Existentialism as Evidence of Mercy
What wonderful fractionalities
pepper our moments!
How strange that such small
insignificances
should butterfly up along
the gradient of time.
Picture this:
My chiropractor aunt,
collecting some coconuts from under the auspices
of palm trees (this is in Puerto Rico),
cracking them open
THWACK
with a machete (their juicysweet guts flowing outward)
under the shelter of some plantain trees
in my grandmother’s garden,
and me
standing there wide-eyed
on the pavement lining the grass,
watching.
I wonder what I would be like
had I not seen that,
had I not been there
for that small moment of familial bonding –
and this when I was still quite young.
Or this fond memory:
me, sitting on an old ripped-out
armchair from ATW’s van,
listening to the creaking of the drumracks
(almost splintered by now)
and wondering which trees were cut
(and from where, exactly?)
in order to make those racks…
trying to listen to the history
of all the things in the room.
The relief comes in seeing
that we have such a
Merciful Mover,
else wouldn’t we have
tornadoed everything by now?
