should know that I would be more than willing to prescribe a sedative that would help you get through this,” said Dr. Rosenstein.

“Thank you, doctor. That’s very reassuring, but right now I don’t think I need anything like that. I’ll tell you if and when I feel differently. By the way, you should know that you are the only person who knows about the voice besides me. Not even Ty knows, yet,” said Amaranth.

Amaranth felt somewhat relieved after sharing with Dr. Rosenstein about what the voice had said. The doctor, Amaranth thought, was very good at what he did, helping people help themselves. Amaranth did share with the doctor the highlights of the New York City week, which took up essentially the rest of her session.

“Thank you, again, Dr. Rosenstein. I’ll see you next week,” said Amaranth, and then left his office.



Chapter 48

It was soon to be Thanksgiving Day. Amaranth had called the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Fort Logan and had spoken the the head nurse who had been her official contact for all these past years. She had found out that 46 of the people at the Institute would be there on Thanksgiving Day, so, by dividing 46 by 6 — the latter being the number of slices a pumpkin pie could be cut into — meant she would have to bake 8 pies. So Amaranth began to make and bake the first one.

She already had made the first pie shell, so she began to mix the sugar, cinnamon, salt, ginger, and cloves in a small bowl. Then she beat the eggs in a large bowl. Then she stirred in the pumpkin and sugar-spiced mixture into the large bowl, along with what was in the small bowl, and then stirred and poured everything in the large bowl into the pie shell. Then she put the unbaked pie into the oven, which she had preheated to 425 degrees F, let the pie bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F and let it bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until she could insert a knife into the center of the pie and be able to pull it out clean.

Amaranth loved to do this — bake pumpkin pies for people who probably hadn’t tasted a bite of pumpkin pie for at least a year. It would take her quite a while to make all eight of the pumpkin pies she needed, but every pie she made was a labor of love.



Chapter 49

Today was Thanksgiving Day.

Ty helped Amaranth carefully load the eight pumpkin pies into the car. Then they headed out for Fort Logan. It was about 45 miles from Niwot, about a one-hour drive. Amaranth put a CD of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, one of her favorites, into the slot in the dashboard. It was a bright, sunny day, if a bit cool.

“This should be a most pleasant afternoon for us, Am,” said Ty, who was driving.

“It always has been,” replied Amaranth.

Beethoven’s 7th Symphony had concluded some time ago as Amaranth and Ty pulled up in front of the entrance to the Colorado Mental Health Institute. They got out of the car and walked up to the front door and opened it, went inside, and almost immediately encountered the head nurse whose first name was Carolyn.

“Carolyn, it’s so nice to see you again. It’s been exactly a year ago since Ty and I had the pleasure of your company,” said Amaranth. Ty said hello as well.

“It is so nice that you two do this every year, every Thanksgiving. It means so much to the people who have to stay here on Thanksgiving Day, because they either have no family or friends to invite them to their homes. They’re stuck here, forgotten, often, it’s sad to say, on purpose,” declared Carolyn.

“I know,” declared Amaranth.

“Let me get some aids to help you bring the pies in your car into the day room,” said Carolyn.

“Thank you,” said Amaranth.

Several aids brought the pies from the car into the day room and placed them on a long table. They also brought in the grocery sack that had in it the paper plates, plastic forks, and paper napkins Amaranth and Ty would be needing.

“Thanks for your help,” Amaranth said to the aids.

Amaranth began cutting each pie into six pieces. As she was doing so, a middle-aged woman came up to her and said, “You’re Amaranth, aren’t you? I remember you from last year. I’m Bernadette,” the woman said.

“It’s so nice of you to remember me, Bernadette,” said Amaranth. “I’ll soon have a piece of pumpkin pie to give you.”

Amaranth finished cutting all the pies into six pieces.

“We have pieces of pumpkin pie to give you, if you’d like one,” said Amaranth to the small crowd forming in front of the table. “If you will just form a line, it will be easier for us to give each of you a piece.”

People began to form a line. Amaranth put a piece of pie on a plate, then handed it to Ty, who added a fork and a napkin.

Amaranth and Ty always introduced themselves by their first names to everyone in line who came to get a piece of pie.

“Hi, I’m Amaranth, and this is my husband, Ty,” she would say.

Most, but not all, would give Amaranth and Ty their first names, but one could tell, even without words, the people loved to get their pieces of pumpkin pie, and no doubt, deep in their hearts, appreciated more than they could express, this wife and husband who had remembered them on this Thanksgiving Day.

After most of the people had finished their pieces of pumpkin pie, a number of them came up to Amaranth and Ty, giving them their first names and thanking them for what they had done. Some of them even wanted to talk to them, chat with them, and, of course, Amaranth and Ty obliged. Both these people, as well as Amaranth and Ty, enjoyed this social ******* immensely. Those who didn’t want this kind of interaction, or, in fact, simply couldn’t interact at all, Amaranth and Ty did not bother.

Amaranth and Ty stayed in that large room as long as any of the people wanted to talk. They were never in a rush to leave. This, after all, was their Thanksgiving Day, too, and this was how they had wished to celebrate it for a number of years now.

“I have to be honest with you, Am,” said Ty as he pulled out of the parking lot.

“About what?” Amaranth asked quizziically.

“I put aside one piece of your pumpkin pie for myself and then ate it,” confessed Ty. “It was delicious!”

“Oh Ty!” said Amaranth, laughingly.

They got back home safely.



Chapter 50

Snow covered the ground. It had been falling for quite some time. The crocuses were now sleeping.

Amaranth stood at the back door in the kitchen, looking through its windows.

Winter was a time for slumber, she thought. It was a time to enter her heart with the brown bear to keep her warm.

When she was a child, she used to crawl into bed when she got cold and snuggle up under the blankets making, she thought now, almost a second womb where she could be safe and warm. She thought, too, of the baby she never had had, never was capable of having. She tried never to think about that hole in her otherwise joyous life, but sometimes she couldn’t help it. This was one of those times.

Winter was a metaphor for this cold emptiness she sometimes felt, like right now. She imagined having a baby, nursing her baby, keeping her baby warm with soft pieces of cloth wrapped around the baby. She would sing lullabies to her baby as she carried it in her arms through the different rooms of her home. In fact, Amaranth began singing a lullaby she had written and memorized.

A LULLABY FOR MY BABY

Tell me why, oh butterfly,
do you fly so high?
Tell me why, oh butterfly,
high up in blue sky?

Tell me, pretty butterfly,
with your wings of gold,
are you as kind and gentle
as I’m always told?

Tell me, golden butterfly,
will you come to me
and light upon my shoulder
to keep me company?

And when night falls, my butterfly,
please let your golden wings
illuminate the darkness
until the bluebird sings.

Amaranth kept stroking her baby’s forehead with her gentle fingertips. She would lie down on her bed with her baby, softly singing her songs until her baby fell asleep. And she would lie there with her baby on her chest, sometimes it felt like forever, but Amaranth didn’t mind at all. She was with her baby, and that was all that mattered. She was enveloped in love….

When Amaranth felt this way, she would begin to cry, sometimes for a long time. Ty was not at home, so she knew he would not suddenly come into the kitchen. If she cried for too long a time, she would go to the bedroom, pull the blankets down, get into bed, then pull the blankets up around her, just as she had done when she had been a child. Eventually, she would fall asleep.

The snow kept falling.



Chapter 51

Amaranth and Ty always celebrated Christmas, but in a different way.

While growing up in Sedona, she had once come across an ad in the Phoenix Republic a few weeks before Christmas. The ad, which had been placed in the newspaper by an Episcopal church, read “Whose birthday is this anyway?” Amaranth never forgot that ad and the message it had so trenchantly conveyed.

Neither Amaranth nor Ty had ever belonged to an organized religion, but had always celebrated what they felt was the simple but profound message of Jesus, which was love. They never had had a Christmas tree, either real or plastic, in their home--real, because that would have meant killing a live tree; plastic, because the world was full of plastic, including the oceans. They were vehemently opposed to the commercialization of Christmas. Amaranth had felt for a long time that the weeks preceding Christmas should be spiritual, not commercial, that this time should be spent in relative silence, and if not in prayer, at least in deep introspection. Then, in mid-January, when it was usually very cold, often gloomy, and always, it seemed, a time when most people experienced an emotional letdown after the frenetic holidays, then have a day when one could give and receive presents, commercial gifts, to one another, thus elevating everyone’s mood. But, of course, this scenario had never come to pass, but it never kept Amaranth and Ty from following their own desires.

This coming Christmas was just a few days away, and on Christmas Eve Day, Amaranth and Ty would be taking Christmas cookies and red punch to the people who spent their lives in the other Colorado Mental Health Institute, this one in Pueblo, more than four times larger than the one in Fort Logan, about 160 miles from Niwot, and about a 2 ½ hour drive.

Of course, Amaranth was happy again to be in the kitchen doing one of the things she most enjoyed doing, making Christmas cookies specifically for this occasion. She had already phoned and spoken to her contact at the hospital whose name was Bev, and confirmed the number of people who would be there on the evening of Christmas Eve Day.

Amaranth began by getting a large bowl for her blender and whisking together 2 cups of flour, 1 ¼ tsp of baking powder, ¼ tsp of salt. Then she added about 14 tbs of unsalted butter at room temperature. Next, she added ¾ of a cup of sugar at medium speed and let mix for one minute total. Then Amaranth got a small bowl and one room-temperature egg that she mixed with ½ tsp of vanilla extract, then added the egg mixture to the large bowl and let it mix for about thirty seconds. Then Amaranth turned the speed of the blender to low and slowly added the flour mixture and let it mix for about one minute. Then Amaranth got a piece of plastic wrap and scraped the dough onto it, then folded it up, making a one-inch flat disc, which she then put into the fridge for at least two hours. When the dough was chilled, Amaranth got out a small bowl of flour, a rolling pin, a flat, metal spatula, and two parchment-lined baking sheets. Then she floured her counter and unwrapped her dough. She floured the dough on both sides and also the rolling pin. She then began to roll out the dough, starting from the center. When the dough got to about the thickness of a pencil, Amaranth stopped rolling. Then she started cutting the cookies, putting each one at a time on one of the baking sheets. Once she had filled both baking sheets, she put each of the sheets, one on one rack, one on the other, into the oven set at 375 degrees. After about five minutes, Amaranth rotated the sheets from front to back and top to bottom and let the cookies bake for five-to-six minutes more. Then she transferred the cookies to a wire sheet to let them cool.

To make the icing, Amaranth got out another bowl and put four cups of powdered sugar, two large egg whites, and two tbs of lemon juice. She then whisked that mixture on medium speed until it became glossy and a bit stiff. She added a number of different colorings to her icing, as well as different sparkles. Amaranth had fun decorating her Christmas cookies.

To make enough cookies to be able to put two to three of them on each paper plate for a hundred or more people took her a long time, but she didn’t mind. After all, while making all these cookies, she had listened to a variety of her most favorite pieces of music: Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata; Barber’s Adagio for Strings; Vivaldi’s Four Seasons; and many others.



Chapter 52

It wasn’t Le Bernardin or Daniel, but it was her kitchen.

Amaranth was going to prepare Pinto Posole.

Posole was a Mexican stew that typically featured shredded pork, dried chilis, hominy, and cumin. Of course, Amaranth was going to use pinto beans in lieu of pork. Lots of fiber and protein, she thought. Hominy was a variety of dried corn (maize) kernels that had been treated with an alkali, such as lye, to improve digestibility. She was going to use three guajillo chilis to create a spicy, but-not-too spicy, stew. She would cook the stew with the chilis, then discard them.

Other ingredients would include 2 tbs of extra ****** olive oil, one large, finely chopped white onion, four cloves of pressed or minced garlic, one cup of tomato paste, one tbs of ground cumin, one bay leaf, three cans of rinsed and drained pinto beans, one can of rinsed and drained hominy, four cups of vegetable broth, two cups of water, ½ teaspoon of fine sea salt, ¼ cup of chopped cilantro, one halved lime, slices of avocado, shredded green cabbage, and chopped radishes.

