Someone removes the horses and unicorns
\nand stations the carousel in a hotel lobby.
\nBarstools mark the wheel\u2019s perimeter
\nso you can still go for a ride, watching
\nthe room orbit slowly around you and
\nthe other raw languid girls likewise drinking
\nmartinis on a Thursday afternoon. It takes
\nless time to finish a drink than it does
\na revolution, so a rush is never the goal.
\nYou are there to catch up with an old
\nlover, who twists his wedding ring about
\nhis finger much as the bar spins on its slow
\nmechanical axis. \u201cI never imagined myself
\nsettled and content,\u201d he tells you. \u201cI thought
\nI\u2019d be a seeker, a solitary knower, traveling
\nan austere, lonely path, burdened only by my
\ncuriosity and the ignorance I wanted to shed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, the seeker, the solitary knower
\nis you. What you know are not answers
\nbut questions, with a familiarity and
\nintimacy no lover has ever matched. You
\nstroke and caress and croon to them, and at
\ntimes they nestle contentedly beside you,
\nrelaxing into the silence that underlies
\ntheir breathing, and yours. They are endlessly
\npliant and can be posed like docile models
\nbefore an agitated painter, but they remain
\na comment on the mystery, not the mystery itself.<\/p>\n
The questions begin to speak to you in and of
\na language you can understand but not voice,
\nlike a child who recognizes but cannot say
\nher own name. You marshal all you know
\nof espionage, spying on the questions when
\nthey think they\u2019re alone, hoping for a moment
\nof unguarded candor when they discuss in vivid
\nspecific detail the answers they surely protect.
\nThe moment never comes, so you take them
\nto that rotating bar and buy them drink after
\ntongue-loosening drink, but they speak only
\nof themselves and this encrypted language
\nfluency in which eludes you. You look down
\nat your empty glass then up at the bartender as
\nyou complete another orbit around a static room.<\/p>\n
One day you realize questions are not
\nwhat hold you but the hold itself. You\u2019re
\nin orbit but you don\u2019t know around what.
\nWhat you know is the gravity, not
\nthe remote object but its immediate power,
\nits pull, its immense manifest weight,
\nthe seriousness of a distant force you
\nwill eternally circle but never approach
\nor touch or know or escape, while your
\nonly hope of solace or enlightenment is
\na rhythmic occasional encounter
\nwith another mute confused body
\nspiraling in the same ineluctable pull.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Someone removes the horses and unicorns and stations the carousel in a hotel lobby. Barstools mark the wheel\u2019s perimeter so you can still go for a ride, watching the room orbit slowly around you and the other raw languid girls likewise drinking martinis on a Thursday afternoon. It takes less time to finish a drink…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"issuem_issue":[1847],"issuem_issue_categories":[20],"issuem_issue_tags":[544,128,2005,2003,1131],"class_list":["post-5708","article","type-article","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","issuem_issue-issue64","issuem_issue_categories-poetry","issuem_issue_tags-burden","issuem_issue_tags-change","issuem_issue_tags-crowd","issuem_issue_tags-holly-welker","issuem_issue_tags-seeking"],"yoast_head":"\n