STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
PHILIP JASON
Traffic is a form of group prayer, so many people
all at once pointing themselves in the same direction,
held by the same belief: Along this way,
I will find what I am looking for.
Or so the sturdier parts of me tell the jelly-boned parts
as a million tons of metal and fire surround me
to a standstill. To those latter parts–which are not quiet
about this–traffic is a moving labyrinth, which
I suppose is a form of prayer, though in the
labyrinth of traffic I am both champion
to myself and labyrinth to the others, whereas
in the prayer of traffic, I am labyrinth to myself
and solitude is my champion. It is a Sunday.
In the four hundredth version of the bible,
that’s the day that God creates the assembly line.
It would probably be easier if God just creates traffic,
but by then, God is old and infected by the dreams
of His and Her creations, so no longer does anything
as elegantly or decisively as making light.
The assembly line begets the cars and roads
and impatience that creates traffic, etc. Which is why,
in the four hundred and fifth version of the bible,
it says Sunday is when God creates the labyrinth.
Do not surrender in the labyrinth, God tells us
in that version, Surrender is what the champion
does before the labyrinth. I remember this
as I’m reading the bumper sticker on the car
in front of me, the world’s only Ferrari
with a bumper sticker. My other car has
a bumper sticker on it that references this car.
Above these words, a metallic bit catches the light
God created in the bible’s first version and blazes
it up. The locust sound of car horns fills the air.
The four hundred and fifth version of the bible
says nothing about what I should do with these,
but as they come to me, I marvel at how we can
all be looking in the same direction for different things.
What a truly spectacular design. To put everything
that could ever be wanted in one place; spectacular
to allow us all to find each other on the way there.
Philip Jason’s stories can be found in Prairie Schooner, The Pinch, Mid-American Review, Ninth Letter, and J Journal; his poetry in Spillway, Lake Effect, Hawaii Pacific Review, Pallette and Indianapolis Review. He is the author of the novel Window Eyes (Unsolicited Press, 2023). He has collections of poetry forthcoming from Fernwood Press and Shanti Arts Press. For more, please visit philipjason.com.