Amaranth first cut off the stem ends of the chilis and flicked them to remove as many seeds as possible. She then rinsed them and patted them dry. She then put a Dutch oven over medium heat. Next, she toasted the chilis in a dry pan, pressing them flat with her spatula for a few seconds until fragrant, then flipping them over and pressing them again for a few more seconds, then putting them aside for the time being. In the same Dutch oven, she warmed the olive oil until it shimmered. She then added slowly the chopped onions and a pinch of the sea salt and cooked the onions until they became translucent. Next, she added the garlic and cumin while stirring for about one minute. Then she added the tomato paste, which she stirred for another minute or so.

Amaranth then added the toasted chili peppers, the bay leaf, the hominy, the pinto beans, the vegetable broth, and the water into the Dutch oven and raised the heat to medium-high. She brought the mixture to a simmer, then gradually reduced the heat as necessary, stirring all the while, and cooked it for 25 minutes.

As always, Amaranth enjoyed preparing the dining room for dinner, spreading the clean, white linen tablecloth over the dining room table, placing the long, slender, yellow candle at its center, lighting it, setting the table, choosing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto №2 to listen to as Ty and she ate.

Her timing was impeccable. As soon as Amaranth had completed these delightful tasks, she heard Ty opening the back door and coming through the kitchen.

“I smell something delicious,” said Ty as he entered the dining room and gave Amaranth a hug and a kiss.

“It’s for you, and for me. It’s for us,” said Amaranth.



Chapter 53

It was now Christmas Eve Day.

Both Amaranth and Ty were looking forward to the drive to Pueblo this afternoon. They had plenty of time to get there. They would be in no rush. They would listen to beautiful music in the car. They would enjoy the solitude of the day. They would appreciate fully the spirit of their mission, the smiles on the faces of many people, most of whom they had met many times before, some for the first time. If the Christmas cookies and punch were sweet, so would be the exchanges they would have with their friends at Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo.

Both Amaranth and Ty had been meliorists for as long as they could remember. Amaranth remembered going into the not-so-affluent parts of Phoenix when she was a teenager and being with the homeless, sharing meals, and conversation, with them at soup kitchens, bringing them clothing and other supplies essential to survival, but which they simply didn’t have. Ty, from Knoxville, Tennessee, had said he was sorry he had missed the Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968). He was sorry he never had a chance to meet Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to thank him for what he and thousands of others had been doing, first throughout the Deep South, then up into the North, to Chicago and Cicero, for example, which he found just as racist, if not more so, than Montgomery and Selma.

“If you have the courage to right a societal wrong without violence, and tens of thousands — if not many, many more — are inspired to join you in this moral quest, and if you and your followers find increasing success in your collective efforts to ameliorate these unconscionable, immoral, deleterious conditions, and you sufficiently threaten the illuminati’s grip that chokes the freedoms of all others — if your threat is real, if it is viable — then they will **** you. This fight between right and wrong, this struggle between good and evil, is a moral election, if you will, and the invisible, dark forces will always cast the deciding vote: assassination,” Ty concluded.

Amaranth and Ty kept driving toward Pueblo, but in silence for quite some time. Finally, Amaranth put Bach’s “Air on the G String” into the slot on the dashboard. The music was soothing. ”

“We’re here,” said Amaranth.

The routine was the same every year. Amaranth found Bev, her contact, and Bev got help from some staff carrying in the many boxes of homemade Christmas cookies and gallons of red Christmas punch.

Again, Amaranth laid out the paper plates on a long table in the day room and put three cookies on each plate. Ty again put a paper napkin on every paper plate and poured red Christmas punch into a long line of paper cups. A line of people began to form, which got longer with every minute. Both Amaranth and Ty began to recognize and remember the first names of many of their friends. Thus began the joy for Amaranth and Ty, the gift of kindness, of love.

It took quite a long time for all of those in line to get their cookies and punch, but once they did and ate and drank their treats, the people did what they had done for so many years now, flock toward Amaranth and Ty, began to say hello, tell Amaranth and Ty their first names, many of which Amaranth and Ty remembered from meeting them so many years on Christmas Eve evening, and chatted with their friends, sometimes singly, other times in small groups. When one is enveloped in joy, as Amaranth and Ty were, there is no time, just joy, and more joy.

This was the real Christmas, and everyone in that big day room soaked it up.

Finally, it was time to leave. Amaranth and Ty thanked Bev and her staff for helping out, and said good-bye just once, then walked out to the car.

“What a wonderful time I had!” exclaimed Amaranth.

“There’s nothing plastic about being with real friends,” added Ty.



Chapter 54

It was New Year’s Day, 2020.

“Ty, I have a great idea!” Amaranth said excitedly.

“What’s that?” asked Ty.

“To celebrate the new year, I want to make a chapbook of my poems to give away to my friends, Amaranth responded.

“That’s a great idea, Am. You have a cardboard full of notebooks that are full of poems you’ve written since I met you, and even before. They will make a beautiful chapbook and a beautiful gift,” said Ty.

It was true. Amaranth did have a cardboard box full of notebooks that were full of all the poems she had ever written, and every one of those notebooks had at one time welled up inside her and she had “recorded” it. All those poems were precious, sacred. She had never tried to get any of them published. Getting published was not her goal. When she would feel a poem welling up inside her, she “recorded” it immediately. That was what gave her an immense feeling of satisfaction. In fact, she remembered writing once the adage: “The poem is the prize. The poem is the sound, publication but an echo.” It was easier to find a publisher, she thought, than to find your heart.

Amaranth had kept the cardboard box in the closet of the bedroom, so she went into the bedroom, opened the closet, and dragged the cardboard box into the kitchen. She sat in her chair at the kitchen table with the box beside her, picked up one of the notebooks, and slowly began to read her poems.

Amaranth knew it would take a long time for her both to read all of her poems and to select the ones she wanted to put in her chapbook. But to her, it would be like seeing old friends, a joy to meet each one again.



Chapter 55

It was bitterly cold outside, but it was toasty in the kitchen.

Amaranth had read through several of her notebooks and had selected a number of her poems to include in her chapbook.

Here were a few of them.

SILVER SPOONS

Some people love their silver spoons,
China closets in velvet rooms,
hand-rubbed walnut round pearls of glass,
antique notions to preserve the past,
while others
love their silver moons,
orange sunsets, October’s tune
of bluebirds sighing through sunburnt skies,
green fields soft where lovers lie.


IN THE EARLIEST OF MORNINGS

In the earliest of mornings
when the Earth gives birth
to the orange, yellow sun,
when the stars begin to
disappear in deference to
the golden god, when the
moon lingers in the sky in
awe of what’s unfolding,
when the bluebirds and
blackbirds and robins
swirl in jubilation, colorful
creations we call wild flowers
in mountain meadows begin
their diurnal ritual of stretching
their stems and showing their
colors reflected in the placid
pond nearby — green and brown wild
ginger, blue and purple basil
mountain-mint, yellow-sweet
clover, red and orange beech
drops and pinesap, pink goat’s
rue, white fringed orchids, a
panoply of iridescence and
irenic scope that pleases the
raccoon and the deer, the
elk and the antelope, in the
earliest of mornings of this
burgeoning day.


WOUNDED KNEE, YOU ARE TO ME

Wounded Knee, you are to me
a sacred spot. A cavalry,
a Calvary, we ought not
forget the thousand screams,
the streams of blood that
flooded prairie grass.
Babi Yar, you’re not so far
from Wounded Knee. I’d
have to be without eyes
or ears not to hear or see
the enormity: the mangled
bodies, the twisted forms,
that speak, that wreak
of evil and of seeing and
not saying no. My Lai,
our lie, women and children
dying, lying on our lies,
covering culpability, a quilt
of carnage, but where is guilt?
Cambodia, your killing fields
now flower with blood and
bones of beings fleeing tyranny,
thousands falling near you
and me as we sip our tea
and munch on sweetcakes of
propriety. El Playón, los
paisanos pobres know no
place but death. No dearth
of death squads here, no
fear of duplicity, my
country’s complicity in
these atrocities — my country
’tis of thee, sweet land of
liberty — El Salvador no está
aqui, porque, like Wounded Knee,
the savior is you and me.


NIGHT INSIGHT

Had I but an endless eve,
if darkness were my friend
and sleep my enemy,
I might have stayed awake a while
and found the answer true.
But summer sunsets silent fall.
I heard it not at all.
and my soft bed
like a siren called.
I could not think it through.


Chapter 56

“Happy New Year! Dr. Rosenstein,” said Amaranth.

“And Happy New Year to you, Amaranth,” replied Dr. Rosenstein.

“I have some good news to tell you. I am now selecting poems I have written over the years for the chapbook I shall be making,” said Amaranth.

“That’s wonderful,” said Dr. Rosenstein.

“I’d like to share with you several of my poems I have selected to be part of my chapbook, but first I would like to tell you how Ty and I spent Christmas Eve evening. Is that OK with you?” asked Amaranth.

“Of course it is,” said Dr. Rosenstein.

Amaranth had told Dr. Rosenstein about how Ty and she had spent Thanksgiving Day in a previous session, and frankly, he had told Amaranth how pleased and proud he was of hearing about what he considered to be a most munificent act, a most “magnanimous gesture” as he had put it, of Amaranth and Ty.

Dr. Rosenstein was obviously deeply empathic with what Amaranth had shared with him, probably because he had been trained to be a psychiatrist at the famous Menninger Foundation, then located in Topeka, Kansas, and had spent a number of years in the early 1970s as an in-house psychiatrist after completing his training at Menninger’s, as it was often simply referred to. Moreover, he later was made head of the Topeka State Hospital, so he knew intimately what Amaranth had previously shared with him. The doctor had gotten to know Dr. Karl Menninger, affectionately called only “Dr. Karl” by virtually everyone, during those years and held him in the highest regard. He had read all the books Dr. Karl had written in his lifetime: The Human Mind; Man Against Himself; Love Against Hate; The Vital Balance; The Crime of Punishment; Whatever Became of Sin?

Dr. Rosenstein had never been a fan of Ronald Reagen, probably because Reagen had cut drastically the funding for mental health services nationwide in the early 1980s, resulting in the closing of many mental hospitals, as well as community-based day hospitals across the country, making those who had been in them homeless and forsaken.

Dr. Rosenstein didn’t just not like Reagen, he held great antipathy toward him. Reagen had swelled the number of human beings who came to live on the sidewalks of our cities, under bridges, beneath bushes, wherever they could find some semblance of safety, in short, a societal tragedy we live with to this day.

“On Christmas Eve day, Ty and I drove to Pueblo to be with our friends, most of whom, as you already know, had spent many years of their lives there at the Colorado Mental Health Institute. I had baked many Christmas cookies and Ty had bought a large number of gallons of red Christmas punch, which we handed out to all of our friends. The best part of the evening was, and always has been, the opportunity to interact with those who wanted to, to introduce themselves, to say hello, to chat with us, whatever. Ty and I felt there was absolutely no time limit, real or imagined, imposed upon us that would cut short the time we could stay there, and I think our friends could sense the same, so we were in no rush quickly to say a perfunctory “hello and good-bye” and then leave. There was joy all around,” said Amaranth.

“Well, to be honest with you, Amaranth, I wish I could have been with you and Ty. I know I would have had a wonderful time, as you and Ty, and all your friends, did. Thanks to both of you for doing what you did. I know it meant a lot to those there whom the world has forgotten, and to you and Ty, and to me as well, “ said Dr. Rosenstein. “Now share with me some of your poems.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SUFFER?

What does it mean to suffer?
Is it better to buffer ourselves
from turmoil, or does the oil
of hate and hurt serve some purpose?
Are we animals in some circus,
parading like some elephants inelegantly,
passing through some wire hoops?
We tire, we droop.
Are we poor men in soup lines,
hoping for salvation,
fed with propitiation?
Our faces show no elation:
They grow ashen.
Shall we cash in the bonds
our mothers never gave us?
Love’s dearth has thus enslaved us.
Just put us in our graves and
let us live in Mother Earth.


