earlier

while walking through a market,
I hear a young woman's voice. She is saying,
"Would it kill you to put on a shirt once in a while?".
An older man wearing a white T-shirt,
perhaps her father, is stacking vegetable crates.
Near-by vendors laugh at her words, including
the man in the T-shirt. He calls her Red.
They all know each other. And there is something
very familiar about this moment. The general sense of it.
Although I am not sure why.

Walking past a table filled with red tomatoes
lined up along an emerald green cloth.
Bathed in afternoon light just like a Vermeer.
Stunningly rich colour laid across an assemblage
of aromas. Indian spices mix with the compelling
scent of fresh flowers. And the inevitable purchase
of one coral rose on a windy winter's day.
The florist asks "Which one?".
"I trust your choice.", is my reply.
She adds, "No reds today.", squeezing each bud
to feel how tight it is. I like how she occassionally
glances up, to be sure I notice how carefully she selects.
She is drawing one long stem out from all the rest
while telling me to trim the end. To make it last.
Cupping the bud in the palm of one hand and holding it up.
I sense she wants to talk: I ask which flowers create the
strongest scent. While pointing to them, she adds,
"And put some sugar in the water.". She enjoys sharing
what she knows. And something about her makes me want to stay.
But the sum of the scents strikes a memory.

A greenhouse. Childhood. How we'd walk along
the lakeshore to get there. Pocketfull of pennies.
Just to watch the colours drop. Of all of them,
I'd wish for red the most. But the best part came
after the gum machine. To walk upanddown the
greenhouse aisles. With their intoxicating scents.
Inspite of so much snow outside. And aways searching
for the roses. Especially the coral pinks. But drawn
to the deepest reds and how they smell the
sweetest. Sitting beside them on the cold cement.
Breathing inandout. And wanting to stay there.
To stay beside the possibility of one more deep breath in.

I thank her for the rose. Feel a hand upon my arm.
Hear a warm hello. And turn. An(other) older gentleman.
The man I always greet by chance while there.
Each time, he shares some new culinary tip. Today,
he tugs a coat sleeve. Insists on walking to a meat counter.
Introduces the butcher, his wife and their red aprons.
Declaring, "Their chicken is the best. The best in the city?
No! The best in the world? Yes!".
Everyone laughs at his intensity. We talk. I leave.
But later, I return.
To tell the butcher's wife that I resist the best no longer.
She laughs and puts an extra bundle in my bag.
"For free!", she adds.

This is no formalized knowledge. No Descartian search for
certainty. These moments and how they fly past constancy,
one to the other. Perhaps they unveil the Epicurean
experience of truth. The experience of pleasure and pain
served up as the practical criterion for determining truth.
Although quite impossible to demonstrate a theory of
everything, given the relativity of human perceptions,
nonetheless, when(ever) the occassion presents a little red,
truth is there.