So that's sort of a boastful poem in which the poet has
managed to find this moment.
But this is-- in this poem, the poet
encounters a whole level of removal
from the flow of time that is far,
far beyond his own capacity.
It's called In The Kingdom.
Once in a great while, I come upon them inhabitants
of the kingdom of the leisurely like the two
I happened upon last week at the museum standing in front
of a painting by Van Gogh.
A woman in her early 30s and a boy about 10
dressed in local garments and speaking softly
with local inflections who revealed no sign of the kingdom
that they were from until I made a circuit of the big room in 20
minutes and met them again just where I left them.
There they stood in front of the drinkers,
a painting of three men standing at a table set out in a field.
Each tilting back black a glass of wine
while the child off to the side, barely as tall as a table
drank from a glass of milk he held with both hands.
Unnoticed, I stood behind them and listened
is the woman gently posed questions as if half to herself
and the boy, son or nephew or young disciple, I couldn't say,
answered eagerly as best he could.
Do the men looked the same age or different?
Would you say there are three men or one man
at different times of his life?
And is the child, do you think his son or the boy
that the man once was decades before?
And I seem to know where her questions were heading.
Soon she would ask if anyone in the painting
looked as if his thirst was being satisfied.
And if not, can we guess the cause.
And then the question would come,
what do we really thirst for and how should we
look for it and where?
All I needed to do it seemed was wait
and she, though half my age, would lead me
along the path that ended in revelation.
Assuming the concept of path was appropriate for a kingdom
of a leisurely.
Maybe this conversation for them wasn't a wayside marker
but an instance of what they saw.
Maybe while they were talking, they
were strolling down to the beach to gather seaweed
or already returning to make a broth I was welcome to share.
Too bad I had an appointment in half an hour
in the kingdom of the busy and couldn't stay.