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Onion Ring
Reception is bad on the languid TV hung precariously in this dusty diner on route 73.
I'm on the journey alone on family business.
My radiator was rattling, so I stopped for needed water and breakfast
The smell of grease in dust gave me little comfort in this rat trap I'm stuck in. When I finally got my plate there was a fly baked into my muffin
So in distraction, I looked at the news between the static of the war in Iraq, children going missing, and assorted calamities from coast to coast,
and call the waitress with the mole on her cheek and just ordered some dry toast
Just for a break from the politics and hate, to a fellow patron of undetermined age
I ignore the bug leg sticking out of his muffin and as he turns a page
Hot day where having, I said hearing the mumble as it came out of my mouth.
He turned slowly and said “yep”, and I could tell he was from some part of the south.
“What do you think of that Airport scare?”, I asked to continue conversation,
‘cause being that it is too hot to drive and I might be here for short duration
A voice, brown and warm like his eyes, he spoke not looking at me.
I find the day fine and everything is as it should be
Smiling, I nodded and turn back to my host.
She was pouring more coffee, then his words sunk in, and I dropped my dry toast
I would swear the bulbs in the diner just dimmed or perhaps I just had a slight stroke.
Then I realized I was having an adverse reaction to the phrase he just spoke
I felt my eyes clench, vision narrowing to a laser beam.
Shaking my head to clear my vision and softened my face knowing what he said was not what it seemed
So what you mean, if that today is bright and the weather is clear,
despite the terrorist reaction and all of the fear?
No sir, that was nothing like what was in my head. I mean when I say and I said what I said
Suddenly like my father, I felt my hand move to my hip;
the furrowing of the brow and the chewing of the lip.
Yelling impending, I think how not to sound shrill,
to modulate my tone so it would not sound as harsh as it will.
So you mean to tell me that this is all fine and dandy,
with wars, and terrorist, and men luring babies with candy.
Yep, and though you're turning red,
I mean what I say and I said what I said.
You mean to tell me with a straight face
that all is fine when women are persecuted and people are judged because of their race?
Yep, and soon you'll get it straight in your head
that I mean what I say and I said what I said.
Well at that, you must know that my head was swimming.
There was steaming, there was pressure, and I kept on playing his words back from the beginning.
How could someone be so callous and selfish, not to feel the pain in all of this,
cause I'm sure that most people would say, if you asked it,
that the world is going save to hell in a hand basket.
One at this Point I could take no more,
so I paid my tab, and without looking at any one walk quietly out of the door.
Whether my radiator was ready or not,
if the only other choice was listening to that fool, I'd rather stall on the desert highway and rot.
In the diner, all the patrons were smirking in the same way,
and turn their eyes slightly as my tires screeched and I tore down the highway.
The old southern gentleman that I have named a fool
grabbed his cane and put on his hat and tilted the brim just to be cool.
Nodding to everyone, he walked slowly to the door.
Heading off at sunset as he is done 100 times before, but before he could get across the floor…
The waitress looks up and shakes her head
at me lurching back through the door all beat-faced and red.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the other patrons pointing and one woman yelling for everyone to shoosh,
and I've looked this old man straight in the eye and said “what about George Bush!”.
There was a communal gasp, then silence, and I heard a knife fall,
and for a moment the old eyes held thought, then hesitation, then nothing at all.
He looked down on the floor as if in meditation,
as I hovered breathless above the brim of his brown hat in anticipation.
Then as he looked up with a smirk I knew he was only being theatrical
and I suddenly felt like a bird the cat just killed
He is all that he should be and more.
There's no greater example of “out of touch” to mind the store.
When he was elected, I knew he was there so that in simple terms we could see
how far away from the center and oneness the right wing could be.
Look it you so pale he said, you are a fun one.”
Come move with me to the counter” he said as he asked the waitress for an onion.
He steadied his hand but some troubling lingered.
I would sure he was sliced the onion and lob off a finger.
He cuts the onion in hand exposing the striation,
and my eyes begin to water not from onion but from frustration.
He sliced a thin slice across, and then separated the other pieces, and held just one ring in the air.
He looked at it with all intensity, while I wondered why I should care.
The universe, my friend, is like an onion, and it is as old as I am un-young
We experienced only one slice of this ring at a time even though all of it exist in the line,
this is all we can perceive with a three dimensional mind
And a new layer is created from every new choice or decision.
Every possibility results in a division
just as one can exist on a ring closer to the center where all is loving and knowing of the oneness,
some are further from the center a place of unknowing where men are done in
But it takes all of the layers to create the onion
We make decisions every day,
not realizing we make another reality along the way
We are the universe of infinite possibilities,
but together we narrow that down to the reality we can see.
What we believe, we calls to manifest,
and those perceived as victims manifest like all the rest.
One day all must learn,
but from oneness we have come, in oneness we yet are, and to oneness we will return
We know so much, but the more we know the more we come to know unity.
In this they will know that everything is part of the I that is we
They will know that we're here to explore all possibilities and that all is as it should be
Only then will it be realized that all that is fought and killed over is but a sham
and that all that really is,…
… Is I am.
“You need that onion or I can put it on a steak”,
the cook taunts through the window as I contemplate an onion, this universe on a plate.
The mole of the waitress is now a beauty mark showing that I'm not seeing with the same eyes that I came here with earlier today.
Maybe, I got more than my radiator filled and fixed and can continue on my journey looking at the world in a new way
Now I can tell my grandchildren before I put them to bed,
that I learned one of my greatest lessons from a black man with an onion, who means what he says and said what he said
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