AND IF OUR CRYINGS BE HEARD

The way we cry, and
if our cryings be heard,
the way they are attended to,
will set the walk. The way we
are treated as toddlers, the way
punishment is meted out,
will further the course. Kind-
nesses, magnanimity of spirit,
love — all will determine not only
the paths we are led down, but
also the paths we shall set for
ourselves and travel ourselves —
pathos, bathos, ethos — until
death deals an end to our
earthly peregrinations. These
spoors — the lives, the lanes,
the passages we shall be
spooring — will tell us and
others about who we are
and were, and if we were
befriended ever by others,
and by ourselves.


THE IBEX

I see ibicies on alpine slopes,
large curved horns coming almost
full circle. I descry mountain
hawks on the wing that descry
more than I. Bears I don’t
see, for they are lost in their
own sleep, not on slopes, but
in slumber. The number of deer
is in actuality many, but I
have not earned the right to
discern more than a few.
Vision is a funny thing: we
tend to infer from the many
we can see reality, but this
is illusory. Our sight we feel
can be enhanced by glasses,
microscopic or telescopic,
but sight is not insight; seeing
is not knowing. The intellect
sees that all are different,
wisdom that all are one. The
ibex knows the mountain is
deeper than it is high.


CHRYSANTHEMUMS

Speak in tears when you lie
next to me and your heart is
troubled so. Let sorrow pour
from your eyes and wet the
sheets. Meet your heart and
greet it openly, though it be
filled with sadness. Let your
body shake against mine, as
I know what it is to hurt.
Let empathy soak up your
sorrow. Let your catharsis
become chrysanthemums.

“Those are powerful and evocative poems, Amaranth. Thank you for sharing them with me,” said Dr. Rosenstein.

“You are welcome, Dr. Rosenstein. “I shall give you one of my chapbooks when I finish making them,” said Amaranth.

As she drove back to Niwot, Amaranth thought more about Dr. Rosenstein. Not only was he skillful as a therapist, but also he was a kind, sensitive human being. The latter notion, she thought, was as important, perhaps even more important, than the former.



Chapter 57

Amaranth was sitting in her chair at the kitchen table sipping coffee.

It was now late January. This had been an unusually cold winter, not conducive to taking even a short walk outside. The crocuses were smart. They knew when to take cover and stay there.

Amaranth could feel again something welling up inside of her, but it was not a poem this time. It was something similar to a poem, but different. She instinctively reached for her notebook in her purse, and as she was doing so, she slowly began to feel what was welling up. It was some kind of remembrance of a man at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo with whom she had had a longer than usual conversation. She remembered the man’s name. His name was Randolph.

Amaranth opened her notebook and began writing.



RANDOLPH

Randolph would sit in the east wing, the men’s wing, each night. He would sit in the same chair, the one beside the broken lamp, the one upholstered with hard foam rubber, covered with red plastic leather on an aluminum frame. The seat of the chair had a big tear in it,which had been taped over with some kind of wide, translucent tape. But, in truth, you usually could not see the tear, because Randolph sat there each night.

Slight of build, in his mid-thirties, he sat there in almost total silence, rarely speaking if not spoken to, or unless he wanted to *** a smoke off of you, which he usually wanted to do. He sat there with a rather pleasant smile on his face, for he was, in fact, a kind man. His eyes, though, were tired, very tired, a mixture of watery red and grey. His hair, though he combed it every morning in the men’s john, looked flat and depressed, probably because he spent a good deal of the day lying in bed. And he would sit there each night, sometimes a king upon his throne, sometimes a fetus ensconced in its womb, listening to scratchy melodies over the intercom, sometimes dreaming of the chocolate cake his mother never brought him Sunday afternoons.

“Got a smoke?” he would say.

“No, I don’t smoke,” I would say. “Maybe Arthur’s got some tobacco.”

The truth is that Randolph knew every night that I didn’t have a smoke, that I didn’t smoke, and that Arthur, his roommate, did have tobacco, had tobacco every night. But this litany of question and response, though ostensibly meaningless due to pre-knowledge and repetition, was important nonetheless. It was his way, our way, of communicating, of breaking the cold isolation that surrounded each of us, of reaching out and touching another human being.

“Oh yeah, Arthur,” Randolph would say, and he would get out of his plastic seat and go find Arthur, as he did each night. He would bring back the tobacco and a piece of paper, spread the brown tobacco evenly on the white paper, and then carefully, cautiously, roll this blend of brown and white into a near-perfect cigarette. Then he would light it against the lighter in the wall. And the smoke would curl over his yellow-stained finger and thumb, as it had been doing over the past ten years, and Randolph would stand silently on the grey linoleum floor and gaze through the large plate-glass window, seeing both the reflection of his own image and the darkness of winter’s night.

At ten o’clock, when they started to turn out the lights, Randolph would ask for one last cigarette, complete the ritual, and say, “Maybe I should go down to the hardware store tomorrow and see if I can get a job. I got to get a job. I just can’t keep staying here day after day. I’ll go crazy.”

And he would get up out of his torn chair, smile at me quietly, and without saying a word, tell me good night. Then he would turn and walk down the pale yellow concrete-block corridor, turn into his room, and as he had done so many nights before, would lie down on his bed and close his eyes.


Amaranth put her pen down on the kitchen table, took another sip of coffee, then looked out of the frosted windows for a long time at winter’s inhospitality.

Chapter 58

Amaranth and Ty were sitting on the blue sofa in the living room. They were listening to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

“Am, did I ever tell you about the strange conversation I had many years ago one evening at the West End?” asked Ty. West End, which was sold after both had graduated from Columbia College, had been the drinking equivalent of Tom’s Restaurant. It had been the place where many Columbia students went if they wanted to have a beer and to chat. Columbia folklore had it that the West End was where Kerouac and Ginsberg and friends met to hold forth.

“You and I have shared many stories, but I don’t off-hand remember your telling me one took place at the West End. But please, go ahead,” said Amaranth.

“Well, it occurred one spring evening in our sophomore year. I wanted to get out of Butler Library, enjoy for a bit the pleasant spring evening, and I was in the mood to drink a beer. So I walked across Broadway, then walked down to the West End.

“I decided to sit at the counter. Next to me was a fellow I did not know. I ordered a beer and began drinking it. After a few minutes, the guy sitting next to me said hello and introduced himself. His first name was Don, I remember. He was a Columbia graduate student studying for his PhD in psychology. A nice guy. I think he told me he had gotten his BA from Princeton. I think he said he was from Kittery Point, Maine.

“So we started chatting while we were enjoying our beers. At some point, he began to talk about Piaget, the Swiss psychologist famous for his work on childhood development. He talked quite some time about Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and epistemological views. I remember his saying that a child was ‘animistic,’ that the child thought the sun and moon followed him when he walked, that dreams were made of wind and came through the window when he slept.

“I remember taking several minutes thinking about what he had shared with me about Piaget and his theories. Then I said to Don that I thought Piaget had missed the mark, that his clinical observations were unknowing, that his words, while descriptive, did not explain. I said the child does not think, he knows. Dreams are fanciful and fleeting, made of whimsy of the wind. The child is at one with the universe, I said. He is at the center. The child is wisdom. He feels, he knows. The child is a poet and a priest, and he knows.

“Just as I was finishing my riposte, I heard some rumbling from directly behind Don and me. There were three guys sitting at a small round table also drinking beers. I had seen them when I had first come in. I remember I was wearing that night a round-necked, dark green sweater under a sports coat. Also, I had on a white shirt, the collar of which rose a half inch or so above the sweater. I had heard what I thought was some kind of muted laughter coming from that table just as I was finishing my remarks to Don, so I swiveled around and looked directly at these three guys. As I stared at them in silence for a few moments, they seemed to get a bit nervous. I think they mistook my shirt and sweater for clerical garb. Finally, one of them said to me, “Man, are you a priest? You sure look like a priest.”

“At that point, I reached back to the counter, grabbed my beer, took a swig, and then turned around again, facing these three guys again. I paused a few moments, then said to them slowly, “Every man’s a priest.” The three of them laughed, kind of nervously.

“It’s true, though. Every man’s a child, every child’s a poet, every poet’s a priest.”




Chapter 59

“Julie, give me a hug!” said Amaranth. The two had met in Boulder at Le Peep for breakfast.

“How are you, Ed, and the kids getting along?”

“They are all fine. How are you and Ty doing? I hope well.” replied Julie. “You know Valentine’s Day is the day after tomorrow. Do you think spring will ever get here?”

“The sooner, the better,” replied Amaranth.

Ed’s full name was Edward Borgoman. He was a computer guru and had just received a promotion. He worked for Google in Boulder.

“Please offer Ed my congratulations on his promotion, will you?” said Amaranth.

“Of course I will,” said Julie. “It’s been a rough winter, hasn’t it? The good news is that Ed and I get up to Aspen almost every weekend to ski, usually finding new snow every time we go. How is your chapbook of poems coming along, Am?”

“I’ve just about finished my selection of poems that will be part of my chapbook,” said Amaranth. “I’ve decided on the title I’ll be giving it. Its title will be I WRITE WHEN THE RIVER’S DOWN. Actually, I brought with me a few poems that will be in the chapbook, and I’d like to share them with you, if you like.”

“You know I would love to hear your poems,” said Julie. “You write so beautifully.”

“Thank you, Julie. I appreciate that,” said Amaranth.

Amaranth reached into her purse and pulled out the poems she wished to read to Julie.

ANGELS AND ARCHANGELS

We wonder where love comes from,
where it flies, through clouds and skies,
ferns and forests, where will it lie?
Curtains of sadness cloud our view,
grey hues we hope will turn to blue
and brightness. Angels and archangels
light on our hearts, evoking the lotion of
love that spreads through our beings,
bringing blue hope to our spirits,
elevating our souls to zeniths of well-being
and sweet tones that assuage our many
hurts. Angels and archangels, beneficent
intercessors, ******* our sorrows,
peeling away the anguish that visits us in the
middle of morning or night, sweet music
that atones for our transgressions, a
progression of expiation that leaves us
higher than the clouds, closer to God.


THERE WILL COME A TIME

There will come a time
when time doesn’t matter,
when all minutes and
millennia are but moments
when I look into your eyes.
There will come a time
when clinging things
will fall like desiccated
leaves, leaving us with
but one another. There
will come a time when
the external becomes eternal,
when holding you is to
embrace the universe.
There will come a time
when to be will no longer
be infinitive, but infinity,
and you and I are one.


ARE WE ALL NOT IDIOMS

Are we all not idioms,
peculiar to ourselves
in construct and meaning?
Are not all of us
syntactical anomalies?
Do we not all have ellipses,
lacunae, egregious gaps
in our beings? Lack of
parallel construction in
our lives, dangling like
participles, a pronoun
without its antecedent?
Are not our lives run-
on sentences handed
up by unconscious wishes
and unmet needs? Too
bad we could not be
more declarative and
less rhetorical or
imperative.


THE BEGINNING OF GOOD-BYE

We sense it because it comes inexorably;
this is the beginning of good-bye.
Her eyes avert his, a touch with no
feeling, a caress more cautious than
caring, a kiss when lips do not meet;
this is the beginning of good-bye.
A perfunctory placement of the hand,
a conversation moribund, sipping
scotch and sodas in silence, a call that
never comes, memories that have grown opaque;
this the beginning of good-bye.


“Wow!” exclaimed Julie. “These poems that you’ve just shared with me are incredible! Have you ever submitted them to The New Yorker?”

“No, I never have,” said Amaranth. “They just come to me from time to time, and I write what’s welling up inside of me. That’s my satisfaction.”

“But think of all the people who love poetry. Think of how much pleasure they would derive from reading your poems, if they had a chance to, Am,” implored Julie.

“It took 200 years for William Blake to be discovered. And Emily Dickinson wrote 1,800 poems during her lifetime, most all of which she wrote in her bedroom in Amherst, and it was only until the 1950s that an academic got his hands on her original poems and published them that way. Then Emily Dickinson was universally declared a great poet. Maybe someday my chapbook will be discovered, but the most important thing about poetry, about writing poetry, is always to be true to yourself. That’s true not only about poetry, but even more so about living your life,” said Amaranth.

Julie nodded in agreement.



