Flourishing

My therapist says I'm afraid of vanishing.Last week his ceiling caved in, ending our sessionin a shower of words and water.I'm serious. I'm always seriouswhen I talk about therapists and cave-ins.This morning I'm serious in a trainsliding past a clock-tower constructedwhen this city thought it was flourishing. Flourishingis a form of vanishing, a verb embedded in what comes after.Once there was a city that flourished, its spires confident and secureas my therapist's ceiling. Once there was a trainthat pulled out of a once-flourishing city.One morning I was on that train, speeding between woods and river,through a village of wooden houses and plots in a cemetery,moving on, vanishingtoo fast to become part of local history.Vanishing was fun, like a sky skydiving.I was the sky into which I dove.I brooded above the little wooden townand postage-stamp cemetery.Time said, "Welcome to the fountain."History said, "You're already forgotten."Wind-scalloped river, algae-covered pond, fronds of goldenrod,a patch of reeds and then a factory parking lot, cars and menmoving slowly, lit by Sunday morning.The train slowed to a stop, waiting to claim the single track ahead.I will tell my therapist, when we meet againbeneath his brand-new ceiling,"Once I was sitting on a train,stopped dead and already gone.Happy. Flourishing."