"what kind of clown am i?
what do i know of life?
why can't i cast away the mask of play
and live my life?
why can't i fall in love
till i don't give a damn
and maybe then i'll know what kind of fool i am . ."
from sammy davis jr's song "what kind of fool am i?"
april first and i woke up to snow on the lawn. it's another happy fools' day.
here's to the jest and the jester. the trickster and tricked. just for today, i don't care if i'm fooled . .if i'm misled into thinking that it's winter approaching here when the buds on the lilac bushes are bursting open. if it's january again instead of april . .go on . .let time be scrambled. let everything fall where it lands. i'm twenty-seven this morning. or twenty-eight. my chin is broken out. i'm hopping along the belmont rocks in chicago and dawn is wearing her black crepe cape. she's taking photographs and the wind is blowing and the waves pound hard against the surface of the jetty. there is a bird nest that has fallen out of the bare oak tree. it's filled with a pebbly white dust . . is it something like snow? and when we look out toward the lake's horizon it seems to go on forever. everything seems boundless. only the moment matters. there is nothing else but that rarefied air that we keep breathing in, through gulps of laughter, and the space and time we are so bound up in.
today . .just for today. i don't care if i'm fooled.
