Thirteen Days

XIII

‘…And you may be sure
not one leaf will lift itself
from the ground
and become fast to a twig again.’
—William Carlos Williams The Hunter



Though you may cringe a little,
I have to smirk and giggle at this silly refrain —
Only thirteen days stand between me and an aired-out brain.

Tonight Moon is full. Celebrate Her while we can, woo Her, beg Her. Swear to Her that Sun means nothing to us, that it’s just friendship…that we never meant to let Him come between us.
Strange as it may sound, scientists have learned that Moon is leaving us. The gulf between us widens four centimeters (1.574803148 inches) per year. This may not seem like much, maybe a foot or so in a lifetime. And yet, in cosmic terms this is akin to slamming the front door on the way out…after setting your lover’s favorite clothes on fire.
In a mere 800-900 million years we will be like an estranged couple accidentally crossing paths a party...there will no longer be any complete eclipses.

Do not speak to me of rationalizations, I’ve heard them: the rotation of Earth is exerting torque on Moon. This causes Moon to gain orbital energy, increasing the distance between Earth and Moon.
Cause and Effect, with their grubby little fingers in all the pies, are slowing the rotation of Earth by 1.5 milliseconds per century. Like saying She always stole the covers, this act of quantifying and explaining is nothing more than sullen grief over a bad break-up. How long until, drunk and maudlin, we start calling Moon in the middle of the night and hanging up. Deep in the heart of every sycophant of science lies a refusal to accept that we are not the sentient center of the universe.

Yet we who trust Her, who bathe in Her light, we know of loss and broken things; we know of solace found in the ebb and flow of her cycles. We know that endings are beginnings.
She is not really leaving us, She is leading the way. Shall we follow?

There are two hundred and forty shards of Albert Einstein’s brain scattered around the planet. And the deranged Dr. Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who cut it out (the mangy cur, the cowardly butcher) did it against the wishes of the great Brain Bard. True, this is in some dispute; his son Hans gave permission, but only after Dr. Frankenharvey had injected a 10% solution of formalin through Albert's internal carotid arteries and then caged his intact brain in a jar of even more formalin. He photographed it, dissected it into 10cm. cubes and preserved them in celloidin. Whereupon he set out to find someone to unlock its secrets. He circled the globe, cooled his heels on the doorsteps of countless scientists. He had a few takers but never the jackpot he had hoped for. What followed instead was indignity piled on indignity, at some point Dr. Diabolic hid the relic behind a beer cooler after he could find no one to study it. In 1978, after twenty years, it was rediscovered in some mason jars hidden in a cider box. Today Einstein’s brain is kept at Princeton University, waiting for liberation.

Our Prometheus, reduced to jars of grim preserves.
He deserved better.
We all do. Yet while I despise Frankenharvey, I understand his desire. How much of me, how much of the Dawn I know, resides in my cranial coral reef? Is there a chance Horrible Harvey could have ferreted out the genius of Einstein from the brain itself?

There is a good chance Dr. Green will want to take a small piece of my brain out, back in the area called the reptile brain, if he feels the dura patch isn’t enough.
(Are you ready for this symbol? They call it Electro-cauterization) If he does take a chunk out, what branch of my reptile ancestry will burn away with it?
But then again, do I really want to be in touch with my inner reptile?

I wonder if I will dream while I am under anesthesia.
In thirteen days will I dream of lizards?

—End Transmission—
Dawn McKenzie