Wednesday Outside Kroeber Hall, Berkeley

Even though he just sits on a bench from who-knows-how-early til 10AM outside Kroeber Hall every single morning and just yells “Bah” – irregularly – or, roughly every 5 seconds – his mind floats in the same stream as all the school.

The school is full of minnows. Each one speeds forward. Together they form a tornado.

Most of us don’t yell “Bah!”

Most of us feel superior

     to anyone that yells “Bah!”

     or anyone that might have something like that to say..

     . . . don’t stop in the middle of the flight of minnows,

     find a bench,

     realize that its sunny! –

     just outside,

     up there above the folding water surface.

Why not just yell “Bah!”?

I remember fishy mornings,

flopping in the sea at the wave’s break

     loving how loud it was,

loving the crash and shatter –

the sea was never shy,

     we all swam and surfed and played in it.

We’ve always been the fish

     listening to the beautiful babbles,

     giggling and filled with salt and joy.

When we grew up we had to move away,

and we took some of the babbles with us,

     stored in our waterlogged chest.

It filled us with the wisdom that not everything had to be thought out, so true,

as long as it came from joy,

from a lexicon so fabulous,

     that only the ocean knew.

He sits on the bench and swims with us.

He may have grown up by the sea,

sitting on the beach, giggling.

When he was three or four or twenty-five,

maybe he was so happy,

maybe he had to leave,

maybe he’s sad,

maybe he loves his beach,

maybe it feels like the sand.

Image: Memorial Glade at University of California Berkeley. Lucas Almássy, 2016. Acrylic on canvas.