king for a day

Precious time is slipping away
But you're only king for a day
It doesn't matter to which God you pray
Precious time is slipping away
It doesn't matter what route you take
Sooner or later the hearts going to break
No rhyme or reason, no master plan
No nirvana, no promised land.

the fog clears, density breaks, earth returns to her former simplicity, voices become more distinct, as if coming into focus, fine tuned at last. the clarity that evaded you comes to you in dreams, in fits and starts. you see the swami in a dream, both of us ankle-high in mud, near a house by the sea...the great grey god of childhood opens up from the wooden fences...fare thee well, little one; one of us goes, one of us stays. that's the way it is. but even if you travel far carry my picture with you and let not your face darken with sorrow.

Khalid sahib has this playing on his radio as I enter the office. Khayyam, how true you were..it lasts a day and then it's gone. the tune, in tune, the song in your heart that enters the day, that holds you still, that lifts you out, unhinges you.

Why am I so fond
of the double bass
of bull frogs
(Or do I hear the prongs
Of a tuning fork,
Not a bull fiddle)
Responding
In perfect accord
To one another
Across the pond--
How does each frog know
He is not his brother
Which frog to follow
Who was his mother
(Or is it a jew's harp
I hear in the dark?)

they tell me nothing's gone.
Though I am forty one, not forty now,
the time I put away was child's play...

Recuperating, I neither spin nor toil..
seven horizontal tulips blow
Just twelve months ago,
these flowers were pedigreed
imported Dutchmen, now no one need
distinguish them from the weed..

I keep no rank nor station.

---Van Morrison, Lowell, and Menashe.