Interrupted Meditation

Little green involute fronds of fern at creekside. And the sinewy clear water rushing over creekstone of the palest amber, veined with a darker gold, thinnest lines of gold rivering through the amber like—ah, now we come to it.We were not put on earth, the old man said, he was hacking into the crust of a sourdough half loaf in his vehement, impatient way with an old horn-handled knife,to express ourselves. I knew he had seen whole cities leveled: also that there had been a time of shame for him, outskirts of a ruined town, half Baroque, half Greek Revival, pediments of Flora and Hygeia from a brief eighteenth-century health spa boom lying on the streets in broken chunks and dogs scavenging among them. His one act of courage then had been to drop pieces of bread or chocolate, as others did, where a fugitive family of Jews was rumored to be hiding.I never raised my voice, of course, none of us did.