X: All Things Gnarled and Beautiful

The ultimate questions are not...galatial... as we might suppose.
Nor can we feed this wanderlust the stilted paths of human reason. We
know what we are but not what might become if we could make the winds
and waves obey, the mind a mountain lake. The contemplation of the
infinite is best achieved through more than a few drinks; the only way
to silence the mind is to kill it. If I could only explain, nay, tear
out this tongue if it mislead, how it feels to be genially burnt by the
sun. "The horror, the horror," you say? I might be as young as you, old
man, if, like a crab, I could crawl backwards through the sands of
time, through Auschwitz, the great war, the plantation doors and all
the way to Egypt. Ten thousand slaves could break their backs to make
my final resting place. Then, I could finally be alone. "A thousand
years of solitude," you say? Make it two thousand, ten thousand, a
million and then I might finally have some concept of what we're doing
here. I could drink cocoa with Montezuma... or human blood with the
Tliingit Tribe of the Pacific Northwest Coast. And it might be more
interesting than a diet-pepsi, fully endorsed by Britney Spears. I
don't love your cities, rank and rot with vile elements, the billboards
offering the perfect human shape. "Here he is:," they proclaim, "a
human god." A bloody yahoo, I say. The buildings soar so high you could
almost dream of something... more noble. All day long, the wage slaves
graze on dollars bill and vomit forth product. From out of the window,
they can hear the syncopated hum of Chinese-classical-jazz. That's our
haute culture. "What would Jesus do?" He'd overturn your booths, you
bourgeious capitalist pigs. Oh, there will be weeping and gnashing of
teeth. He'll smite this land as he did Sodom and Ghomoreah. But I'm
content to sit here on a warm grave and contemplate the majestic oaks,
gnarled and beautiful, which carry me into the sublime heights of the
sky. My grandpa lived not too far from here. "Just toss me over the
fence," he'd say. Well, I'd like to say something more meaningful,
something intellectually sound. But I'm no good. There is only one who
is good and that is God. In the end, the only art is a cross painted
with your own blood.