The Albatross






Tried to write about birds and mountains but the only thing that came to mind were the same old words about wrens’ songs piercing the crisp morning air and mountain top transfigurations with haze and tents, and old bearded and wizened men, and stories about albatrosses nesting off the British coast along with those white birds the gannets that belong there. O well, it’s cold. The mind can only do what it can do and there have been no reports on the status of flamingoes in Florida in the wake of the statewide tornado that befell them yesterday; but they live south of there, mostly, I suppose. And so in the face of disasters such as rogue storms and ruined war policies there is the answer to the question put to Jesus, Some things can only be accomplished with prayer. In truth, this is resonate with Zen koans: Two hands clap and there is a sound; what is the sound of one hand? The sound of one hand is the mysticism of silence that is the wind, a brooding over the waters of chaos before there was beginning. Jürgen Moltmann says there is no problem if we are life centered rather than people centered: life will go on despite the sinking of Manhattan Island: What’s good for the nesting and lost albatross maybe what’s good. I remain, with respect to this, agnostic.