Taos

The orange-and-brown-on-light-olive ottomanbeside the truck on the side of the roadnext to the gas station out on the mesais apparently for sale. Pathetic, no, but funny,and funnier still when we stop to buy it for five dollars,strap it to our rooftop rack, and we take it,after the farmer's market, the ten miles hometo the little river just above the bankbelow the cottonwoods and prop our feet up.We talk of Dr. Oz and how we've neverread a word. But we must, we must too readmore thoroughly Kierkegaard because we haveread some of him, and knowing him in depthwill help us see how far we've dropped to Dr. Oz,and bathos always works for a good belly-laugh.Kierkegaard hated mediocrity, and legend has itthe children threw pebbles at his hunched backas he walked down the street in his coat and hat.Children are cruel. Our own two girls are not,however, as we have shown them examples of howstyles change and you never know what mightmake a comeback fashionwise or thoughtwise.You have to be patient and slow to judgment with art.For instance, this passé velour ottoman.But then, our little angels think it's funny to throw itinto the current, right out from under our feet.It bobs down the river like a dead thing,and we watch it, wondering if there issome small chance the man who sold it to usmight live a mile or so downstream and find itcome back to him like a prank or a miraculous gift,but we know that is as nearly impossibleas our ever reading Kierkegaard again.