Heaven Is Your My Mind

as recalled to me by Koshmarov and Clark Kent

Clark’s living in a small cave he found in Central Park. He got stabbed last night but it didn’t wake him.

Today I threw him a few bucks — he was looking a little down on his luck. I told him he could crash at my place for a while but he was just staring at the cracks in the sidewalk, humming some low tune I couldn’t make out. I don’t think he heard me.

As I walked away I got the strangest feeling as if the earth had vibrated at an ultra-high frequency, like the passing flutter of a hummingbird — a buzz — for a few milliseconds — and then stopped. Reminded me of that tiny earthquake back in the early 80s that woke me in its final seconds.

And now all I can think of is buildings collapsing across Manhattan in clouds of brick and concrete dust and a flash of blue and red zipping through it all, almost faster than my eye could detect. Just the faintest blur, massive destruction and then it ends as quickly as it began. Miraculously, I’m still standing. Or that’s how it feels. But the canyons are all gone and as the clouds of infinite dust slowly blow away I can start to make out the Hudson River and Jersey on one side, and the East River on the other. And it’s all forest, and the Palisades are still there, beautiful, brown-red.

The bridges and buildings are all gone and all I can hear is the songs of the birds who, also miraculously, appear to be just fine. So are the trees, all still standing, and a new river flows down the middle of the island, dirty and brown at first and then bluish green.

And after what seems like a century but is probably much longer, I am surrounded by forests and the still unnamed river jumping with silvery fish while beavers, raccoons and deer all go along their many ways. I stand there basking in the dappled sunlight, unmoving. Unmoveable. Like an ancient statue, but with eyes to see, ears to hear and skin to feel the breeze as it lazily passes over me.

And I am happy. Happy with a contentment I hadn’t known since my long ago childhood that time backpacking through Vermont’s Green Mountains. Hiking for many days, it was a hot summer day and we’d been tramping for hours and hours through forest trails marked and unmarked. We were lost. My young easy body was tired, sweaty and hot and it was nearing sunset, more late afternoon. Almost spent, we wandered into a clearing with a broken down old wooden fence still standing in parts, and an ancient tree near the center. We found a log to lean against and lay down for a rest, staring at the tree and the sunlight spreading through the spaces between the branches and the leaves.

I sat, feeling the sweat cool my skin, staring into God’s sun rays, a few bugs lazily hovering around. The air was still. All was golden yellow, brown and green — glowing — emanating an inner light. And I knew, I felt, in the deepest of places, that this was heaven and that one day, many years from then, I would return. But it wasn’t my time yet and so I couldn’t stay. Only for a half hour or so I sat in complete and total bliss. What they call nirvana perhaps.

I never forgot that clearing, nor that feeling of being entirely consumed by golden light and warmth. Entirely at peace and full with a calm joy I haven’t known since.

Whether that day comes via Superman’s grace, or Russia’s, or any of the other countless, perhaps less dramatic fates that await me as I reach the end of my almost invisible path… I hope when I get there I can rest against that same log and watch the river lazily wend its way through the low hanging forest boughs. And a bird will silently dive into the water, the splash glistening in the sunlight. And I will sit, unmoveable, for eternity, breathing the scents of nature and feeling the glow of God’s rays on my skin.

And a dog — one that looks very familiar but I can’t quite place — trots up and lies against my leg for a rest. And the warm weight of his body and slow, quiet breathing pass into me and I drowse. My eyes almost closed, I look across to my wife, lying in the grass with one arm bent behind her neck the way she always does when she’s reading. She doesn’t notice me looking at her so I keep watching. And I can’t believe my luck that she is with me in this place that I tried to describe to her countless times, utterly in vain. And all her pain is gone. Her father and grandpa, grandma and brothers, are all in a cabin I can see off a ways back in the woods. And beyond that are others, filled with our other family and ancestors known and unknown, all to be visited with, wordlessly most likely, in infinite, timless grace.

For now the cats are out with the dogs, all sunning themselves, eyes narrow and glinting in the brightness. Dinner will be soon. But I can wait. I want to wait. For this moment to last forever. In my little clearing in the woods in heaven time no longer shackles, and I truly do not count the time. And all the events of our lives, and the lives of our ancestors before us, are laid out along that river, to be visited, or not. There will be no rush regardless, in my eternal clearing in the forest. Ensconced in peace, warmth and infinite beauty. And laughter: song and laughter flowing from children and ancients alike. For we are all children. And we are all ancients. In that clearing in the woods where it all ends, and where it all begins, where the circle closes.