Source:  Marquee

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On Dancing between the Small Space of Waves and Word:  Road Song Collections 

They Tore the Marquee Down

By Jason Layne

Buddha:  What do you think, Subhuti?  Supposing a disciple who has attained a degree of Crotapanna (entered the stream), could he make any such arbitrary assertion as, ‘I have entered the stream’?

Subhuti :  No, honored of the worlds!  Because, while, by that measure of attainment, it means that he has entered the Holly Stream, yet, speaking truly, he has not entered anything . (The Diamond Sutra)

Notions of space and time remained with him.  It had been a long while since he wrote of it the same way he did back then.  It seemed like another lifetime ago, punctuated with nebulous love letters, long distance phone calls, and endless emails written for no other purpose then a genuine and frustrating desire to close the space.   This was a universe of nebulous conversations that bordered their private world through the small hours of the morning.

I flew into Islip airport met by my sister. That first day plans for the funeral were being made and I just wasn't up to it. So I took a drive up and down Montauk Highway revisiting old haunts and spending time by the docks where I had spent so much of my youth.

On my way to the docks. That's when I first saw it. The BayShore Movie Theatre was closed. And that magnificent marquee that was a piece of history, a remembrance of better days for a town that was so now feeling the sting of poverty and violence, was gone.

Someone tore down the marquee, There won’t be no more midnight movies playing around here. No more Rocky Horror moments. The Forum Diner closed its doors long before I landed in Islip tonight.

I'm still not that clear on what drove me back here but it’s already feeling anything but right. Should have stayed in the hills of the rocky mountains where questions like these were answered in cool mile high breeze, was my thought at the time. Follow the heart young/old man where only hearts go is one of those things the ocean told me over and over again. I’ll point out to the stars then I’ll just let you go your way, I will walk beside you rather than in front or behind, he/she whispers to me. Suddenly the metaphysical has taken on flesh as I write these words. There’s no easy way out of this now. So now that missing marquee seems a burnt offering for me, a closed door so that new doors may open. follow your heart, and I’ll let you go.

Sunrise Highway went from two lanes to eight,  It makes a straight run from Nassau to Montauk Point.

During the summer the boys in the band play their guitars in dives and on the beach reaching for buds and a hit of maryjane. They play pool, shoot their darts,  But pitchers of beers, chase their world away with chasers till wrong finally seems right. I turned my 67 Camaro over on by the dollhouse just off of Sunrise so long long ago. I somehow recall it like a carnival ride that didn’t seem to want to let go. Odd how the loss of a loved one and things brings on these sorts or recollections.

This was my Bruce Springsteen Jersey in a cul-de-sac called Long Island town that forgot where it went and where it’s going. The locals dressed in surf and sand, carrying their child jealously close to their man with no clue what’s really worth knowing.

A few days later I was boarding my plane back to San Francisco. I watched through the window at a place I thought I knew so well only to discover it was all a Zen moment, a timeless illusion with a riddle to be held on to. So I grasped the oddly comforting notion that someone had finally tore down the marquee. I recall an ancient Zen saying riddle. How do you bend a spoon without touching it. The reply? There is no spoon.

Buddha:  What do you think, Subhuti?  Supposing a disciple who has attained a degree of Crotapanna (entered the stream), could he make any such arbitrary assertion as, ‘I have entered the stream’?

Subhuti :  No, honored of the worlds!  Because, while, by that measure of attainment, it means that he has entered the Holly Stream, yet, speaking truly, he has not entered anything . (The Diamond Sutra)