People these days, they is all in so much of a hurry. They is running all ways and chasing invisible butterflies and they don’t know why. And our time here is so short and they don’t see that neither. Shit, I ain’t no philosopher and I don’t have no answer to why we is here on this earth, and I don’t believe in God or angels or nothing. And I ain’t got anything stored up for a rainy day – not ‘less you count the memories I got. But I know that time is a wasting.
See, I think people is just so busy that they is missing what’s important. And it ain’t what you got in the bank that matters when all’s said and done. Leastways, I don’t think it is. You can’t buy even a minute of happiness with a thousand pounds and so I don’t reckon money is all it’s cracked up to be.
It’s what’s in your head as is important. It’s what you see ‘bout you and how you respond to what you see. Take Kissy – she’s like me: she don’t have a pot to piss in and only has the clothes she wears. And she sleeps up at the mission house most nights and she has a little help from the liquor she’s earned with her ‘Can you help me, mister?’ and her cupped hand held out for any small change that a person can spare.
But, me and Kissy, well we is rich in other ways, see. We got time to spend with each other. All the time in the world. And we take that time. We just lay down sometimes, on the grass in the park. There where it says to keep off – like grass can be owned! And Kissy holds my hand in hers and she sings soft as birds. And we look up at the sky and look at the shapes the clouds make. And sometimes it’s like we is moving them clouds, like they is taking the shapes we wish ‘em to.
I bet there ain’t nobody sitting at a desk in a high office block ever looks at the sky like that.
And me and Kissy, we take our bit bread and cheese – there’s a shop we know and a girl there whose words are not stones ever and they are kind to us every day and the girl there makes gifts of food to me and Kissy. And we takes what we’ve got and we goes down by the pond in the park – and it says no paddling, like water can be owned and rain when it falls! And me and Kissy we takes off our shoes and our socks and we walks about in six inches of water, cold and sharp as knives, and we eats our bread and cheese and share it with the ducks and the geese. We got names for ‘em all.
Don’t think there’s many as finds the time in their day to do the same, and if there is, then they stand at the dry water’s edge and throw their bits of bread onto the water, which ain’t the same thing at all.
And I seen it happen in movies but it don’t happen much anywhere else – ‘cept every night for me and Kissy. And we stand on the top of the tallest building and so near the stars we can almost touch ‘em. And we kiss like that, and it is breathless and beautiful, and though it ain’t like in the movies exactly, in my head and in Kissy’s head, there’s music playing.
But people, well they is just too durned busy to see that there ain’t no butterfly moments worth the chasing of, and what they need is to be still a while and ‘ppreciating all the beauty there is ‘bout ‘em. Kissy is so beautiful it hurts sometimes to look at her. People should see that in each other, but they don’t.
Patricia Ann McNair 
People these days, they is all in so much of a hurry. They is running all ways and chasing invisible butterflies and they don’t know why. And our time here is so short and they don’t see that neither. Shit, I ain’t no philosopher and I don’t have no answer to why we is here on this earth, and I don’t believe in God or angels or nothing. And I ain’t got anything stored up for a rainy day – not ‘less you count the memories I got. But I know that time is a wasting.
See, I think people is just so busy that they is missing what’s important. And it ain’t what you got in the bank that matters when all’s said and done. Leastways, I don’t think it is. You can’t buy even a minute of happiness with a thousand pounds and so I don’t reckon money is all it’s cracked up to be.
It’s what’s in your head as is important. It’s what you see ‘bout you and how you respond to what you see. Take Kissy – she’s like me: she don’t have a pot to piss in and only has the clothes she wears. And she sleeps up at the mission house most nights and she has a little help from the liquor she’s earned with her ‘Can you help me, mister?’ and her cupped hand held out for any small change that a person can spare.
But, me and Kissy, well we is rich in other ways, see. We got time to spend with each other. All the time in the world. And we take that time. We just lay down sometimes, on the grass in the park. There where it says to keep off – like grass can be owned! And Kissy holds my hand in hers and she sings soft as birds. And we look up at the sky and look at the shapes the clouds make. And sometimes it’s like we is moving them clouds, like they is taking the shapes we wish ‘em to.
I bet there ain’t nobody sitting at a desk in a high office block ever looks at the sky like that.
And me and Kissy, we take our bit bread and cheese – there’s a shop we know and a girl there whose words are not stones ever and they are kind to us every day and the girl there makes gifts of food to me and Kissy. And we takes what we’ve got and we goes down by the pond in the park – and it says no paddling, like water can be owned and rain when it falls! And me and Kissy we takes off our shoes and our socks and we walks about in six inches of water, cold and sharp as knives, and we eats our bread and cheese and share it with the ducks and the geese. We got names for ‘em all.
Don’t think there’s many as finds the time in their day to do the same, and if there is, then they stand at the dry water’s edge and throw their bits of bread onto the water, which ain’t the same thing at all.
And I seen it happen in movies but it don’t happen much anywhere else – ‘cept every night for me and Kissy. And we stand on the top of the tallest building and so near the stars we can almost touch ‘em. And we kiss like that, and it is breathless and beautiful, and though it ain’t like in the movies exactly, in my head and in Kissy’s head, there’s music playing.
But people, well they is just too durned busy to see that there ain’t no butterfly moments worth the chasing of, and what they need is to be still a while and ‘ppreciating all the beauty there is ‘bout ‘em. Kissy is so beautiful it hurts sometimes to look at her. People should see that in each other, but they don’t.