poem about a pleasureable experience |
One of my favorite things to do is walk across the pedestrian bridge and down through the park by the river. You start out on the bridge with the wood planking scuffing under your shoes. As you walk along picking up speed, a fluttering of pigeons' wings, startled in the ironwork as you pass under them. The cars on the adjacent bridge crossing the expanded metal grating pass with a humming kind of moan. Then you hear the first of the sounds of the fountain... kinda splashing, slapping water on wet concrete... and the the thud of bare feet as the kids run and squeal with laughter as they play. The vague and faraway sounds of the caliope plays as the horses turn and plunge in an endless circle of the merry go round. Someone pounding a tinny beat on the metal sculptures... and I am carried far away from the stress and cares of my life... In my mind I am in Indonesia, and the Gamelan plays the eternally mysterious sounds of that place and time for me... The metallophone drums of the Kecapi Sulung in subtle counterpoint to the gongs and bamboo flutes that you can never get out of your head once you've heard it... and yet can't really describe. The smells of Sambal and Satay mix with the exhaust of motorbikes as the street hawkers clamor for your business. At the edge of everything is the jungle... dark shadows within the world of brightly lit canopy... and the riot of green tries to reclaim what we have hacked and cleared for our existence. Always nibbling at the edges of our world, never letting us get too comfortable... Back on the bridge I round the turn and down the steps towards the river below. The smell of the wet, fishy rot reminds me even more of that place as the heat and humidity hangs in the air.. And all around is the laughter of small children as they play in the fountain with the sound of the water on the wet concrete, the hum of the cars on the bridge, the caliopes' faraway melody, and my own heartbeat thumping away at my temples. |