You Know

Easy world, you gave it once–

please quietly welcome it back,

that hand.

–William Stafford, from “Going On”

…what is it we are all doing, what is it we are about, pray tell? And why are we gathered here?

–Raymond Carver, “All My Relations”

What the hell do we want? What is our heart’s desire? What are all the dreams we still cling to as realistic and attainable? These, of course, as opposed to those we still harbor as old scars from the people we once hoped we would be and the lives we imagined ourselves living.

For some of us, those old scars –the remnants of exploded dreams and ideals– have left us hobbled and hunchbacked. Still, though we may never be astronauts or artists or pop singers, there are still things we desperately want. We are not finished with desire. Those who would claim to be –and I don’t give a rat’s ass if they consider themselves Buddhists or burnouts– have left themselves for dead. They have shut their eyes. Or they are liars. They may have no waking recollection, but they still dream they are flying. They still climb ladders into the clouds and revisit magic sanctuaries they long ago tried to convince themselves didn’t exist. In their dreams they still feel the consoling touch of human hands.

Such people have forgotten that invisibility was once upon a time a wondrous fantasy rather than a modern malaise, that it was a gift that allowed those to whom it was bestowed the opportunity to see the world and their place in it with absolute clarity. Now, though, it is an easy trick to pull off, an affliction from which we pray –if we are still able to pray– to be delivered.

We may want many things, but what we desperately want is to be seen, and once seen to be recognized; once recognized to be heard, and once heard to be known.