While we take that step back, we can bask at how, even though it is always sunny in Philadelphia, there is still room for a good moon; this point was proven while at the same rally a man ran naked through the crowd. It seems as though the escape into absurdity in America has created absurd extremists. This is not bad, it's quite funny in fact. Though it teaches us nothing other than the fact that a naked man is going to spend some time in jail, perhaps he can use that time to read a book, he might want to ask the man beside him who I'm sure would not mind throwing one in his direction.
In other news whilst walking this morning I found a nurse on the side of the road in full scrubs, his car was terribly damaged in the front. He was distraught, there was no one else there, I wondered what he had hit. He was on the phone, I wanted to offer help but he seemed to have things under control so I offered the only alms I could muster and that was a sympathetic look which he accepted with a nod. As I continued my walk I came across another damaged vessel on the side of the road, this one was a buck, a beautiful deer, freshly dead.
I took out my camera and began documenting the tragedy. As I did so the nurse had noticed me and walked in my direction. He asked me what I was doing and I asked him if he knew who had hit the deer, I had been too distracted by my emotions to observe properly, it clicked the moment before he answered that it was he that had killed it. I apologized and told him my intentions were not in malice. It was a tragedy and I, being an artist, simply wanted to record it, to dwell on, to try to make sense of this chaotic world.
He looked down and said no harm had been done on my part, I saw the pain in his eyes, he said: "imagine how I feel, I'm in the medical field." I could only look at him with an understanding that was all he needed, we parted ways solemnly but on no bad terms.
Now I present the pictures, for all to see. It reminds me of a story I read a few years ago while researching current May day celebrations around the world. It took place in Vietnam, it just so happened that on May first a mighty whale had been beached. This day, that was usually a celebration for the workers, the peasants, the people, thousands upon thousands went out to the beach and prayed, gazed upon, meditated upon this massive majestic creature. A life so mighty taken by nature, though cruel and seemingly unjust, was taken none the less; but they saw it in themselves as human beings, with logic and love, that it should not be ignored. By taking time out of their lives to dwell upon the soul of that creature they therefore justified their existence and ensured that they could leave this world rightly, having done it no harm, but having produced something worthy to be left behind. An idea to water the roots of the future of mankind.
Years later on a morning lost I gazed upon a June bug that had died and was being consumed by droves of ants. I looked with peace, knowing that in their simplicity they loved that fellow being, and worshiped it in the instinctive way they were created to pursue. And in that instant I felt as I imagined another life form would have felt had they taken time to peer down upon our world at that moment in Vietnam. To see the multitudes of people, like ants, gather around this giant whale, like the June bug, out of nothing but the purest wish to exist with meaning.
In the moment I photographed the deer I could not help but pity those that looked but did not see. I wanted to hate those that did not even look, but my pity continued to poor forth like a mighty river. And that is why I report this to you, whoever may be so kind to read my words.
I follow that sad tale with a poem by Charles Baudelaire that encompasses my philosophy for my writing, it is called "If by some freak fortune..."
If by some freak fortune my name should find
the future's murky coast, and find it's way
nosing through human minds of another day
like a ragged clipper with a good north wind,
These verses which I give you shall preserve
your memory like vague legends of old time
suspended from my intricate webs of rhyme
to tease and touch the thoughtful reader's nerve;
Damned in the world's eyes, totally despised,
rejected by all persons save by me,
despising all the others equally,
Ignorant fools who thought you a mere shrew,
O jet-eyed creature, shade unrealized,
O great bronze angel of noble brow!
