The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of paraheliotropic trees

Sitting on the Hudson River, reading a book by Dead John Rawls. Women in bathing suits stretch out behind me. Once, we wore less clothes. City behind me. Was it built because we moved north, and began covering our bodies, setting of a strange chain of Freudian repression? A desire to take off each other’s clothes.

The sun is on my face — it is April, but it is ninety degrees. The Hudson River undulates in front of me. The sun is mirrored in the great body, scattered, and dappled, blinding me, then not.

Breezes sometimes, against me. Deep inhalations. The words on paper in front of me. Democracy. Justice. Reciprocity.

Young woman next to me, now, stretched out. Toes wiggling on top of sandals. She lifts her shirt a little, exposing her stomach, the curves of her pelvis above her shorts — I notice out of the corner of my eye — go back to my book, then look again —

I think about the water — is it hydrogen? The first stuff. Most hydrogen particles were created at the Big Bang. Oxygen? Both. Great strange bodies. And light — light is just filling this entire place — the self-propagating oscillation of an electromagnetic field — our eyes are just tools designed to detect this effect — and yet we find it beautiful —

I am sitting on a bench reading a book, looking at the Hudson River. The wind hits my face every now and again. I am alive.