
Los Momentos Que Pasan
With tremendous care and patience, the boy placed the feather – the one he imagines has come from a mythical bird soaring in another realm – atop the altar of sticks and small stones he has built just next to the path that leads from where he has come and ahead to where he shall go.
On the soft hair at the nape of his neck, he feels the tickle of cool that signals the imminent arrival of a breath of air. The feather half lifts for a moment as the visiting breeze arrives, and in another moment settles back as the quiet guest leaves without a trace.
He feels a moment of reclaimed joy at the continued company of his feather whose journey along the wind he interrupted. In that moment, also grief, for wrapped inside the joy is the emotion that comes as joy fades. The package whose wrapper is colorful and pleasant always contains an empty box.
Nearby, lie stones of altars past – his former creations stitched together to hold their moments of suspended time. After a dozen monuments built just this week, he reflects how little advanced is his work – always so tenuous in its balance; always so dependent on the conditions.
Today the breeze hangs high in the trees, only dropping below for a brief taste of life at the surface. Still, he knows from his week of toils that even the most favorable conditions yield to tumult. The feather’s company will be brief.
He gently lifts the feather back into his palm. Gentle, gentle. The feather is near-weightless in his hand, as he surveys the makeshift monument he carefully erected.
With a probing fingertip, he confirms its suitability to hold a new stone that has caught his eye. Arriving into his world through unseen hands, this stone is flatter than all the rest with a light pink hue seeping through its surface.
‘This will complete it,’ he thinks. ‘A stone worthy of my most precious gift.’ A bed upon which a whole universe may rest it’s weary story.
He slightly shifts the base of the totem in anticipation of the new balance required with this last placement. With a fixed gaze, he guides his hand, steadies his breath, and places the translucent pink rock onto the altar.
He exhales and examines his feather anew. A story comes back to life, and he is again transported.
Without effort or intention, he returns to the rock altar beside the path, a feather still balanced on his palm.
He places the feather into its new home with the luxurious bed. His service to this moment done for neither recognition nor gain, but for the company the moment provides.
He surveys with deep satisfaction his latest creation – an interruption along the path that holds a lifetime of stories.
With the understanding of its weight from the prior encounter, the breeze returns to the surface to find its feather with more gusto. The feather lifts up and tumbles on itself along the path. It is carried into the grass with the eyes of a child following.
The boy looks up ahead on the path.
‘What is for lunch?’ He stands. He goes back down to satisfy this latest curiosity.
