Rembrandt's Nightwatchman Soliloquies, 11

REMBRANDT’S NIGHTWATCHMAN SOLILOQUIES, 11


I, a tabula rasa, seeking
something in which I could believe
in a world that lives by lies
went to a Florida lake.

It was Easter Sunday, there was
a water skier show.

A barefooted water skier splashed water
off his heels.
The crowd cheered.
There was a rumor believed by the majority
that if a drop of water splashed by
the barefooted, boardless skier
could be caught before it fell back into water,
this drop if rubbed on the foreword
could cure cancer.

I, a tabula rasa, was still seeking to find
something that I could believe in
in this world
that lives by lies.

I observed cancer victims going out in rowboats,
diving in behind the splashes of the barefooted
and boardless skier,
trying to catch in cups
a drop of the splashed water.
I notice how forlorn these cancer victims looked.

Most of them drowned and no one noticed.
A few who caught a drop in a cup,
I learned later,
died screaming in a several days.

While watching the cancer victims swimming
after the splashes of the barefooted,
boardless skier, I averted my eyes
and saw a man in a toga or a sheet,
or something white, perhaps a mist,
walking on the water across the lake,
from one shore to the other shore.
No one noticed him,
all eyes were on the barefooted,
boardless, water skier.

I inquired, no one noticed the man
who walked on water, but some
had heard rumors of his existence,
and said they had heard his name
was Pantijali, or Malpera, or Naropa,
or some other name they could not remember.


Duane Locke

Posted over on The Hold