Saturday, September 11, 2004
Man and Woman, Necessary for Progeny
Herakleitos is here today. He looks a bit like Bill Kaul: tall, heavy, hairy, big nose, bulging eyes. Sort of lumbers when he walks. He's eating baby back ribs, talking with his mouth full. His beard is red with barbeque sauce, which I could swear is Corky's, but I can't find a bottle anywhere, and Yahweh is evasive when I ask him.
Everybody's getting a little sick of Herakleitos, if you want to know the truth. All he does is make clever little pronouncements, in this annoying pompous vatic voice. I see the others rolling their eyes. "Come on, chill out," they want to tell him. "This is heaven. Enough with the postmodern philosophy already."
For example, the others start talking about poets. "T. S. Eliot," Yahweh says. "Now there was a poet. Good Catholic, too." Others chime in, arguing for their guys. I make a case for Mullah Jalal al-Din Mevlana, my Sufi favorite. Allah's here today, and nods sagely, smiling his enigmatic little smile, as I talk about the second-holiest writer in the Muslim world.
Then Herakleitos chimes in: "The poet was a fool," he says, "who wanted no conflict among us, gods or people. Harmony needs low and high, as progeny needs man and woman."
What the fuck?
"I'll give it to you low and high, you little Greek pussy," I hear Ba'al muttering over by the grill.
Then there's a knock on the back yard gate, and two people come in, a man and a woman--necessary, as Herakleitos has been telling us, for progeny.
"Hello?" the man says. "Is this Yahweh's place?"
I recognize the woman. "My God," I say. "It's Ann Coulter."
"That's the name!" the man cries. "I can't believe I couldn't think of it!"
"That's my name?" the woman says wonderingly. "Ann Coulter?"
"I saw you on The Daily Show," I say. "What a painful experience that was, Jon Stewart tying himself in knots, trying to be nice to you."
"I don't remember," she says softly.
"She's got amnesia," the man explains.
"Oh, sure," Wodin says. "Happens all the time. People can't remember their lives on earth. Sit down, have some ribs. Maybe it'll come back."
"As souls change into water on their way through death," Herakleitos says, "so water changes into earth. And as water springs from earth, so from water does the soul."
Brother!
