Nothing If Not

Caravaggio moved toward the real. It's the light, I think, and a simplification of subject matter (not polysemy, a clutter of symbolic crap). Not unlike Greg Brown singing about common things. Canning beans, or lusting after someone's ankles. For the last decade or so, I've tended to stay on the sidelines, see how things play out, before I say anything. Everyone is sensitive to criticism, it's a given, so you need to be careful about what you say. Usually I don't say anything, the safest route, but occasionally I have to say something, because of a transgression so grievous, and it usually gets me into trouble. People are so sensitive. I wouldn't deal with them at all, but you have to, to keep a foot in the world. I'm the perfect antidote or candidate for being a hermit, only stirring from my tree-tip pit when I needed whiskey or tobacco. Food is easy, I just eat acorns and jam, the occasional roadkill, wild mustard, a flour I make from cat-tail root. And I comment, when things reach a critical mass. When or how the rest of the universe operates, I don't have a clue. I assume some things. A system at play. I understand the theory, but I get no feedback, none. I get three or four messages a week from Kim, otherwise I go for days with only the occasional flyer offering a cut-rate on a cruise, or a pamphlet offering advice about Medicare. A data bank that knows nothing but my age. Most deaths, after 65, are a result of falling. I get it, falling is dangerous, I have places where I anchor my hand, set my nails, other places where I just let go.