There are some questions that tapdance a figure-eight around my head, and this is one of them. Of course, it’s not in me to give out the question like the sun gives out light: the question seems more important than the answer.

The answer is a road, and how to travel it. Which is, in itself, more a question than anything else. If a road, then how to walk?

The answer is also a bird, and how to sing. The questionable science of minor keys always enters here, but that’s hardly the point. Once again, the science is not the answer to the story’s question; and whether or not our narrative is biography or fiction hardly enters into the equation.

Yet, the answer is wine going sour in a bottle. Somehow, this reminds me of a ship. Wine was meant for the stomach, and a ship for tongue and stomach of an ocean by degrees. But whether the wine goes sour or not isn’t my concern, or yours. We drink and are happy and sad by degrees. We see, we hear, and it brings us to both the sun giving out light or a question in the dark. Again, by degrees.

The answer, finally, is a fig tree. It flowers in the oddest of seasons and bears fruit when it shouldn’t. The axe is always laid at its root, but the axe is held by a woman, or a man. Either will do, because she is he and is both.

I lied, because the answer is another thing, or ten. It’s that thing you hold tighter, but that - like oil - slips between your fingers and runs to a thirsty earth. It’s that bird you let go, only to see it returning later with an olive branch or bright future in its beak. It’s when to sow, and when to reap. But more than that, it is more.

Tags: personal