hot bird tea

Weekend was delightful. Using that word makes me feel like a 19th-century British school teacher. Just delightful. Tea? Erect pinky and sip.

Tea is recurrent. I read the first page of two novels last week to see which one I wanted to read. Tea was in the first page of each. Saturday I happened upon Alice in Wonderland and carved into a plate in front of her was a line about tea. Tea?

The weekend was delightful because it involved a series of unplanned events. My plans to explore Central Park after work were knotted into nothingness by traffic and demon heat. By the time I reached the place I was half-naked at dusk, and my friend who lives nearby was absent from the planet.

Before I headed home, travel fervor unrequited, A called and asked me to visit DJs on the Hudson River with her. Eating alfalfa sprouts and avocado all the way, I met her riverside. We drank circus beer and dallied with dancers. Her friend J appeared.

A little tipsy with newness and beer I effervesced about poetry and The Little Prince, demanding that both A and J read it, and lamented my failed exploration of Central Park. We left and I met K and cohorts at a bar that served 32 oz beers and rum-n-cokes to go. There was pool and a beard and a girl who didn’t want a beard.

Saturday was hot. After visiting the Whitney Museum upon the kind push of T, I returned to Central Park, where Alice in Wonderland appeared before me. If ever I have kids I will read the Alice books to them early on, womb-time and after.

Walking on, a man on a bicycle begged me to buy poems. I kept my sunglasses intact and thanked him no. Twice. I happened upon Belvedere Castle, then the Shakespeare garden, where quotes from the plays sit in the foliage. I sat on a bench outside the Swedish cottage and began a book of tea.

Then to Strawberry Fields. Guitar and dollars and flowers in my eyes and noggin, I turned around and there was J, A’s friend whom I had met the night before.

Coincidence and Kunderan birds. Used to, I put much into the collisions and intersections. Now not so much. Either I’ve lost magic and romantic whimsy or I've gained discretion in interpreting subtlety in sign and symbol. Or, as always, something in between.

Whatever the case, the case now is sound, i.e., less bloated: always there is sign and symbol in recurrence, but not every red bird means gold-pot paradise; nor black bird, death.