Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Something I Wrote a While Ago that has no Title, or Waiting for the Apocalypse

"What did you do while you were waiting for the apocalypse?" is a question I imagine children -- mine, maybe, someone else's -- asking.

"Oh," I might say, "I knitted. I hummed a little to myself. I raked the skins of vegetables, potatoes and carrots, and boiled them sweet. I wrote down everything I did each day and tore the paper into strips and the strips into squares and saved the squares in a box for you, so you could know me but not without seams. Mostly I knitted, binding each moment into an insoluble knot, like a rosary bead, on which thought could catch and recognize itself. I didn't do this for you or me or anyone. I just did it."

What else is there to do while we wait?