White Rhinoceros

In the spring there are dogwood trees that blossom. Blossom and wilt thereafter. Their alabaster petals plume outward and spread round and tremble under the wind. April's snowfall. The rains that fall water the roots and they bloom first when it warms. Rain that pounds and hammers; that shears the white foliage away and turns them green. Limbs assimilated to rest of the emerald spectrum that in time fades as well. So swift they come and they go. It's said such brevity calls us to greater appreciation of the here and now. The gift of the day. The hour in which we live, while we live. But it is easy to forget. The seduction of the next moment and the next after, leaving you myopic in their trailing dust. They are a matter of expectation and worry. And behind them are things that pass away irretrievable.

To appreciate the here and now. "Seize the day." That is the challenge, the goal. But there is another side to that coin. When you take the hard look at the temporal, the unstoppable procession of time, it can mire you in despair. The knowledge that everything, every person and place, every coalesced collection of atoms you have ever come across will expire, decay. All of us not built to last. Neither this planet our home nor even the sun that stands its master. It is our arrogance, our willful ignorance to believe it not. So where then can purpose be? In this moment. In this time and this place with these people and the God who has set it all meticulous and just.

But I have squandered it, haven't I. Allowed fear to paralyze me, pride be my manacle. Pushed others away. Returned their tidings with, well, nothing at all. Numb, wordless catatonia like mental illness. Don't touch me. Don't look me in the eyes. I am a rock; I am an island. An endangered animal. It's cadre of perpetual armed guardsmen as protective as my cold stone carapace. But it's not working.

I have longed often to return to the halcyon daze of youth where I in childhood found peace in the simplicity of life. Small in stature, in worry, in doubt. That technicolor Neverland. Innocence the rarest and most fragile virtue. I wept its departure. An old man already at fifteen. But it can't be trusted, not fully. Memory. It is illusion slurred within truth and hope. Bright, manic. What you wished it to be. If I went back I'd rediscover all the fear, the confusion, the petulance and be submerged in it again. And see inside those lurid embers I run from glowering even still.

The best is not behind. Can't be. It's gone and full of ghosts. But oh have I wished to be with them. Among the dead in the land before their dying, before calamities struck and their numbers dwindled to extinction. Erased it. Not all of it pain, but enough. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Forgive my ludicrous and incoherent sobbing. You reconcile all things past, present, future and refine them to gold. Look at what I have. My hands, my eyes, my life. Blood in my veins, breath in my lungs. I have tomorrow, oh God, and I have my choice, whatever difference it makes. Let me hear you in the wind that rattles the leaves, see your justice for the animal poached and plundered. We are each of us endangered and helpless and we can never undo what we have done. Remind me again. That I'd never forget every iota of shame when I screw it up and I'm unappreciative and bleak and I've defeated myself. My selfishness eradicated, my gratitude everlasting.

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