On this Ash Wednesday I meet no eyes on my walk to work. All cast down. All otherwise gone. Where? Into the not-yet-day-to-be? Busily neutral? Or gone south? Away from this month? Or away from difference, other-contact? Or like me, in search of a self not yet owned? Wished for but as distant as Venus?
And I wonder if it’s true as Rosenberg says, that all we want, above all other things, is to be the cause of joy in each other. And I wonder if it’s true, As Moore says, that the most fundamental truth of humans is that we want to love each other.
Is it desire circumferenced by fear that keeps us barbed, nettled, noduled, stinging, and shallow rooted?
But I remember too (and I’ve seen this in you) that occasionally desire overcomes fear and we green-up, draw deep from a clear table, and flower full and heavy, and bend and bow and drop our pedals upon the ash-grey Ganges.
