Aw, hell, it's just plain raining. Here it's an entire month's average rainfall in one 24 hour period. In Bastrop, Texas it's raining fire. In Japan it's tsunami again and all over the world a fine mist of oppression comes to buck the faux revolutions that leave lots of people, like women especially, in the dust. It's raining apocalypse? Well, if you're prone to that kind of thinking, then so be it. It's raining pestilence for sure, but it's also raining opportunity. What's the timeline though? When will it start raining wealth? If the end of the world race started with the birth of the Abrahmanic tradition when will the next one begin? I want to register early. Yes, please put me on the list for a new paradigm when it's available, perhaps in white.

Last year I went to a place named Gold Hill in Colorado. Less than six months later it was burning to the ground. Last year I also went to Bastrop. I hiked with a friend who met me in the morning and while we sat in a borrowed kitchen with black and white linoleum tiles and chewed on some slow-cooked oatmeal we talked about death. The day ahead brimmed with promise, the carefree dogs ran circles around us. He mentioned his father's schizophrenia. I hinted at years of flirting with suicide. I would have been an early cutter but never managed to find a sharp enough knife in the house. We joked. We revealed. We went to Bastrop and walked the trails. With such a somber beginning you might imagine we looked sad; but we smiled a lot and played games like the one where we walked in silence. He pointed to fallen loblolly. I pointed to a gorgeously amber rock, suitable for use in one of my art projects. We passed a family greeting us politely. We nodded mutely, laughing later at our poor manners. "Bless their hearts, they must've been a mute couple." are the words we put in their mouths. That day, we were rich and we knew it.

While convoys of gold trounce the Sahara and while I walk around testing the sump pump in the basement I think this must all look a bit interesting from a satellite angle. It's a terrible time for a lot of things, but it's a wonderful time for poetry.  When FEMA runs out of cash I've got a bindle ready in the back. It folds out to a solar charger for all my gadgets.

If you'd like to read more, visit my blog about preparing some prayer flags. If you're an agent, why don't you take me on? I need some money before the frogs come. The big old sky-bound God might not take gold, but everyone else sure does. In the meantime, I've got this amazing rock I picked up in Bastrop. Take it out of my hands and you'll see what I learned in lower Manhattan. Wherever you are, don't get too down. These are poetic times.