Chapter 60

Amaranth thought about one of Simon and Garfunkel’s famous songs, April Come She Will. That was a beautiful song, she thought, but they had left out all the other months, especially the month of March, her favorite month, because that was the month, usually around the last week of it, when the crocuses began to appear, even if there were still snow on the ground.

Amaranth loved crocuses in general, but the crocuses in her back yard were her friends, her confidants. She loved to sit on the grass beside them and talk to them when they first appeared, and for many other times long thereafter. She was looking forward to the last week of March when she could begin anew her special friendship with them. That wait would seem like a long time to Amaranth, but it was only a little over two weeks away.

If that day in early March had been a day in the last week of that same month, Amaranth would have gone out the kitchen door, walked down the few steps, then down the gently sloping hill toward the burgeoning crocuses a short distance from the sinuous creek and sat down. Then she would have told the story to the crocuses about her Uncle Peter, who was her mother’s younger brother.

Amaranth would have told the crocuses about what Uncle Peter had done almost 30 years ago, in 1992, when he set out alone to travel around the USA meeting with and talking to the hungry, the homeless, and the hopeless — the millions of forgotten Americans — throughout our nation. In particular, she would speak of one of the many trenchant, personal experiences he had had during his long journey, this one having taken place in Houston, Texas.

Amaranth would start talking about how Uncle Peter was driving back to his cheap motel in his rental car, having spent most of that day visiting different shelters and soup kitchens. But when he drove on the bridge over Prescott Avenue, he saw to his left, down below, a veritable sea of black men spread over a two-block stretch of that boulevard. There must have been several hundred of them, all black, swarming down below. Uncle Peter kept driving for a while, but little by little began to slow down, until he finally came to a stop. Uncle Peter, Amaranth remembered him telling her, had to turn around and go back to speak with some of those human beings. And that’s exactly what he did. When he got back to Prescott Avenue, he parked his car and got out. He saw across the boulevard a large group of men standing up on a landing. As he began to cross the boulevard, he was met with a fuselage of vituperation, an endless stream of obscenities emanating from the mouth of one man standing on the other side of the boulevard. Frankly, Uncle Peter had told Amaranth that he had never heard such hatred verbalized in his life. But Uncle Peter kept walking across the boulevard as these verbal bullets kept whizzing by his ears. Uncle Peter had told her that miraculously he was unfazed by this onslaught of rage, probably because, Amaranth thought, he had such deep empathy for all those who were still oppressed, which, of course, amounted to billions all over Earth.

When Uncle Peter reached the other side of the boulevard, he then walked up the steps to the landing where this group of men was still standing and talking to each other. A number of them turned toward him as he approached the group. Uncle Peter, as he had always done, stuck out his arm to shake hands with anyone who wanted to do that in return, and at the same time, introduced himself. First one, then others, began to shake hands with him, and some even told him their first names. Eventually he moved toward this huge man at the center of the group. He was about 6’4” and weighed somewhere between 260 to 280 pounds. Again, Uncle Peter stuck out his arm to shake this man’s hand, and as he did, he introduced himself. This giant of a man shook Uncle Peter’s hand and said, “I’m Rambo. I’m the sheriff of this community.”

Rambo and Uncle Peter began talking to each other. Uncle Peter told Rambo what he had been doing for months then, traveling across the nation, stopping to talk to and with people who were victims of the same kind of gross inequities Rambo and the members of his community were facing, and had been facing for a long time. In turn, Rambo told Uncle Peter that he had been stabbed, shot, but not yet killed, living on the streets for a terribly long time. Uncle Peter could tell why Rambo was the de facto sheriff of this community, not only because of his gargantuan size, but also because of his intelligence. In fact, Uncle Peter asked Rambo for a big favor. Tomorrow, he told Rambo, he, Uncle Peter, was going to make a televised address — the local NBC News affiliate in Houston was going to be filming it — and Uncle Peter asked Rambo if he would join him in this address. He told Rambo that he could do a better job than he himself could do. Rambo would bring to the attention of thousands of viewers the ugly, atrocious reality of being homeless and hungry in the fourth largest city in the nation. As Uncle Peter was asking Rambo to join him, the two men were still in a handshake, and as he was asking Rambo to join him, Uncle Peter could feel Rambo’s hand, which had to be almost twice the size of his, begin to shake. This man, Rambo, if he had wanted to, said Uncle Peter, could have, with one hand and in one motion, flung Uncle Peter two blocks down the boulevard in the air. Instead, Rambo’s hand was shaking in his. Uncle Peter pleaded with Rambo, but sadly, to no avail. Uncle Peter thanked Rambo for what he was doing for his brothers, then took his leave by walking back down the steps to the sidewalk. Uncle Peter had told Amaranth the great anguish he had felt after Rambo’s decision to decline his offer.

Nonetheless, Uncle Peter began to walk down the sidewalk, saying hello to everyone on it and talking to those who wanted to talk to him, but never bothering those who he could tell were not wanting to interact with him in any way. He did, however, talk for as long as that individual wanted to talk. Every story Uncle Peter heard was, in a word, tragic. After all, everyone to whom he spoke was black, and most of them carried with them the legacies of slavery, which, in the broadest sense, was the unending, pervasive scourge of racism in general, and in particular, all its malevolent effects, such as hunger and homelessness and hopelessness.

It took Uncle Peter an hour to reach the end of his two-block walk down one side of the boulevard, at which point he crossed the boulevard and began taking another one hour, two-block walk back to his parked rental car, again always stopping when individuals indicated a wish to talk to him, and always talking to them for as long as they wished.

Finally, he reached his rental car, and as he was beginning to open the driver’s door, he saw across the boulevard the man who, two hours earlier, had incessantly, viciously, verbally assualted him. Their eyes met for an instant. Then the man across the boulevard slowly lifted one of his arms into the air and waved at Uncle Peter. Uncle Peter, in a near state of shock because of this totally unexpected benevolent act, waved back. Then the man across the boulevard cried out “God Bless You.” Uncle Peter cried back “God Bless You.”

Uncle Peter had told Amaranth that that moment was the high point of his spiritual life. Obviously, Amaranth would never forget that moment either.



Chapter 61

It was the first day of the last week of March, 2020.

It was Wednesday, the 25th.

Amaranth was so excited she couldn’t help herself. She put on her winter coat, opened the kitchen door, walked down the few steps, then quickly walked to the very place where she hoped so much that she would see her dear friends, the crocuses, bravely forcing themselves through the snow that still covered the ground. She knew the exact spot to go to. She had been performing the same ritual for 10 years, and her heart was pounding.

It did not take her long to get to the exact spot. She was absolutely certain she was looking down on the exact spot. But there was no sign of the crocuses. There was no sign of the crocuses pushing through the snow. She was disheartened. Amaranth even looked beyond the exact spot to look for the crocuses, but the simple truth was that the crocuses had not yet appeared. She was so disappointed that she stood in the same place without moving for several minutes. Where are my dear friends? she said to herself. She couldn’t help looking back, year by year, over the past decade. Yes, this was indeed, almost to the day, when she would see the tips of the crocuses pushing through the snow. She was sure of it.

Finally, Amaranth came to terms with the reality of this cardinal day and slowly began to walk back up the hill. OK, tomorrow would be the day. Tomorrow, that’s it. I’ll see my friends tomorrow, she thought.

When she entered the kitchen, Amaranth slowly took off her winter coat and hung it on the stand and then walked over to her chair and sat down. She felt a poem welling up inside of her, so she reached for her purse, which was sitting on the kitchen table, opened it, and pulled out her notebook, opened it, and placed it on top of the table and began to record.

THE WAY THAT WINTER COMES AT ME

The way that winter comes at me,
as if a stranger from a side street
cold and dark accosting me. I turn
my collar up. He hollers “You there!”
Faster I walk, fear chilling me,
a lamp post but a grey ghost in the fog.
This ****, winter, mugs me. He hits me,
stabs me in the side with knives
of ice, slices at my heart, the home
of hope. Supine, frost forming on
my brow, I pray to boughs of willow
trees;  pines will sing my elegy. My my mind drifts
like snowdrifts: A mitten lost…
fingers, nose, toes frostbitten…
a lake of isolation…a sleigh with no
horse…a blizzard of insanity.
My blood thaws the frozen ground,
then freezes.


Amaranth put her pen on her poem, closed her notebook and put it in her purse, and with purse in hand, got up from her chair and walked slowly to the bedroom where she lay down on the bed.

She felt cold, even after pulling up the sheet, blanket, and bedspread over her.

Amaranth lay on the bed for several hours. Finally, she got up and went into the leaving room to turn on the evening news. She rarely watched TV, but did so occasionally, mostly getting her news off the Internet. She sat on the blue sofa. By this time, Ty was back at home.

Amaranth and Ty both hated to watch and listen to the political news emanating from Washington, D.C. Politics to both was a game, an ugly, essentially corrupt game. What they appreciated were stories not about politics, but about leadership, but features about the latter were hard to come by.

As they watched and listened, somewhat inattentively, they began to hear an unusual report from Sydney, Australia. It seemed as though people were reporting that leaves on their trees had begun, almost instantly, first to turn brown and then fall off the tree limbs to the ground. What was this about, they both asked each other? No specialists interviewed in Sydney seemed to have any answer either. Well, this news, as peculiar as it was, was no worse than what they usually heard every day from the Oval Office.



Chapter 62

Each ensuing morning for the rest of the last week of March, Amaranth was anxious to put on her winter coat, open the kitchen door, walk down a few steps, then down the sloping hill to the exact spot where the crocuses, she hoped, would be appearing. But each of those mornings proved again and again to be a major disappointment to her. The crocuses, her dear friends, the harbingers of spring, had not yet appeared. Over these days, Amaranth, who at first had been devastated, slowly became inured to the fact that her crocuses, for some inexplicable reason, remained buried in the earth. The snow on the ground, however, had melted by the end of the week.

On Thursday, 26 March, Amaranth intuitively didn’t wait for the evening TV news. She went straight to her computer and accessed her favorite news site, refdesk.com. What she read startled her. There were a flurry of reports coming in from all different places in the world that were virtually the same as the one from Sydney, Australia yesterday — from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; from Cape Town, South Africa; from Jakarta, Indonesia; from Buenos Aires, Argentina; from Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo; from Lima, Peru; from Santiago de Chile, Chile; and from many other smaller cities.

Friday morning, Amaranth could not wait to find out what else had happened in the world. It did not take her long to find out. It turned out that now cities in the northern hemisphere, those closest to the equator, were experiencing the same phenomenon: Bogota, Colombia; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Singapore; Medan, Indonesia; Cali, Colombia; and again, many other smaller cities.

All major media outlets around the world — TV networks and cable news channels, major newspapers, social media of all types — were beginning to cover and comment on this spreading, climatic enigma, but nobody in the world could yet come up with an explanation, let alone a solution, for it.

Saturday morning, more bad news. Everywhere around the world, in both the north and south hemispheres, there were more and more reports of the same kind coming in. What was worse, there were new reports from farmers from around the world who had planted seeds in their fields that by now should have germinated, but hadn’t. Indeed, other new reports from throughout the world said collectively that all living plants on Earth were beginning to die. What had started just a few days ago as an issue that people had thought was a mere curiosity, and nothing more than that, was now becoming exponentially a worldwide crisis-in-the-making. And no one on Earth yet had been able to figure out why this was happening or what to do about it.

Sunday morning: The whole world was now ablaze with terrifying reports of gigantic forest fires burning millions and millions of acres around the world, whole cities having to be evacuated. There were worldwide reports of unprecedented storms all over the world that were flooding countless cities inland and areas on the coasts of all continents.

The entire world was now a horror story of untold magnitude that had become real.



Chapter 63

Sunday evening, Amaranth could not fall asleep, so she carefully got out of bed, put on her robe, and went into the living room and sat down on the blue sofa. She sat there in the darkness, in the silence, for a long time. Then she heard the voice. The voice said, “Amaranth, I need to talk with you. I need to talk with you now.”

Amaranth had not heard the voice for months. Now it seemed to her as if the voice actually wanted to speak with her. She again was not alarmed, so she said to the voice, “OK, I will speak with you. What should I call you.?

“Call me Spirit,” replied the voice.

