Friday, April 12, 2019

First of All



.
23rd street
.
First of all, please know that the entirety of New York City
fits in my back pocket – no one part of it is any distance at all
from any other once you’ve mastered the subway which
existentially erases distance. Think about it. You walk down
the stairs in a hole in the street, you wait for a train, or rather
you wait for a door to open in a compartment that pulls up
in front of you and you step in and sit down and three, maybe
.
34th street
.
four or five or six times more the same door opens and people
walk in and out, and finally the door opens a seventh time
.
42nd street
.
onto the platform which features symbols (words and/or
numbers) you associate with your destination and you get
out and walk up the stairs through another hole and you’re
there. Or rather in another here. Where is distance even
noticeable in that transit? And what have you done to make
the transit? Let’s go over it again. You descended into a hole
and waited for a compartment to appear, sliding in on two
.
59th street
.
parallel metal tracks offering you through its opening doors
ingress to an enclosure into whose premises you walked a few
.
125th street
.
steps and sat down on a bench and eventually according
to various expectations being met that you had grown to harbor
meanings and identities to give you a sense that things were
knowable, you got up and ascended through another hole to find
yourself here. So you see, although we go up and down and in
and out of many holes in New York, they never take us there.
They’re only ever here. There’s also no time. There’s only eternity.
.
145th street
.
As you learn when you sit and discover you can’t detect time
any more than you’re able to know where you are besides here.
.
168th street
.
You see, the time and space continuum is a hoax. But not
a nasty one. Reality can only serve up to us those parts of itself
that we can imagine. That’s precious little of its whole. The needy
Human Soul is on the dole. It has to be carefully fed the few things
it can digest. Then it must get a lot of rest. Is there more for it
to learn? Beyond measure, yes. Will it develop the wherewithal
to swallow it all and understand? One can’t begin to guess.
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175th street
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