Upside Down Kris

  Animal Compassion It wasn't the man with the gaping mouth and bulging eyes that drew me in. No, it was the dog shouting, trying to save him. He had the courage the size of a  St. Bernard bursting out of a compact, ivory Benji. You could see that the Benji look-alike was a sweet boy. His owner and his owner's friend bent down often to pet him and convince him that everything was o.k. But he knew that everything was not o.k. There was a man being pulled on a leash, his body and face writhing. The dog, too, was on a leash–albeit held by a loving hand. Maybe he would have run into the scene if he was free–barking at the aggressor, perhaps even biting him. But his owner kept him close, a calming hand on his head or back. But Benji was no fool. He felt the pain of the man being treated like an overworked mule. That's what the amazing thing was: he was trying to stop someone else's pain.  Anyone who says animals are not sentient beings has never truly observed them. Animals ...

Insiders and Outsiders He looked up after fumbling through a bag and smiled as he handed her a cigarette. Nothing remarkable, you might say. It was the smile that got me   - a nd the purple glasses-neither of which I had seen him wearing before.  She was disheveled–her hair frizzing around her head and crowding her back, badly in need of a kneading of her knots. He seemed better kempt than she was, his locks shiningly clean like they usually were. Maybe it was their bodies that showed their "sameness"-her belly protruding from under her fuchsia t-shirt in an untucked fashion, his swollen ankles sticking out from the borders of his too-short pants.  Maybe they also shared colors. I had seen him in pinks and violets, although usually more pastel than his friend's shirt. But still, something was connecting them, hence the grin that I had never seen him direct at anyone, not even the child who had stopped to say hello one day. Maybe they were both beggars or druggies. They se...

The Edge of the Sea Looking out at the outline of the sea in the dark, you could swear that the edge of the world is visible.  An inkiness sops up the sea, coloring it night and confusing it with the sky. The end of the world is clear–a white break in the opaque–and is so near, as near as it could possibly be. You could be sure of it, swear that you know where the margin is if you didn't know the truth of day...that once, nearly a year ago, you broke through the breaking point. You swam into it, fearing your breath or your legs wouldn't last until you truly tested the limits. But there you were–being helped onto the rocks by the hand of an elderly man who had reached the border between sky and land out of curiosity. And in trepidation you stepped onto the slipperiness to see the end. But what you saw was the beginning: the launch pad of another sea. The water lept from the rocks and pushed off into the vastness, vast itself. And it made you wonder: where did the source of the s...

Blank Curtains   The shimmery curtain sashayed its stuff, swaying evocatively on the light breeze whispering from the window. It swishes, then delicately folds again, dancing with feminine movements that her partner lacks. The other half of the curtain is stuck in the corner, standing stagnantly by the closed side of a window. Morning and noon are juxtaposing each other, fusing their essence together in the lazy beginning of afternoon. Murmurings from outside filter through the thin, gauzy drapes dropped in front of a thin slit in the window's rib. Where does Sunday go–this Sunday and all the others with little (or too much) to do? They get sucked into the fan in front of us, new or not. The day goes 'round and 'round on the gray propellers. They go slow enough that I become entranced by the rhythm, yet they are a blur, just like the other Sundays of this month.  I get pulled in by pure fascination of its movements, but let's not forget the fan provides coolness, a resp...

Who's Got Mail? "Letters are tumbling into her wide bag," I hear my brain comment.  Wait a minute! What was she doing with that cascade of envelopes?  I stop in my tracks, my shopping bag slopping from my shoulder and onto my forearm.  "She is a postwoman collecting mail from the mailbox," my brain explains.  I had never noticed that box before: or rather, I had seen the royal blue rectangles around the city but had never recognized the symbol on the front that stood for post (a crown over what looks like Aladdin's lamp).   I had never really paid attention although I pass one almost every day. Isn't it interesting that something may be there all the time, but we don't see it? Maybe even more fascinating is the day we notice it. What makes us finally focus our attention on the something? Or clears away whatever was blocking our vision? Or makes us look up, opposite to what we normally did at that point in the street/country/ city? It was the movement...

Feed the Birds "Feed the birds, tuppence a bag..." Do you remember that poignant scene from Mary Poppins in which the elderly woman is feeding the birds in front of the cathedral? Sometimes when I see a flock of pigeons in the square that scene pops into my brain.  It was no different this morning. "Feed the birds..." was playing in my head as if I were watching the movie again. Only the main character was a man, one with dark skin. He was sitting on a bench in front of the cathedral, reaching inside a plastic bag for birdseed. (It actually looked a lot like dry oatmeal. Maybe it was.) Pigeons–gray, blue, light brown–flocked around him and landed on the bench behind him or beside him. Immediately , my eyes welled up. Was it because the scene reminded me of my favorite childhood movie? Maybe. But there was more to it. There was something pure, something genuine in the feeding of the birds that Mary Poppins had understood. And the fact that this man–like the bird woma...