“OK,” replied Amaranth.

“Amaranth, you will need to write down every word I will be saying. Do you understand?” said the voice.

“Yes,” said Amaranth. “First, I will need to get my notebook. It’s in the bedroom. I’ll be right back.”

Amaranth came back with her notebook, turned on the lamp sitting on the end table, and sat back down on the blue sofa.

“I’m ready,” said Amaranth.

The voice said to her, “Earth is dying now. It has been mistreated for a long time. It has been abused. It has not been loved. I think you can help save it.
Now, you can begin to write down everything I say to you.”

The voice began to speak.

“I have been asked to give this message to the entire world.

“Earth is dying now, but all of us on Earth can save it.”

“There is one land, one sky, one sea, one people. The boundaries that divide us are not on maps, but in our minds and hearts. Earth is as impoverished as her poorest Citizen of Earth, as healthy as her sickest, as educated as her most ignorant. If we pollute the headwaters of the Mississippi, then ineluctably we shall pollute the Indian Ocean. If we continue to pollute our air, the current 800,000,000 Citizens of Earth, along with all other living creations on Earth, will die. The imminent threats of nuclear holocaust and catastrophic climate change we need urgently to prevent. This is the truth of Spiritual Ecology.

“If we can wage war, why can we not wage peace? Nations are anachronistic; therefore, there will be none. There will be no longer  borders. There will be only Earth and Citizens of Earth. Each Citizen of Earth will devote a sizable number of years of her/his life to the betterment of humankind and Earth. All weapons — from handguns to hydrogen bombs — will be rendered inoperative. All jails and prisons will be closed, replaced by Love Centers.  Automation and other technological advances will enhance the opportunity of all Citizens of Earth to realize exponentially their potential, both personally and professionally. There will be no money. The needs of all Citizens of Earth will be met equally. The only things Citizens of Earth will own are the right to be treated well by every other Citizen of Earth and the responsibility to treat all other Citizens of Earth, and Earth itself, well. All Citizens of Earth will be free to travel anywhere, at any time, on Earth. All Citizens of Earth will do no harm to Earth or other Citizens of Earth. All Citizens of Earth will be afforded the same resources to live a full, safe and satisfying life, including the best education, health care, housing, food, and other necessities throughout Earth.

“The only way to change anything for the good, for good, is through love. Love is what every living thing on Earth needs. Love Centers are for those Citizens of Earth who were not loved enough, or at all, especially at their earliest of ages. Concomitantly, they act out their pain hurtfully, sometimes lethally, often against other Citizens of Earth. Citizens of Earth who are emotionally ill will be separated from those who are not. Jails and prisons only abet this deleterious situation. Some Citizens of Earth in pain may need to be constrained in Love Centers humanely while they recover, through being loved, so they do not hurt themselves or others. In some extreme cases, Citizens of Earth may be in so much pain that they remain violent for a long time. Thus, they may need to be constrained for the rest of their lives, but always loved, never punished. In time, Citizens of Earth, when loved enough, will only have love to give, and the need for Love Centers will commensurately decline.

“The first vote of all Citizens of Earth will be to ratify the CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH. Majority rules. All Citizens of Earth will have access to Internet voting. All Citizens of Earth will have their own personal computer ID codes. All Citizens of Earth will have to be at least 18 years old to vote. Citizens of Earth will be encouraged to bring before the General Assembly all ideas and recommendations, as well as any concerns or complaints, all of which will be considered and responded to promptly. Citizens of Earth’s ideas and recommendations will be formed into proposals drafted by members of the General Assembly. Citizens of Earth will vote on these proposals the last two weeks of every month. Members of the General Assembly will be facilitators who will work with millions of volunteers. Citizens of Earth will be Earth's government. There will be no president of Earth.

“Wealth is not worth. The mansuetude of loving, and of being loved, is worth. When love is your currency, all else is counterfeit. Citizens of Earth will be able to go about creating their own happiness that is built on love-based personal relationships and professional activities. No longer will human beings be able to profit from another’s pain and misery. With love at
the center of being and living, there will be no more wars, no more dictators, no more corruption. Finally, there will be only Peace on Earth forever.

“Earth does not have to die."

“That’s all, Amaranth. You and your husband, Ty, will decide the best way to disseminate this critical message. Bless you,” the voice said.

Amaranth had written down every word. She was, she felt, in a transcendent zone. It was the middle of the night, but she was wide awake — no, something much more than that. She felt more fully alive than she had ever felt before, almost a feeling of pure joy.

She knew now she would have to tell Ty about the voice, about the long “relationship" she had had with it. Only Dr. Rosenstein had known about the voice. Ty would understand. He always did. And Ty would help her find the right way to proceed.

“Spirit” — she liked that name — had known what was coming. All Spirit’s comments to her while she slept foreshadowed this incredible message she had just written down. There was no explanation for what had happened with Spirit. And Amaranth realized there didn’t need to be one.



Chapter 64

It was now very early, Monday, 30 March.

Amaranth had stayed up all night. Now she needed to speak with Ty.

She waited until 5 a.m., then woke up Ty.

“Ty, wake up. Ty, wake up. I need to speak with you,” exhorted Amaranth.

Ty was not used to waking up at 5 a.m. Amaranth had brewed some coffee and brought him a cup. Ty was understandably groggy as he lifted himself up on one elbow.

“What’s the matter, Am? What’s wrong?” said Ty.

“Ty, I need to talk with you. I need to talk with you now,” said Amaranth. “It’s urgent.”

Ty slowly moved to the side of the bed where he could sit on it. Amaranth handed him the cup of coffee.

Amaranth began by telling Ty about the whole history of her experiences with the voice, how and when it had begun, each of the brief phrases the voice had said to her while she was asleep, and finally, about last night. Then, after Ty was fully awake, she read the message Spirit had dictated to her.

Ty, while completely surprised, remained calm while Amaranth told him everything that had happened between Spirit and her. Ty knew what had been happening around the world, but when Amaranth had quoted Spirit as saying, “Earth is now dying,” he became instantly alarmed.

“What are we going to do, Ty?” asked Amaranth. “What should we do?”

Ty remained silent for several minutes. Then he took a sip of coffee.

“You know Ed Borgoman, Julie’s husband, right?” Ty asked rhetorically.

“Of course,” replied Amaranth.

“Ed is a technological and computer guru,” said Ty. “I bet if you asked him, he would help you videotape your reading of this compelling message, then help you get that video on as many social media sites around the world as possible.”

“Spirit believes that every Citizen of Earth should vote on CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH. Obviously, that would be a Herculean task."

More silence.

“I have an idea!” cried out Amaranth. “There are thousands of NGOs — non-governmental organizations — around the world. Some are worldwide, some are national, some regional, others are local. Why couldn’t we build a worldwide network of them to facilitate a worldwide vote on CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH? All 800,000,000 of us are facing a worldwide crisis! Why would anyone not want to help prevent the end of life for all living creations on Earth? Spirit speaks of all Citizens of Earth needing Internet access. Many companies are making and selling smartphones to people all over the world. This is a worldwide emergency! Why wouldn’t all these companies be more than willing to donate smartphones to those people who now don’t have one, either because they are destitute and/or live in remote areas? There would be incredible worldwide pressure on them to do the right thing.”

“I have another idea, Am. To make all this happen, we will need a command center, a nerve center, to coordinate and orchestrate all these intricate interactions. I know Peter King. He was, and still is, president of Columbia University. I worked closely with him when I was head of NSOP (New Students Orientation Program) when I was a senior at the College. Virtually everyone on Earth now knows about this catastrophic disaster facing all of Earth that is getting worse by the moment, and if allowed to go unabated, will end all life on it.

“Why wouldn’t Peter King, and the university he runs, become integral parts of the fight? If we cannot win this worldwide battle, then Columbia University will be become a graveyard like every other institution on Earth, and Peter King will very likely die there.

“I will give him a call this morning, tell him everything I know, and ask him for his help,” said Ty.



Chapter 65

Ty called Peter King a few minutes after 9 am Eastern Time and reached him. TY reintroduced himself. King remembered him clearly. Ty told King he would send him an email with an attachment about the worldwide warning and proposals contained therein. Finally, Ty asked King personally for his help, and for the help of the University as a whole.

Amaranth was able to reach Ed Borgoman at work. She explained to him, as succinctly as she could, the help she hoped he would be able to give her. Ed said, yes, he could help her and could take off work tomorrow to shoot the video. Ed told Amaranth that he could get permission from the head librarian of the Boulder Public Library to use their lectern to shoot Amaranth’s video. Because he knew how to get a video on a social media site, Ed told Amaranth that he would indeed contact every social media site in the world and try to get her video uploaded on each. He added, moreover, the perspicacious comment that even the most authoritarian nations in the world would quite possibly be amenable to amending their present draconian policies of censorship, knowing full well that what was facing all the world was therefore threatening inescapably their own country. He also said he would like to help her and Ty with anything else. Amaranth thanked Ed profusely.

Tuesday morning, 31 March, Amaranth met Ed at the downtown Boulder Public Library. The videotaping went smoothly. Ed told Amaranth that he would begin immediately trying to get her video on as many social media sites in the world as possible.

Ty, meanwhile, was waiting for President King to get back to him, but didn’t, for good reasons, expect to hear from him today.

That night, neither Amaranth or Ty slept well, nor did most of the people on Earth, Amaranth thought. Wednesday morning, 1 April, help could not come soon enough.

Sure enough, shortly after 7 am Boulder time, the phone rang. Ty answered it. It was King calling. He told Ty that he had had yesterday an all-day emergency meeting with the Board of Trustees. In short, King told Ty that there was unanimous consensus from the Board that King, and virtually every other member of his administration, as well as all faculty, would immediately assume both the explicit and implicit responsibilities of making the worldwide vote on CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH happen as soon as logistically possible. Ty thanked him profusely and asked him to pass on to everyone else his immense gratitude.

It was a propitious beginning for both Amaranth and Ty.



Chapter 66

The next several days were understandably difficult for Amaranth and Ty to get through. Amaranth didn’t want to bug Ed and Ty certainly didn’t want to bother King. Both knew they had to wait to hear from both of these magnanimous men.

Ty had been able to take a temporary leave from teaching. Amaranth kept checking perforce on the crocuses, but there had been no signs, not surprisingly, of any growth whatsoever. It was a tough time, a terrible time, for the whole world.

Friday morning, 3 April, Amaranth got a call from Ed. Ed told her that he had been able to get her video on almost every social media site in the world.

“What great news, Ed!” exclaimed Amaranth. “I don’t know how to thank you enough.”

“Look, Am, the existence of all life on Earth is in the balance. Julie and I will help you and Ty in any way we can,” said Ed.

Then there was the weekend. Two long days.

Monday morning, 6 April, the phone rang again a few minutes after 7 am Boulder time. It was King calling again. He wanted to give Ty an update. He, and so many members of his administration and faculty, had been working assiduously on this Earth-saving project. King told Ty that the largest NGOs, those that were worldwide, had all been contacted, and all had agreed to take a leading role in organizing the efforts of all the other NGOs around the world.

King explained how the worldwide NGOs would first contact the national NGOs, that, in turn, would contact the regional NGOs, that finally would contact everyone of the local NGOs, which would then make sure that every one of the 8,000,000,000 people on Earth would have access to a smartphone and receive their own secure ID code to use during the one week of voting on CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH. King said that virtually all the authoritarian nations — there were over 50 of them — especially the largest ones, had conceded to allow all their people to participate with impunity in this worldwide endeavor to save Earth. Furthermore, King told Ty that all the manufacturers of smartphones — there were over 50 of them worldwide — had agreed to cooperate collectively in donating the necessary number of smartphones that would be needed worldwide. King also pointed out that there were a sufficient number of satellites already in space around Earth to handle what would be a tremendous amount of communicative traffic during the one week of voting. Finally, King stated that it would take three weeks to prepare and complete logistically and successfully everything that needed to be done, which meant that voting could begin on Monday, 27 April, and conclude on Sunday, 3 May. The worldwide results of the voting would be available the following day, Monday, 4 May.

