Consider the White Bucket*

The idea of it is odd at best. Round, hollow bucket of air and plastic, a flat bottom with a ridge on one side and lidless nothingness on the other. The belly, like some parody of starvation, like the open mouth of a baby hippo waiting for something more. A plain poem in three dimension only upside down simplicity. I tried to play a stick on it one time once between my heels, back slouched over, tongue squeezed between my teeth like Michael in the air. I become an unheard of contradiction: a monkey in Juliard. Ah, but for all that, we find evidence of the bucket soul in the most unlikely places. Once at a subway stop, deep beneath the city, a dred-locked sweaty drummer sat at my stop and played the rhythm of the soul of life, love, and passion. His spirit beat forth through all of the cliches. It seemed like the bucket had life and breath and heart beats. It walked with me, danced with men in tribal elegance, gave time a pace to click with, passed the air by into the dark urban jungle. For a moment we all lived in time- the whole station: the patrons waiting for the El, the newspaper man dozing in the corner, the rats in the corner, the rails and tiles leading our descent. Everything was pure and rhythmically suspended like the second hand about to move but hesitates marking time.