The Peoria Smith Review

More than a week gone by

since I have written

anything, but html, words

encased in <>, each meaning

something, and each a simple

switch, on, off,

to make the letters on the page

look different. Within the <>

instructions to the browser

or to the platform, or to the DOS

I suppose. I simply place them

in order to obtain a result

not unlike any other art,

but art it is, not science.

If it were science, I would

require a lab, when all that

I require is a keyboard and an

imagination. My palette is

a program named GIMP,

an acronym for something

as most programs are, but

I prefer to treat it as my easel

and a never ending source

of color, pattern, texture without

dimension. It is so easy

to be lost in all of it, and

yet, here I sit. Back at this

black metal table, geraniums

still soft and red and bright,

sun dodging clouds as cool

spring breezes cause the pages

of this journal to flip back

and forth, my hands at

work in lifting cup and

cigarette and pen, my thoughts

filled up with poetry and prose

and in consideration of

my life. Less than two months

now, and I will have been

on this planet for sixty years. You

might think someone my age

would be profound or wise or

even content. But I see none

of this in me. My God and I

have made our peace

so long ago, yet still

the questions burn inside

of me. And the answers

are unknown. Since other men

have asked them many times

before me, perhaps they never

will be known. No peace for us,

no peace for me. This life

of observation shows no promise

of revelation, no hope of

consecration, no evidence

of truth. In youth, we see

the problems of the past

and promise to amend them,

but the problems are still here.

When we become adults

our lives are caught up

in the moment, earnings,

possessions, offspring.

No time to think of

promises made long ago.

And as we age, as life

presents the answers, we

are too busy to remember

the questions or the promises,

or youthful quests abandoned

in the search for life abundant.

But what is life? Is life

the simple adding of the moments

from the time when we arrive

until the time we leave? Or is it

more? The clouds now passing

block the sun, the wind once

pleasant turns to chill, and I

have had my fill of depth

this afternoon. This pit of

my descent is time spent

better at the keyboard or

in the darkened space

where I am comfortable, alone

with thoughts converging

on descriptions of the artists

of the cinema. A new review

is due today, a hobby,

an avocation, the slow and steady work

through lists of films

unending. Somehow in the middle of it all

Lies Truth.

Frederick E. Smith

Copyright 05/09/2012

All rights reserved