when i hear that lonesome whistle...

(written the morning after a momentary lapse of morality)

sins are just that: of the moment. sure, there's the mark they leave upon the psyche like a cigarette burn through a piece of paper, and just like that type of burn, depending upon the length of exposure to the burning source, it could expand and expand and engulf the entire piece of paper. but generally speaking the sin, misdeed, transgression, whatever name you give it, is a singular entity. it falls upon the sinner to keep the exposure to the burning element short, so the mark upon the mind is not one that expands but one that stays a singular entity, kind of like "the moment." leave the moment to be what it was when it occurred, do not try to reason or rationalize with it if it did not spark an ongoing process, let it sit and fade like a loving parent in your car's rearview the day you leave home for good. just like the parent, the sin will always be there, but how much credence you lend it will determine how much it will hang over your head like a hovering vulture, or it could simply vanish like a hummingbird, something loud and flashy that makes itself known quite well and disappears, leaving a minor mark that vanishes as life resumes its timely progress.

timely progress. like a slow moving freight train. imagine sitting on a stump in the woods next to a railroad track, trying to read the words on the cars of a mile-long freighter, or take a mental note of the color of each car, or trying to match the pitch of the clanking metal to a key on a piano. the moments of life are kind of like that: going by in a procession, linked to the ones before and after and related to them, moving slowly, but not slowly enough to compute the magnitude or unique color of each, beating along well-worn tracks to a song that, as hard as you try, you cannot seem to change the tune of, and the tune stays as constant as the songs of your parents, your peers, neighbors, even strangers you'll never meet.

now imagine an irregularity in the track. it happens every so often on most sets of tracks. it all depends on the severity of the deformation and where it lies on the tracks. if you are aware of a coming irregularity sometimes you can switch tracks and continue your constant churn forward, as smooth and constant as a calm late spring day. if you have no other track to switch to, you can slow to a halt before the break in the tracks, take in the scene as the break is mended. though, i'd say more often than not, the irregularity in the track is a subtle one that we cannot see ahead of time. we plod forward at a steady pace and before we can realize what has happened, the train is off the tracks in a muddled wreck, unmoving, consumed in slow-moving flames. and sometimes the only way to remember that we are still alive is to be thrown into the fire.