The Poetry of the Air
The poetry of the air, the music of movement, the swaying in a gentle breeze, and all the willing suspension of disbelief we call the hammock. That cradle of bliss in which we compose our hearts and minds and decompose our stresses and strains. There is the sonnet and the rhyme, just to enjoy that quiet bliss of the dolce far niente, the sweet doing nothing.
Where have we gotten to in all this bustle and striving and power if all we can do is more and more and more? If prosperity is peace and peace is prosperity is happiness, how would we spend that fair coin of the realm more effectively than in the gentle embrace of the hanging lover? The hand of God reaches out and suspends us between Heaven and Earth, that place where the soul’s repose is the joyful singing of the angels of mercy, the drop of rain in the arid soil, the ray of light piercing the darkness.
Rejoice my soul and be glad because my hammock is at hand, the wolves are at bay, and time is on my side while timelessness surrounds me. Susurrations of the ambient field melt into the primal hum of creation as I drift from world to world unimpeded by mass or care. Bring me a plum, a sip of Jove’s nectar. Bring me a peach which I dare to eat whether or not I hear the mermaids singing each to each. In my hammock I am the traveler through time and space at once now and forever, here in this moment and at the world’s threshold of eternity. Sway me again, Sam, I hear the gentle music of this world and far off worlds now here within me. I think I’ll take a nap.
Poetry in motion, and all that I adore, bring me to the present on this far distant shore.
Were it to be that I must leave mi hamaca and set foot once more upon the solid ground would this too too solid flesh melt in the remembrance of things past? Or would I bring with me this taste of the peace which passeth all understanding? Ponderings only, as I have no intention to leave this cocoon of renewal, only to continue to hang suspended, careless of the world, and fed within by the eternal breath of life.
The poetry of the air is the poetry of the hammock. The ramblings of the hammock man like the baying of hounds at moonrise forever circle the campfire of the inner peace and sanctity of the soul. Suspended between Heaven and Earth in the Hand of God I am nurtured. I am at home. I am in my hammock.
