Say what?

What is the matter? Can't sleep?

Well, I myself am going down, mal de mere to the bone. Sea sick. See sick.

Krishnamurti said it: "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Now that is profound. Profound as in its original Latin meaning: "before the bottom."

I want to get all the way to the bottom. Don't you? I want to get down, down to the bottom, to the true object of my desire. I want to push away the pedestrian static and sink to the bottom. To the bottom line. Rock bottom. I want to go down. Chthonic tonic.

Under the sea, under the see: A darker, quieter society. Beneath the wavings, what can the matter be? So, down we go….

Alas and alack: I find coming out of my mouth a "no," screaming, like a promise broken. There is no relief in the matter of the solid terra firma I find below. I am only a crashing into this solid that I discover beneath the sickness of the sea. I cannot abide the bottom line. There is no peace in this deathly amber trapped stagnation.

I know now: I am the matter.

Now what?

Is it better that I be Wee Willie Winkie, running through the downtown, night gowned. I am rumbling, tumbling round, crowing like a cock. I am wriggling and tugging and rattling and bugging.

I am Willy Nilly. Whether with my will or against my will, nolens volens. It is certainly unplanned and haphazard.

I love the shilly shally of the It. I love Its hitty missy.

I am not still, still dusty from a battle with sleep, hugging the sheep I can no longer count. Or count on. Or long for.

Say what? Who is to say?

I, myself, will say. I, myself, will waken from the sea sickness and the hardened heart and the mindless run. I myself will waken, from solids and seas, of stillness and breeze. I myself will look at what I cook, up and down. And It will feed you, profoundly, out of the depths and into the mess.

It is a matter of heart, a matter of art. It is a naming cut into little pieces, the letters of which are blown away, in breezes and tsunamis. It is the regathering of these parts which morph into recipes of unknown quantity and known savor.

The reams of dreams and the tomes of politico visionaries dance and reel, do si do into existence extant and gone. And this pirate does not know if the eye is open or close. If the dream is real, the real is dream. It doesn't matter that It matters.

"Weary is the mother who has a dusty child,

A small short little child, who can't run on his own,

Who always has a battle with sleep before he'll close an eye

But a kiss from his rosy lips gives strength anew to my."

(Thanks to William Miller for "Willie Winkie," first published in Whistlebinkie: Songs for the Fireside, 1841.)

— Rx is the FloridaWeekly muse w ho hopes t o inspire pr ofound mu tiny in all those w ho care to read. Our Rx ma y be w earing a pirate cloak of in visibility, but emanating fr o m within this shadow is hope that r eaders will feel free to respond. Who knows: You may even inspire the muse. Make contact if you dare.