Ty, having heard all of this information, didn’t know what to say to President King, other than expressing again his limitless, unending gratitude both to King, and concomitantly, to the millions of those who were essentially the volunteers from all over the world who were going to make possible this prodigious effort to save Earth.



Chapter 67

Monday, 4 May, at once was so close, and so very far away.

Amaranth and Ty spent those three weeks essentially numb. They had done everything they could humanly do to help save Earth. Now was this interminable wait.

They tried everything. They took long drives into the mountains. They both tried reading books, but found they couldn’t concentrate. They even went to several movies in Boulder, which they usually never did.

Meanwhile, Earth was trying to hang on. Conditions around the world continued to be unimaginably awful. Millions of human beings had lost their lives. Whole cities either had been burnt to the ground or had been flooded into oblivion. Virtually all plant life on Earth was dying, or had already died. Many, many people all over the world had committed suicide because they knew what was happening. Life on Earth had become, in a word, unbearable.

At last, voting around the world on CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH began on Monday, 27 April. Reports worldwide was that voting turnout around the world had been massive. To Amaranth and Ty and billions of others, that one week of worldwide voting seemed like a century. But what had seemed like forever finally came to an end on Sunday, 3 May.

The results of the voting, as King had said, were announced the following day, Monday, 4 May. The Citizens of Earth had approved CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH with 68% of them voting for it.

There were celebrations around the world of all sizes, both huge, such as those in New York City and even in Moscow and Beijing, and tiny, such as those in millions of villages. These celebrations went on for days.

Earth had never seen anything like it.

And Earth, where life of all kinds had found itself on the edge of extinction, miraculously was finding its own way to celebrate. The enormous fires and floods that had killed millions, and threatened even more, were slowly abating. And several days after the results of the worldwide voting had been announced, leaves that had first turned brown and then had fallen to the ground were slowly being replaced by new, little leaves. And the seeds that had been planted in millions of fields around the world that had never begun to grow were now germinating.

Amaranth and Ty, along with Julie and Ed, had joined the celebration in Boulder. Of course, there had never been anything like this before, and probably would never be again. The four of them stayed for as long as they could stand up.

When Amaranth and Ty did say good-bye to Julie and Ed, after hugging both of them, they drove to Niwot in a great hurry, rushed into their home, then literally ran into their bedroom where they managed to strip each other of their clothing in a matter of seconds, then jumped into bed and began to make passionate love that did not end for hours.



Chapter 68

Both Amaranth and Ty slept late into the morning. This new day was Tuesday, 5 May. It was, indeed, a beautiful day.

Amaranth cooked a leisurely, sumptuous breakfast for Ty and herself. Later, when she was washing the dishes, Amaranth suddenly screamed, “The crocuses!”

Instantly, she opened the kitchen door, flew down the stairs, then ran to the exact spot where the crocuses lived. She looked down and screamed again.

“My dear crocuses, you are still alive!” she cried.

Amaranth immediately bent down and kissed each of the crocuses on their tips. Then she sat down beside them, as she had wanted to do for way too long a time, and began talking to them, as was her eternal wont.

Amaranth had a lot to tell them. She told them the whole story with all the details, with all the twists and turns, with all the ups and downs. And finally, she told them about Earth’s victory, and the celebrations around the world that seemingly never wanted to end.

What a joyous time Amaranth was having!



Chapter 69

This day, Ty went back to Fairview High School in Boulder to teach American history.

Amaranth sat on the blue sofa in the living room listening to Beethoven’s immortal Ninth Symphony. As she sat there, she slowly came to the realization that she had not yet had her period. She was usually extremely regular, which meant to her that she should have had it either on Saturday or Sunday. She sat there on the blue sofa thinking about this for quite a while. Finally, she got up and went to the phone. She had decided to call Julie.

“Julie, this is Am,” she said. “I’m calling you for a special reason. I missed my period this month, and I was wondering if I might be able to see your obstetrician and ask him to check me out, and I was hoping you might be able to go with me.”

Julie said yes to both.

“I think an obstetrician can tell you two weeks after the day you missed having your period if you are pregnant. Am I right?” asked Amaranth.

Julie told her she was right.

“Oh my god, Julie! Do you think I might be pregnant?” Amaranth was in disbelief.

Julie told Amaranth to calm down. Yes, there was a possibility that she was pregnant, but only an obstetrician could say for sure, and only after he had taken a blood sample from her.

Amaranth’s heart was pounding.

Julie’s obstetrician was Dr. Pedarsky. She gave Amaranth his office phone number.

“I’ll call his office right now. Let’s see, two weeks from today will be Wednesday, 20 May. Will that date work for you?” she asked Julie.

“Yes, it will,” Julie said.

“I’ll call you right back to let you know if I can get an appointment for that day,” said Amaranth, her heart still pounding.

Amaranth immediately called Dr. Pedarsky’s office.

“This is Amaranth Anderson calling. I am a friend of Julie Borgoman, who is a patient of Dr. Pedarsky and has recommended him to me. I’m calling to see if it would be possible to make an appointment to see Dr. Pedarsky sometime on Wednesday, May 20th. I have missed my period for the first time since I began menstruating, and I feel strongly I should see a doctor.”

There was a short pause, then the nurse said Dr. Pedarsky could see her at 2:30 on the 20th.

“That would be wonderful,” said Amaranth, almost shouting.

After thanking the nurse for her help, she quickly called Julie back.

“I got an appointment with Dr. Pedarsky on Wednesday, May 20th, at 2:30. I am so excited,” exclaimed Amaranth.

Julie told Amaranth that she was pleased to hear this good news, but also told Amaranth to settle down. Amaranth told Julie that she understood and appreciated what she was telling her, but could not find a way to tell Julie that she would not be able to calm down for quite a while. Amaranth thanked Julie for all her help, then hung up.

Amaranth went back to the blue sofa and sat down. Her heart was still pounding, and would continue to pound for a long time this day.

Chapter 70

Another impossible, long wait, Amaranth thought.

She would spend most of her days going out to sit down and talk to the crocuses. There were so many things to tell them, and she was so, so happy to see them again.

Finally, Wednesday, 20 May, arrived. Amaranth was so excited. She couldn’t help it. About 1:30, she left Niwot to pick up Julie in Boulder.

“I am so excited Julie! I can’t help it,” said Amaranth.

“I understand, Am,” said Julie.

They got to Dr. Pedarsky’s office a little bit before 2:30.

"I’m Amaranth Anderson, and I have a 2:30 appointment to see Dr. Pedarsky. This is my friend, Julie Borgoman. She is also a patient of Dr. Pedarsky."

The nurse recognized Julie and said hello, then asked the two of them to have a seat.

“Dr. Pedarsky will be out shortly to see you,” said the nurse. Amaranth and Julie took a seat.

Within a few minutes, Dr. Pedarsky came around the corner. He knew Julie and that Ms. Anderson was her friend and his new patient.

“Ms. Anderson, I’m Dr. Pedarsky. It is a pleasure to meet you. Won’t the two of you come with me?” said the doctor.

Amaranth and Julie got up and followed Dr. Pedarsky down the hallway and into an examining room.

Dr. Pedarsky spoke to Amaranth.

“It’s my understanding that you recently missed having your period, and that this was the first time you could ever remember having that happen to you. Am I right?” asked Dr. Pedarsky.

“Yes, that’s right, Dr. Pedarsky,” said Amaranth.

“And you’re concerned, aren’t you?” asked Dr. Pedarsky.

“Yes I am,” said Amaranth.

“I’ll have my nurse take a blood sample from you. We have our own lab here, so it will be about a half hour before we have the results,” said Dr. Pedarsky.

That half hour was the longest half hour of Amaranth’s life.

Dr. Pedarsky came back into the room and walked over to Amaranth. He paused a second. Then he looked directly at Amaranth and said, “Amaranth, you are going to have a baby. You’re pregnant.”

Amaranth almost fainted. “Are you sure, Doctor?” asked Amaranth.

“I am certain,” said Dr. Pedarsky.

Amaranth started crying. Her body began to shake.

“I can’t believe it! This is the best news I have ever received!” cried Amaranth. Julie got up and went over, first to squeeze her hand, then to hold it.

“Thank you, Dr. Pedarsky! Thank you so much!” cried Amaranth.

Dr. Pedarsky said, “I don’t think I’m the correct man for you to thank,” chuckling a bit after saying that.

Amaranth was so overwhelmed with joy. She took Julie by the hand and wisked her and herself out of the examining room, down the hallway, down the stairs to the entrance and flung the door open and essentially ran to her car, dragging Julie behind her. Then she sped Julie home, hugged her so tightly and thanked her for all her help, then sped to Niwot, almost hitting the edge of the garage because she was driving so fast. She leaped out of the car, ran to the back door, swung it wide open, ran through the kitchen into the living room where she saw Ty standing and kept running until she leaped into his open arms.

“Ty!,” she screamed. “We’re going to have a baby! I’m pregnant!”

Ty kissed this woman he had loved from the moment he had first seen her. And then he held her in his arms it seemed like forever.

