Veg or Non-Veg, That Is the Question?

Little cobwebs are falling through the rusty engine gears of a chipped red paint plane, rested on a 300 meter patched dirt-and-grass runway with little dandelions popping up between little rocks. And big strong oak trees stand by the side of the dirt, holding the ground safe from winds that used to toss and turn and bring sharp glassy raindrops, chipping paint off the little red plane.

And throughout the patchwork runway, surrounding pockets of blooming dandelions, are pads of grass that unfold themselves daily after the motor wind signals that always came before an hour of being flattened. And a bug-eyed man in all leather would wander about and spill some drink on the dandelions, and the crows would fly back in and populate the tree branches and drop droppings on the leather hat bobbing about like a coyote.

Underground the ants would be so confused and send out so many pheremones and scurry like white noise or cotton balls loose in the air.

And the red plane radio would play –

     “Aaaand when them cotton balls get rotten,

         You can’t pick very much cotton!”

And he would spill some chicken tandoori on his leather vest and have salt on mustache.

     And on a next-door fielded stoney graveyard, where plants grow where you think they shouldn’t, the weeds are padded flat by footsteps. By a little rock in the family home his ashram is never alone. It always smells like lavender and frankincense and burfi and halva. A coin that fell out of his tan cotton pockets hasn’t been found under curling pads of grass.

     And so the soft padded grass (where the red paint plane flew to a dream from the mingling morning spices) is still unfolding.

Image: Red Biplane, Dennis Ziemienski. Oil on canvas.