Dharma Bums

Well I’ve been reading about Dharma Bums, which are actually different than your everyday lazy hopeless bums; these ones hide in shacks near the feet of mountains and live intentionally and somewhat modestly and quite studiously, with big orange crates full of wise books, crates that double as low tables to kneel on straw mats at. Occasionally they take up towering backpacks with pots and pans and spring run whistle up the mountain, not a care in the world but for falling off (which is impossible), and therefore staying away from cliffs and following the true gleaming river up to its deep lake source. Past the lake, up to where you can see infinite pits of blackish indigo within the big still pool of fresh and clear blue water, where its depths stretch to buried geyser springs, up to the mountain’s plateau to yell and dance in the howling music wind. And not a second after they’ve gotten their kicks it’s back down the rock face, leap-running in bounds over thickets and rolling tumble stones at a fairly steep but not deadly incline.

The other day, as I roiled over a missed opportunity for good karma I contemplated whether passing up good karma is bad karma and I looked mostly down to keep the snow shards out of my eyes (I was outside in blizzard) and noticed on either side of me was a small white mountain range, an endless scale model of valleys and peaks and white sediment, jagged cliffs and vast plains that stretched for small miles. I felt large and swift as I traversed the horizon in bounds, occasionally hurdling summits to cross the street or stepping right into them leaving monstrous craters in the untouched frontier and I felt like discovering something. It was at this exact moment that I came across the largest snow mountain of them all in my squinting giant eyes which were now wide open and full of snow crystals going supernova on the surface of my contact lenses and before I knew it I was up the side, messy climbing and my steps sinking in to the soft clean frigid rock but after about twelve lunges I was at the top, up on the roof of the world, my world, or at least Ann Arbor which is a bubble, and the air was definitively crisper and a little sweet and very dry. I looked around from my cold shining precipice and there was a furtive man in the distance, probably a hundred small miles away but I could see him clear as day with his leather jacket and one of those plaid lumberjack caps with the earmuffs attached. Thinking he was a fellow adventurer I yodeled to him what I thought his name might be which was Johnny Dean and he looked around scared and didn’t even see me I was so high up. I said it again, this time waving my arms and jumping off the ledge, not a reckless jump but more a jump-step, a Dharma Bum jump descent is what I had in mind and I made it a good half-three quarter way down in this manner when I hit a soft spot and my foot sunk up to the knee in cold rock powder. I swayed and fell in a large poof of fallen frozen stars, which aren’t as sharp as you’d think, and it didn’t even hurt and I laughed the whole way down. I made a sleeping angel laying right where I had landed and looked around for Johnny Dean to help me out so that there’d be no handprint in the middle, but he was long gone so I harrumphed and said so long to my brief memory of him and his frightened eyes, and bounced on down the slick sidewalk while my angel slept on, a little marred, but I didn’t mind and neither did he.

Before I knew it I was passing the southern range of small white landscapes, open empty fields bordered by spinal crags that spilled their excess stardust in little flowing tributaries down to rolling flats. It was almost a shame to step inside the echo stairwell into steaming hall of strange odors, I wasn’t cold at all in fact I was sweating, into my apartment where I promptly disrobed and lay on the floor face down, arms up meditating on my journey for exactly twenty one seconds. I felt certain that my Dharma Bum pals would be proud of this enlightenment which I didn’t even plan or meditate for, it just happened and such are the juiciest fruits of this dry life.