WAITING FOR MARS

Funny thing the way the world is, turning and turning, wheeling through this galaxy, doing its best always, folks all over it going their ways hither and yon in city and country, forest and prairie, most of them trying their best too, me among all just sitting here in the dark on the deck with some wine, watching the sky above the Lake, waiting for Mars to rise.

We make our choices as we travel through life, mostly as tourists it seems, what with preplanned schools, careers, pensions, although strict adherence to the received plan appears to be becoming less and less a good idea the longer I live. Look at cursive writing, mortgages, pensions, books, newspapers and the PhD, for just a few examples. I'm not being cynical, that's only the way it may appear to certain vested-interest folks. The truth is never cynical.

TRUST, on the other hand - you remember that word - used to be part of all those inscriptions carved over institutional doorways now falling into economoral decline everywhere-- archaeologists dig one up every now and then from another older and forgotten society that made earlier versions of the same mistakes.

One of the first places they used the word TRUST was on the money, when the money was no longer gold and became a matter of faith, whence food comes only by miracle. TRUST was also commonly used in the names of the biggest banks and most reputable finance companies, First Trust this and National Trust that, the word had that much heft; politicians even used it once upon a time, in high-sounding speeches before microphones and tape recording exposed the de facto conversations behind the scenes. The word was embroidered on old flags as well, then later printed on t-shirts manufactured in low-wage countries. Ironically, in the present day, TRUST is still engraved on the US dollar, where the illusory cachet is now needed more than ever.

TRUST was the word, back in the day. You could find it in all the holy books-- and look what they've done with it. Things have changed so much since the word itself could be "trusted" - in the original, uncorrupted sense - to mean what it originally conveyed. We should maybe find a new word for the lost definition, a word like TRUST used to be, when it didn't cause a chuckle - you'd see it in those big bronze angular Roman letters or engraved in walls and gilded, when it still had dignity and semantic power, when it was a word you could... whatever that new word will be.

As for ourselves, there is Truth in us, of the kind we have largely misplaced, or maybe lost, here on earth-- Here's hoping that when next we put the new TRUST over doorways and on our bills of exchange, we've reclaimed the old meaning and lived up to it for at least 1000 years...