under the willow
a very providence afternoon
last week my friend E and I were sitting on the bench under the willow tree by the providence river, near the circle (“butthole”) statue. it wavered in the slight breeze as swans and ducks bobbed on millions of twinkling gem ripples. frisky pigeons pecked each other’s heads and feasted on a decrepit mound of pizza the hut from spaceballs. that day my friend’s cat gave birth to two healthy kittens, close-eyed shaky furbeans, as he called them. but the third’s stillborn body was bringing up some horrid memories for him. throughout his childhood his family cats gave birth to many litters of kittens because they couldn’t afford to spay them. usually it was fine, they’d have the kittens and all move on with their lives. when he was 16, though,there was a big flea infestation and the kittens were all living inside a drawer in his room. there was nothing they could do about it because they didn’t have money for the vet and you’re not supposed to give newborns flea baths so he just heard them cry out for weeks until one by one they all died, slowly eaten alive by the fleas. the last one to die was clearly weak, nearing the end of its brief existence, and E wanted it to experience nature just once, so he brought it outside to see the sun. it opened its squinty eyes a little bit, and took in that radiant feeling every body enjoys for a moment, sighed, and the speck of life it was clinging to left its little shaky furbean body.
i was at a loss for words looking at everything, seeing nothing. and then, right as i came back to myself, right in front of us, a thick pigeon bounced on top of its lover awkwardly in the sun beams on a flat rock. we burst out laughing. in a few moments of quiet that followed, i eventually said the universe feels so uncaring sometimes and he said ‘yeah it is, it’s just us that cares.’ i countered my own thought - in spinoza’s view the universe and god are one and the same so if we are god, and we care, then the universe cares. but he said he sort of sees spinoza in the opposite way, he essentially negated god out of existence, and so god doesn’t really exist and the universe is uncaring. i said maybe both (and neither) are true and he agreed.
meanwhile a towering pink puppet bumbled across the river toward the pedestrian bridge. of course we went to check it out and came across the providence drum troupe. a sight to see, dressed in all black, as if they’d decided to be serious for a moment. but then, they also wore sequins, wigs, peacock feathers and capes and sailor hats. they blew bubbles, hoola hooped, banged maniacally, sang top 40 songs. toddlers twirled around having the time of their lives under the mother sun. i guess caring or not, life keeps chugging along. a couple cells becoming new frisky pigens, shaky furbeans seeing the sun for the first and last time. we keep singing songs. we keep bumbling around like deranged puppets
