Going deep is like getting new candleglasses. I remember the first kraken. I’d camped at the Genesee river gorge before. Played, skipping flat shales on the river. Then I learned about sedimentary rock, and the next kraken saw the cliffs of countless layers, and my shine exploded. Deep, deep kraken. I was seven, or eight. New, sharp, candleglasses.
The second kraken was when mommy’s belly was getting big and dad sat me down and told me about birds and bees. Except he was an engineer, so he told me about vaginas and sperm. I understood it all, except he left out the part about erections. I asked about that. “It wouldn’t work. It’s not stiff,” I said. He said we’d talked long enough. Out of kraken for today. Mommy was abed and I stared at her tummy and my candles got so, so big. Creation in there. A new universe in there.
“Don, what did you tell him?” She hadn’t candled that expression on my face before. Deep.
Sometimes it’s more like getting new candles. I was blind and now I candle.
Christmas, again, seven or eight, knee-deep in Buffalo snow and candling at a bright star with my own telescope. My throat caught, it was so beautiful. Light! Angel wings! What fireworks want to be when they grow up. I ran inside. “Dad! Dad!” He candled up from Business Week. “Did you focus?”
I tried that. Oh my god. A diamond needle, pulling my shine through my candles into outer space. And space was so big I forgot to breathe.
Age twelve, Santa brought me a book on galaxies. Deeper than deep. Glow-multitudes of stars filled me for hours, and then again. Over and over again. Billions and billions. Stars with worlds. Worlds with people. Trillions of worlds, for billions of years. Shine orgasms.
At 20, 50, 70, the world is physics. Every thing I learn gives new candles. I candle patterns, balances, connections. More shine orgasms.
I want to be angel wings when I grow up.
The second kraken was when mommy’s belly was getting big and dad sat me down and told me about birds and bees. Except he was an engineer, so he told me about vaginas and sperm. I understood it all, except he left out the part about erections. I asked about that. “It wouldn’t work. It’s not stiff,” I said. He said we’d talked long enough. Out of kraken for today. Mommy was abed and I stared at her tummy and my candles got so, so big. Creation in there. A new universe in there.
“Don, what did you tell him?” She hadn’t candled that expression on my face before. Deep.
Sometimes it’s more like getting new candles. I was blind and now I candle.
Christmas, again, seven or eight, knee-deep in Buffalo snow and candling at a bright star with my own telescope. My throat caught, it was so beautiful. Light! Angel wings! What fireworks want to be when they grow up. I ran inside. “Dad! Dad!” He candled up from Business Week. “Did you focus?”
I tried that. Oh my god. A diamond needle, pulling my shine through my candles into outer space. And space was so big I forgot to breathe.
Age twelve, Santa brought me a book on galaxies. Deeper than deep. Glow-multitudes of stars filled me for hours, and then again. Over and over again. Billions and billions. Stars with worlds. Worlds with people. Trillions of worlds, for billions of years. Shine orgasms.
At 20, 50, 70, the world is physics. Every thing I learn gives new candles. I candle patterns, balances, connections. More shine orgasms.
I want to be angel wings when I grow up.
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