ELIOT KATZ
A VISIT TO MULTNOMAH FALLS ON WAY FROM PORTLAND TO SEATTLE
|
Sitting on stone bench looking straight ahead at Lower Falls, water gushing through a big mouth that 12,000 years have carved in mountain rocks— a light spray splashes my spiral notebook's open page. Up above the Lower Falls, a thinner stream flows— this the West Coast's highest falls, with upper half difficult to watch in the noonday sun. In blinding light, it is easy to imagine this very spot as God's water faucet gift to Planet #3— hard to figure why anyone within 500 miles would genetically engineer alterations in the food chain, why anyone would drop cluster bombs, blow up embassies or hospitals, why anyone would murder, rape, expel based on ethnic coincidence. Multiple generations around me smile in awe— whatever looms above the Upper Falls remains hidden this time of sunny day. Perhaps after sundown heaven's astronomical secrets will reveal themselves— perhaps after sundown the generals on both sides will come to their senses— |
MY TWO SENSES
|
NY's mayor pulls the museum's money because he doesn't like Brooklyn's artistic taste. The governor pulls the city's money because he doesn't like its lack of two-car garages. The president pulls the state's money because he doesn't like conservative Republicans or liberal Democrats. The sun doesn't like lying politicians so it's taking back the earth. The universe doesn't like fossil fuels burning so it's putting out the sun. The universe is a big crybaby—I'm pulling its funding tomorrow to start a new one— |