Sympathy I feel for those who haven’t seen what I’ve seen, and for those who have felt what I’ve felt. The embodiment of my regret, shining with all the light once saved me, now engulfs me in torment of my mistake. As I orbit in harmony with the rotation of a green star, that is much more than just a green star, I ponder what my life would be if I still had my green star. I know that in time, this green star that means everything and more to me, will collapse and perish, but we will only be able to see the star frozen in time, that very instant before it collapsed, desperately clinging to one single moment. I still cling to that moment, the moment I saw my soul break free from the chains that I thought would hold me down perpetually, in her eyes. I don’t quite know how it happened, I wasn’t looking for it, I wasn’t on the make, it was the perfect storm, I said one thing, she said another, and the next thing I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my days in the middle of that conversation. It’s painful to admit that I ruined the most precious friendship I’ve ever had, which tends to sting more when she was the only genuine friend I’ve ever had. I prefer solidarity most of the time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t long for a companion every now and again, but lately that desire grows stronger and stronger, holding on to the memory of the companion I once had and lost. My life on Earth, my past life, would be considered prosperous; I was one of the top aerospace engineers in the world, which is a very time consuming and painstaking practice, but exploring the unknown territories of the universe had always been my passion. I didn’t have much of a family, my mother and father passed away when I was 22 years old, and my brother and I severed ties shortly after the death of our parents, and I had not desire nor time for a significant other, let alone the willingness to dedicate my life to another person. I always believed that I embodied the definition of misplacement, I never seemed to fit in any particular group of people, nor with any other person, really, I enjoyed getting lost in the sea of my thoughts, riding the waves, pondering ideas, asking questions that can only be answered in theory, which essentially renders me incapable of interacting with others. However, being your own best friend can sometimes lead to psychotic thoughts of self-loathing, and eventually the last straw broke the backbone of my perseverance, and I convinced myself to commit suicide. Originality and pretentiousness ****** me, demanding myself to end my life a way no one else’s life has ended, and my imagination spiraled into a storm, brainstorming my own demise. My most recent endeavor at the time was to manufacture a personal bubble that would sustain in space, and condensing a spaceship into the size of a smart car was the threshold between my pathetic life of this planet, and self-destructive glory. After a year of an extremely unhealthy intensity of research, my talisman of my soul, my most cherished invention, my cosmic coffin. I traveled from my home in Anchorage to the highest point in Alaska, Mount McKinley, and inserted my body comfortably inside my space bubble and proceeded to ascend into my eternal salvation, ascending towards achievement of my life’s dream, ascending the edges of space, where no human has ever occupied in history. The butterfly feeling in my stomach, caused by the sheer joy I felt, is probably the closest feeling I had ever felt at the time to true love, the irony of my affection for death. As I slipped past our atmosphere and found myself floating closer towards the stars and planets, I sat down and enjoyed the galactic show of entropy before me, and after a while the visual melody put me in a hypnotic state, and before I knew it I was being stated down by a saucer shaped spaceship with luminous blue lights encompassing the round edge of the ship. I felt my capsule gravitating towards and entering the ship through a small hole on the underbelly of its structure, that appeared to look like a portal. As I passed through the light I was being observed by a feminine looking blue creature, with bright green eyes that sparkled like emeralds in the moonlight, and long, luscious blonde hair, straight and smooth as silk. She was tall, which I realized as I stood up out of my capsule, about an inch taller than my six foot frame, with long, skinny fingers and decently big webbed feet, and a long slender tail hanging down from her backside that wasn't quite long enough to touch the ground. She had shiny, scaly skin that had a deceptive rough appearance in texture, but felt soft and smooth when her hand reached out to embrace mine, and she said, "Hello, I am called Elora, what are you called?" Still in shock, the only awkward response I muttered was, "Eric" and she asked, "Why are you here Eric?" As I regained my quick wit I declared, "Does anyone know why they're here?" She smiled, exposing her sharp white teeth and proposed, "Well, you can help me find out." I think it had something to do with the adrenaline rush caused by the mystery and uncertainty of the situation, but I caught myself grinning, I didn't even realize I was smiling, it was an odd, unfamiliar feeling, but I was madly attracted to this blue angel from the stars. I spoke to her about my life on Earth, and my elaborate suicide plan, and she explained to me that she abandoned her home planet Eridani to conduct galactic research, and that she was from the Altair race. She elaborated on how life on Eridani did not satisfy her, and that she would spend her life roaming around nebulas, exploring galaxies, researching stars, and documenting her experiences. She showed me a star that she claims as hers, a green star called Zohra, which was her favorite star because she said she could only feel happiness when looking at it, to which I said, “It reminds of your eyes” and she looked at me and seemed flattered. She loved that star, her eyes lit up brighter than the star itself when she would stare at it, hypnotized at the sight of it, which I cared little to notice because I couldn’t look away from her. I couldn’t quite understand how someone could be so invested in something like that, something that just sits there spinning and spinning, peacefully participating in the orchestra of the universe. I think she was so fascinated by this object because she felt the same disconnect from others of our kind. The lonely, outcast feeling connected us, ironically, and we carried on intriguing conversation for what felt like an eternity, and I only wish that conversation could've lasted longer. I found in Elora what I had not found in any human being, she understood me, to the point where I was convinced she had mind reading abilities, and her understanding me didn’t diminish her interest in me, like what usually happened to me on Earth. I found happiness in her company, I found salvation in her embrace, I found unparalleled beauty inside and out, and I found myself in our friendship.  As time slowly rolled on my affection for Elora grew increasingly unbearable, and eventually the realization dawned upon me that I had to inform Elora of my feelings for her. We were accelerating towards the Crab Nebula, and I noticed the blurred blue light in the center, wrapped around by streams of red and yellow light, holding the blue heart in the center together. Elora was to me what the red and yellow streams were to the integrity of the Crab Nebula, without those streams, without Elora, my soul would fall apart and disburse, just like the blue light in the center of the Crab Nebula. When I turned, looked her square in her eyes, her gorgeous eyes that were accented by the light emitting from the Crab Nebula, those eyes that pull you in and leave you in a trance, those eyes that display the beauty of nature condensed into two little spheres that seemed to effortlessly gaze inside my soul, breaking down every single wall that I have ever built up to hide myself from other people, and uncover everything I so desperately attempted to hide deep down, and I said to her, “You are the only reason I’m still alive, the only reason I still want to live, the only other soul that accepted my lost, broken soul, you are the most amazing, most beautiful creature born from the stars we now roam around, I tried to die to see what heaven is like, but heaven can wait, because there is nothing more I want than to be with you until the day my soul slips away from my body, I am madly in love with you Elora.” I poured my heart and soul out to her, bleeding out every ounce of passion and love and sophistication to her, exposing every bit of my emotions, leaving me naked and defenseless before her. Different scenarios raced around my head about how she would respond, and she glanced down at the ground, looked back up at my blank face, and she said, “My people do not love, we do not believe in love, and we cannot love. Love, no matter how polarizing it may seem, always fades in time, everything fades in time, love fades in time, ideas fade in time, you will fade in time, I will fade in time, in the end, nothing is perpetual.” My heart sank down into my stomach, and right at that moment I grasped the idea of why they call it “falling in love” because I landed harder than I could even fathom, I did not know that such powerful emotional sorrow could physically hurt so bad. I dropped down to one knee, and the streams of tears ran from my face and splashed down on the ground, like delicate little glass beads shattering as they made contact with the surface, shattering like my heart and soul. The pure agony and embarrassment of staying with the love of my life, whom I had just made an absolute fool of myself in front of, was enough to crush any man’s esteem, so the only rational option I could think of was bail towards my space bubble, and go as far away as I possibly could from the light that saved me. With every inch of separation between her and I, my heart and soul grew sour and stone cold, and new theories to rationalize my reaction and actions that followed. As a child I went to an amusement park, and I was particularly frightened of a certain attraction that lifted you straight up, a couple hundred feet, and dropped you straight down, and now I realize that my fears of love are comparable to this ride. I was so mortified by the ascension, which precedes love, that I could never enjoy the thrill of the fall, even though this time the safety harness didn’t soften the landing. I came to the conclusion, after years of thought, that I could not blame Elora, it was who she was and there was nothing she could do to change that, and instead of accepting the fact that she did not love me, I cowardly abandoned the only thing in my life that I gave a **** about, I ran away from the only other being in the universe that could make me smile the way she made me smile. After years of solidarity and self-loathing I realized that I would much rather spend my life with Elora, even if she didn’t love me, as opposed to regressing back to my lonesome life, only surrounded by a vast, more captivating scene. The only reason I am still alive is because I have not given up hope that one day I will find Elora again, and I will beg for her forgiveness, and hopefully I will be able to cherish every precious moment I spend with her. I solemnly believe that the slim chance will occur that I will once again see that face, gaze into those eyes I once did, and curse my old self for being foolish enough to leave her. I am not certain, but I can only hope that she is at least indifferent to encountering each other once again, but if she denies me I cannot blame her, because after all it is my fault for my impulsive escape. But for now I wander as a nomad amongst the stars that form constellations that all remind me of Elora, watch the planets rotate, and reminisce on the time we shared together, the time I took for granted, time that I consider to be the most precious moments of my life’s experience. I spend most of my time roaming around Zohra, which was where she and I parted ways, in hopes that one day she will return to her favorite star, to find me right there waiting for her, however patience has not served me well, and my actions which I so deeply regret caused her to abandon the star which she claimed as hers, the star that radiated happiness upon her, the magnificent star that embodied her in beauty and essence, to avoid the thought of me leaving her, which is justifiable because she was probably very flustered by me scrambling to leave her after my episode. I rotate around Zohra, observing its physical qualities, seeing Elora’s face every single time I look upon its surface, but one day the light exiting the pores of the planet grew significantly brighter, and Zohra began rotating and shaking at a phenomenally fast speed, and I witnessed Zohra swallow itself in a supernova, creating a black hole. I interpreted this to represent the death of the hope I had to once again see Elora, or maybe time had taken her like time had taken her beloved star. I allowed myself to succumb to the irresistible force from the black hole, and the death of hope I had to once more see the angelic face of my love, swallowed my space bubble and my hollow body occupying it, to the point of no return, where I can no longer regret what I had done to her, because in time, my love for her destroyed me.

For all of the months we spent together, I thought of you in neatly organized sentences. “I love you.” Always with a period, because that’s how you know someone really means it. The first word of every sentence about you was capitalized, because you weren’t some sloppy diary entry splattered on an old composition notebook page. You were a carefully crafted novel, bound by alternative rock bands and chinese buffets. You were different, and you could not have possibly been summed up in a measly three paragraph essay, like the one I wrote about Abraham Lincoln in the fifth grade. Every comma was the pause I had to take when I saw you, because I swear each day you continued to take my breath away. And with you, there were no misspellings, there were no grammatical errors. You had flaws, but they were so deeply hidden in between the lines that I didn’t even bother looking for them. I guess that’s why I didn’t notice when I became less and less of a priority. And when the “goodmorning” texts came to an end, that should have been a red flag. Your copy of How to Treat Someone You Love would be similar to a guide on how to take care of a goldfish. “Feed twice a day and change water once a week”. It’s really that simple for you, because you have the mind of an engineer. Logical. Precise. There is no such thing as passion and forgiveness, just empty “I love you”’s. Because you once told me that we are just in high school. You never really explained what that meant, but I got the hint. So I left.
            Because if there’s one thing I realized, it’s that you cannot make someone love you. You cannot make them care, and you cannot make them stay. And it’s one of the hardest things to do, but once you realize it, you get this new sense of… freedom. Not the feeling you get after the last bell on the last day of school, not that. But more like you see the world for all it’s worth, for the first time. Because it feels good to let go of the idea that you need closure. People don’t need closure, they need to turn around and walk away. They need to not put up with the people who wouldn’t put up with them. I don’t need closure on why we ended, I don’t need to know why you never took me back. You made your decisions, and now it’s my turn to make mine. Because if it were meant to be, my birthday would not have passed with nothing more than a text saying “hbd”. Hbd. I guess that’s who you’ve become. Your novel-like qualities have become nothing more than text lingo in the inbox of a teen girl. I swear I use to look at you like you were a poem written by e.e. cummings, but now you’re nothing more than a piece of scrap paper under my bed. And it’s sad because although I don’t know much about love, I knew enough to make you see the world in shades other than black and white like you’ve been raised to see.
            And thinking back on what we had, I see it as an art collection. But it wasn’t structured around the basic principles of primary colors and symmetry. It had life and depth and meaning. Things I could never get you to understand. But now I realize it wasn’t because we had it all wrong, it’s because we try to make it too right. But art isn’t right, it isn’t pretty. It’s brutal and honest, but it makes you feel things that engineers can’t. And I guess that’s what a poet gets for messing around with numbers and figures. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’ve exhausted every word and every sentence that could possibly be used to talk about you. I paid you the highest form of flattery, I made you into my art piece. I made you dance across the page, and brought what we had to life, because in reality it was dead. I tried to salvage us, but now I’m happy with letting my idea of you go. Because it’s not closure that I need, it’s distance. Especially distance on paper. So as this course comes to end, so does my time spent on you. Some people are better off wrapped up in the laws and theorems, because not even words can make them beautiful.

i write about these things,
because in all honesty?
they don't matter to me.

