Iron couplers connect railcars. One to the next, to the next. Synchronicity? Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon?
Terri Gross interviews Leonard Cohen‘s Son, Adam, on a NPR: Fresh Air podcast titled “Leonard Cohen The Poet, Writer, And Father where he talks about his Father: “He was preoccupied with the brokenness of things, the asymmetry of things, as he says forget your perfect offering…or as in his song Anthem…Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
I turn the page in Haruki Murakami’s new novel Killing Commendatore and the title of Chapter 4 flashes and sticks: “From a Distance, Most Things Look Beautiful.”
I’m running to Stamford Cove Park. Off in the distance, a man grips three leashes, two small, white dogs of the same breed on his left (Rat Terriers?), and a larger Mix (Rescue?) on the right.
I approach.
I’m drawn to Mix. All four legs move sideways and forward, a Half Pass dressage. A defect. I slow to follow the pack from a few yards back, the Terriers pull on the leashes, the mix struggles to keep up.
The Mind calls up a passage by Tom Hennen that I came across earlier in the week: “I am struck by the otherness of things rather than their sameness. That each thing on earth has its own soul, its own life, that each tree, each clod is filled with the mud of its own star.”
The Owner slows to allow Mix to catch up. He reaches down to pet him, the dog nuzzles his owner. Happy.
A quarter mile ahead, I’ve caught another runner. His right arm is anchored tight to his right side, and his left is pumping to and fro. Accident? Stroke? Birth Defect? I slow my pace, wondering how his body isn’t pulled hard to the right, his body’s equilibrium off-kilter with only one piston pumping, instead of two which pull us forward in normal locomotion.
I ponder who’s behind me, their eyes bearing down on Me, the extra weight carried. What do they see? His right shoulder hangs lower than his left, compensating for his right foot which is half a shoe size smaller. Years of these corrections have built up large, rough calluses on his instep. His right knee bows out from the additional weight and the body ever so slightly corrects to pull him forward.
I pass the other runner. He smiles, and offers: Good morning!
And it’s this moment, no, this coupled series of moments, which illuminated the entirety of Hennen, Words that were just that, Words, rolling off my lips to the next…
“I watch where I step and see that the fallen leaf, old broken grass, an icy stone are placed in exactly the right spot on the earth, carefully, royalty in their own country.”
Notes:
- Photo: (via Newthom)
- Post Inspired by: “I am struck by the otherness of things rather than their sameness. The way a tiny pile of snow perches in the crook of a branch in the tall pine, away by itself, high enough not to be noticed by people, out of reach of stray dogs. It leans against the scaly pine bark, busy at some existence that does not need me. It is the differences of objects that I love, that lift me toward the rest of the universe, that amaze me. That each thing on earth has its own soul, its own life, that each tree, each clod is filled with the mud of its own star. I watch where I step and see that the fallen leaf, old broken grass, an icy stone are placed in exactly the right spot on the earth, carefully, royalty in their own country.” — Tom Hennen, Looking for the Differences from Darkness Sticks to Everything: Collected and New Poems
