Joy Ride

by Theo Edmonds, Culture Futurist™

Epigraph: “What you can plan is too small for you to live.”
— From David Whyte’s “What to Remember When Waking”

She kept the color blue
in her front left pocket.
The diamonds on her right hand
would not be able to find it there.

She thought of the indigo child
and two-wheeled adventure mobiles.
She thought of those rascals down by the river
who always called her their lucky love.

Three pointing priests carved stone-faced gazes
into the nestled horizon.
They sang of ginger, jasmine, and joy rides.

Knowing full well that they
would never know these pleasures again,
still they sang
still they sang
still they sang of ginger, jasmine, and joy rides.

The reminiscence. The knowledge that
such human experiences even exist
would — for them — be more than enough
joy.

Oh, my friends…
How they sang!
In my stillness I heard them.

Stone-faced priests
poetic in presence,
accepting things as they are.

Stone-faced priests
with one right-handed finger
digging into hot earth
the left pointing
to cool sky three times.

“How Curious!” she thought
as she hurried by them on her way
to cultivate her future happiness
(from estimated deepness
within the archives of her busy mind’s
motions and notions).

Flash! Sparkle! Shine!
Her diamonds caught a glint of sky.
Prisms of sunlight.

Startled.
She looked around to make sure
that the color blue had not escaped
from her front left pocket.
(it had not)

What she had seen was the indigo child
riding a two-wheeled adventure mobile
toward the old river bridge!

Flash! Sparkle! Shine!
Her diamonds caught a glint of sky.
Prisms of sunlight.

She awakened back into quantum roots
gleaned from poems of stardust
(and tragedy).

Following close behind the indigo child,
she through threw the story of diamonds
to the ground.
She liberated the color blue
from her front left pocket

into the dirt behind her they hit
into the dirt behind her they hit

In dirt and wind
she began hearing again
(a cadence of ages)
(a raising of sorts)
she could hear familiar voices
tucked away in those old bridge songs
the ones once sung
of ginger, jasmine, and joy rides

When she arrived at the river,
to embrace the bridge,
99 rascal monkeys began rejoicing.
The final indigo child
was nearly come home.