you can call it assimilation, then you'll call it
   i'm making a worded salad, so it doesn't really matter
whether i speak the language or not,
being native you'll tell me i have to be a diacritically
riddled over-laden version of you  nativeness...
you'll basically tell me i have to speak a worse-off
native than you didn't bother to grasp...
after that? i turn Sioux and scalp you.
  because that's what you deserve.
i could have come up against you
in the thick of night and turned you into a kebab,
and do you think anyone would have
cared? is it one thing to assimilate,
and another to assimilate into a skin-head culturalism
implosive that's brimming to the full with your patriotic
hopes as being acted upon? i can speak the perfect
English and still be more welcome in Scotland
than in Kent... but that will not not do,
not until i shave my hair off,
grow a beard, and runsack my skin
with quasi-Hindu ******* tilts...
           and when this foreign legion
of Swedish journalists bemoan why
their **** ain't where their heart is?
have you seen the *sienkiewicz"
trilogy of *potop? you want history?
how about: in the beginning
there was an invading horde of Swedes
that tried to topple the proto-commonwealth
of Poland and Lithuania...
  even how much i cared to learn the tongue:
i'd be left belittled by ugly accenting
stereotypes...
                          i'd be Islam of drunk,
while the engineers would be left saying:
and unto us amphetamines,
and Mamelukes were never Egyptian...
because Egypt was what Egypt desired...
a quasi thingy... then i turned my ear
to Macbeth, and earned 70 years
and a Spartacus' worth of ears to my nearing 31...
                   i turned to Macbeth the theatricals
silences, and let, the music... play.
i can learn the language, but i am expected
to push the natives from a career of criminality,
i am expected to become the criminal,
i've learned the language beyond the natives,
what else?
   to learn the debasement of the natives akin to
every other culture? am i to become the
criminal statistic of the ruling political elite?
so they can "know" but that they merely quote?
   i owe my ode to Macbeth,
for Hamlet can become tiresome aligned with
Sisyphus in hell...
              we'll have builders by the end of
the debate...
     how much more do i have to learn?
is language not enough? then velkommen Syriac!
               is it not enough that i know the tongue?
must i be jeopardised by using it,
and say that universality is to be excluded,
simply because it does not abide by an utopian
ideal of pure English sprechen pure English?
         there are scapegoats to be festering upon
the spike that's readied to be fried...
but come on... is this deutschesprechen?
              it can't be! if i pretend to be Malcolm...
you pretend to be Duncan,
but nonetheless the speech makes us both truant
ghouls and guises receding
   into the demands of operatic - kindred to
Lady Macbeth (a protestant, or should she be
known catholic: McBeth) -
      as Glasgow religion of the coliseum of the times
testifies... celt and ranger... green & white vs. blue and
   black...
     lady mc.: what beast was 't thou,
        that make you break this enterprise with me?
(no matter if you killed a man, of whatever
stature he be worth, what beast are you to suddenly
cage my heart, when having agreed to make my heart
and feeling thus: storm the heights of Ben Nevis,
and descend as angrily as a woman might please,
  and with her whim, descend from the mountain
as if a mountain descends into desert?! what
courage, ye! to throw a woman into such woe
and leave a man's promise, the very least
a man can bestow upon this earth: but a woman
yet to come to correct!) so thus the elvish Anglican
was spoken, and thus continued:
- when you durst do it, then you were a man;
   and, to be more than what you were, you would
be so much more the man. nor time, nor place,
did then adhere, and yet you would make both...
  from his boneless gums...
nor have i understood Hamlet as the model student,
the puppet if not the mere mascot...
for the Freudian couch... then again i navigated
past Kant with Macbeth,
having yet to complete reading the critique...
       i took to maturity, and said
what others wished upon: there is true
adult agony in a well versed poetry...
       more so than adolescence in what's deemed
a maturation process...
             perhaps i should have served the concern
for Hamlet and laid bare upon the psychoanalytic
couch... but Macbeth: of said
sepia as copper, so said of woad as in aquamarine
surrender... led me to cite...
          for i was never bound to own the tongue
i would acquire... i was told:
   well, hello there, dishonourable squire...
ah... the queen's majestic airs...
    will make any Irishman desist from the republic's
gaze...
             and sloth in a respectably believed state
of consolidatory affairs under the kites of Yates...
   but never you mind the Silesian consumed
by former guardian of the coalmine...
or what L'vov wouldn't say in Ukrainian...
mind you Nevada and Lasso Vegan...
mind you that...  for that speaks biblical studies!
i will never assimilate, in that i will never be
allowed to own this tongue...
            and if i am allowed to own it...
i am but a furry-faced-bloat of faked pleasantries
   and closet nationalism...
        i wish i could own this language as if i
might own a typewriter... but i'm apparently
not welcome, by the pseudo-irish who
mediate the English assertion of the understanding
of the dover sieve...
                 ******* leprechaun mafia...
  paddy paddy oo too the butch-faced freckled girl...
   it's as if the Italians have Manhattan,
    and the Corke conglomerate prescribed
everyone a pint of Guinness rather than iron-pill
supplements...
                 well: and so the Titanic bellows
out an oceanic morse code of tantrums on
the accordions.
                      which sorta soothed the mermaids
digest contemplation for the vegan accomplishment
of shrimp... and over seafoods...
being digested.
         now i'm apparently not speaking English,
or i'm speaking English and i don't understand it,
or i'm understanding how i'm speaking English,
and how i'm supervising all things uranium
                               bound hallucinogenic...
or how, even though urbanity took off and
the countryside disappeared, you think you'll never
meet peasants in smirk attire to condescend you
gravity toward theatre or opera...
     but peasants are reall... you can recognise a peasant
the minute they don't recognise you insulting them;
it's a bit like telling a very witty joke...
         i don't get witty jokes because i tend to treat them
like a siegl heigl salutation...
   and i respect the memory of Octavian...
                                 it's the wittiness that comes into
contact with actually not telling a joke: and people
end up laughing... that's when you spot the peasants.
    so you see... i speak the ****** language,
but i'm sorta denied the access for drinking a cosmopolitan
at a Shoreditch pub...
                        which makes all arguments
for learning the language obsolete in terms of gaining
a "fair" advantage... and this is European to
European lingo...
        didn't i ask that Swedish journalist
ingrid carlqvist to watch the trilogy, including
potop about the war between Sweden and
the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, and ask her
about what's to be culturally inherited?
**** me... maybe i'm sleepwalking...
                     dodo zombified or something...
                                     oh wait...
                                         if ever there was a regressive
reparation policy in a country:
i'd hear: guilt from western countries taking the bribes
of the Marshall Plan...
      and overt pride from countries post-world-war ii
being prescribed communism, as a way to rebuild
their nations: for fear of having to commit to
hara kiri... or *******...
                                         as said: becoming
the easily bribed convenience...
                              the concept of assimilation
within the construct of selective migration has transcended
the mere acquisition of language...
  acquiring a language isn't enough...
         the reverse policy of colonialism is hushed-down
ethnic cleansing...
          which goes beyond language per se,
since it goes beyond dialect ex lingua...
              it is a necessitation of also acquiring
national stereotypes of unengaged in dialectics...
it is one thing to rhetorically assert a need to debate,
and another to understand that dialectics ≠ debate;
but rather a service to prompt and engage thinking,
rather than debating... dialectics is an art-form,
     it's intended to encourage thinking,
rather than the continuum of polarised / schizoid
debating: debates never accomplish a convergence...
whereas dialectics is intended to establish
a convergent pinpoint... as Socrates said unto the young,
so i find myself talking to old men and being
in accordance to have shared a park bench,
one sunny afternoon at the nadir of summer.
                why is it that acquiring language is not
enough these days?
       or why is it that a poor acquisition of a language,
or acquiring a language without correcting
accentuated stresses particular to a tongue
are given a freer access to labour, then
acquiring a language to a standardisation of
mimic localisation, and fence: a faking of
a faking (ad infinitum) or locality?
i.e. overly-successful assimilation?
             overly-successful assimilation is punished!
   it is punished by speaking as a fluent native
might... but having no discriminatory biases
that could enable one to be completely native...
and this is punishable!
             by a stance that it's a robotics project,
that one is nothing more than an a.i. enterprise...
even those dearest to me acknowledge me
as a robot... an a.i.,
           but they can't seem to understand that
artificial intelligence, and authentic intelligence
cannot be superficial intelligence of
natives... for the natives have a placebo
to what is otherwise a Pompeii resurrection
to the volcano-dynamic of analysing-ergo-synthesising
           ana ergo syn           which
constructs the opposite of thesis and antithesis,
given that the equation combines two adequate prefixes,
ana- and syn-...
                      "against" therefore "with".
isn't that how we cling to social pressures
or prejudices and still accumulate 8 billion examples
of a comparative e.g. that's a John Smith?
     i have yet to come across a contemporary that
might become as if fatherly...
   i just see opportunist buckling down the M25 of
encircling nothing more than a venture into
gaining a quick buck... and it could, it could
almost be sad... but it's not...
              it took me almost 13 years of synthesising
the English language: synthesising i.e.
mimicking - before i started analysing it...
      and when i say the groundwork for any
theory on the subconscious is to focus on grammar
and grammatical word interjections into
a Joycean stream-of-consciousness...
                              for that's worth the upper-tier
working from the sub-level...
                          of utilising language:
then the unconscious is far from dreaming...
it's equivalent in seeing how i acquired a language
at the age of 8 to synthesise / mimic what the children
around me were saying...
   but that it took me so long to analyse the language...
which the children around me acquired within
a reflexive bias to later strand such reflexiveness into
a divergence of calling their angular retraction
philosophy, linguistics, poetry, psychology...
whole all i had to do is to appropriate a reflective bias to
later strand such reflectiveness as to say:
of my mother i say polski, of my father i say:
             ojczym - and i can reflect upon him,
foremostly his diacritical lack of the wriggling-blagger's
economisation, when due coinage is needed.

It’s New York Fashion Week, and there is a frenzy backstage as models are worked into their dresses and mob the assembled engineers for instructions of how to operate the technology that magically transforms a subtle gesture into a glowing garment suggestive of the bioluminescence of jellyfish. I know there’s not enough time for them to do their work. Almost instinctively, I find the designer and bargain for 20 more minutes.

While I wonder to myself how I got here, backstage at a runway show, I also know I am witnessing what may be the harbinger of how a fourth industrial revolution is set to change fashion, resulting in a new materiality of computation that will transform a certain slice of fashion designers into the “developers” of a whole new category of clothing. By driving new partnerships in tools, materials and technologies, this revolution has the potential to dramatically reshape how we produce fashion at a scale not seen since the invention of the jacquard loom.

The jacquard loom, as it happens, inspired the earliest computers. Ever since, textile development and technology have been on an interwoven path — sometimes more loosely knit, but becoming increasingly tighter in the last five years. Around that time, my colleagues and I embarked on a project in our labs to look at “fashion tech,” which at the time was a fringe term. These were pioneers daring to — sometimes literally — weave together technology and clothing to drive new ways of thinking about the “shape” of computation. But as we looked around the fashion industry, it became clear that designers lacked the tools to harness the potential of new technologies.

For a start, all facets of technology needed to be more malleable. Batteries, processors and sensors, in particular, had to evolve from being bulky and rigid to being softer, flexible and stretchable. Thus, I began to champion “Puck [rigid], Patch [flexible], Apparel [integrated],” an internal mantra to describe what I felt would be the material transformations of sensing and computation.

As our technologies have steadily become smaller, faster and more energy efficient — a progression known in the tech industry as Moore’s Law — we’ve gone on to launch a computer the size of a postage stamp and worked with a fashion tech designer to demonstrate its capabilities. In this case we were able to show dresses that were generated not just from sketches and traditional materials, but forward-looking tools (body scans and Computer Assisted Design renderings) and materials (in this case, 3-D printed nylon). At the same time, we integrated a variety of sensors (proximity, brain-wave activity, heart-rate, etc.) that allowed the garments themselves to sense and communicate in ways that showed how fashion — inspired in part by biology — might become the interface between people and the world around them.

Eventually, a meeting between Intel and the CFDA lent support to the idea that if technology could fit more seamlessly into designs, then it would be more valuable to fashion designers. The realisation helped birth the Intel Curie module, which has since made its way down the catwalk, embedded into a slew of designs that could help wearers adapt, interpret and respond to the world around them, for example, by “sensing” adrenaline or allowing subtle gestures to illuminate a garment.

As the relationship between fashion and technology continues to evolve, we will need to reimagine research and development, supply chains, business models and more. But perhaps more than anything, as fashion and technology merge, we must embrace a new strand of collaborative transdisciplinary design expertise and integrate software, sensors, processors and synthetic and biological materials into a designer’s tool kit.

Technology will inform the warp and weft of the fabric of fashion’s future. This will trigger discussions not just about fashion as an increasingly literal interface between people, our biology and the world around us, but also about the implications that data will generate for access, health, privacy and self-expression as we look ahead. We are indeed on the precipice of a fourth industrial revolution.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/black-formal-dresses

what is this mind that was given to me that is able to see things i print on screen with my digital zip drive of a brain that is stuck inside a laptop main frame, ******* server uploading and crashing sending pings and things to hackers who perform doss attacks and web cracks and serial cracks while eating cereal going over javascript material program landslide juno got bit by emails and other technical software jargin computer guy got the blue screen of death corruption on the web the spider metacrawling and setting it on angelfire i google the facebook twitter and hot wire my car on the trader the wall street journal and the white house, **** sites and white owls, getting arrested and being hired by the government, the money's spent, criminal punishment, in cells locked up no breakfast but lunch under the crack of a door inside ur naked ***, on irc chat, the warez rat, pirates on bays and whispers from kittens, brown paper packages exploding a smidgeon, binary, metamorphosis, code program gold, warning anti virus and spywares, baghdad to china, spy on private, eyes on cameras, cell phones like trackers, global position mappers, predator drones, video games, nfl madden, mad men, and happy wal marts, hacking wal mart, with social engineers, traveling the silk road with a cloak ip address revoked