Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, 2008
In mottled cotton, shambling toe-heel, toe-heel,Bass-ackwardsWith Zen concentration and breathing down the neckOf the square’sPath, sinking under the shards of bruised boneTea- stainedPetals: coral and salmon, mauve and plum, aubergeFleshy pulp,And crushed beneath him were the skins and juices of whatHad-been-so-lovely.
Let us begin at the beginning with a man:Mr. Chan,In red terry-cloth armbands, perambulating backwardPosturesDiscrete as stills of a film. Thus, in Rittenhouse every day,CellsRewind, muscles, the rectus femoris–say–habitually relaxed,Tense.They say: backward motion unravels neuro-pathways readymadeForgedAfter punching out and before punching in, gliding dailyTo and froOn the earth, from kiosk to square and back again.
How shall we unlearn forward momentum?LigamentsGroan in protest, tripping backward,Like matter,Strolling towards a shadow of a black hole. Why,Michael JacksonWould certainly have moon-walked like this at ninety.“Why?”I cannot answer grief’s complaint. In Malaysian- madeSweatPants he practices the solo slo-mo shuffle. Every dayBackwardI think, as I watch, that perhaps walking backwards is akinto Zohar–
Reserved for initiates of mystical traditions? Or do the agedReverse-courseIn order to escape the gravitational pull of‘life’s opposite?’(As the Hassidim say.) Just so, Mr. Chan arrives at theEndOf the square, weaving between joggers,GriefHas no map, no terminus, no compass, onlyHistoryOf a journey unfolding like “Shesshu’s Long Scroll.’Backward.
Photo by Frank Busch on Unsplash