Time. Place. Nothingness.
1.
bleached bones and carrion–
food for the vultures,
the scavengers searching
for what we leave
when we die
2.
scavenged remnants and
broken vessels
spilling over onto
cold beaches
of black sand
3.
scattered pages left
for the mold to take–
ideas molded into
form and function,
reduced to unheard whispers
Silence is the
mother tongue
of Wisdom.
She cut out
her own vocal cords
when she began
to speak
falsehoods.
Now she sits,
looking out from
her perch of
silent observation,
never speaking,
but seeing.
sometimes we find ourselves
with no place to hide
from the sun’s shadow
as it moves through the clouds–
so we put filters on
our lenses hoping to
change the shape of what we see–
change the shade cast by the sun
they started connecting us
one rail at a time,
laid down with singing
hammer on steel,
finally stringing us along
on bits laid 10101
by fingerfalls on plastic–
swift, muted keystrokes.
Three dark nights before the flood, Noah sat in a circle of dirt, thinking about what lay ahead.
He was righteous.
He was just.
He walked with God.
He sat and thought and waited.
He thought of his sons. He thought of his wife. He thought of his sons’ wives. He thought of the animals, wild and tame, the birds of the air, the creeping things of the earth.
He thought of the earth.
He thought of the waters.
His eyes filled with tears that spilled into the circle of dust from which he cried out to God. He took a handful of the damp earth and with it, covered his face.
Three days later, the rains came and washed the dried earth away. The circle of dirt of his dark nights became a valley. Then a mountain.
Then a memory.
my eye opens to let the light in
a quick blink–
more than that and i go blind–
and what i see is forever
i know you
i know how your hands feel
when you take me in your fingers
allowing me to wake up
for milliseconds at a time
my eye trained on what
you want to immortalize
i know you better than anyone
your loves, your face, your touch,
where you go, what you do–
i remember it all
while you forget
every time my eye opens
my retina is burned with
shadows and light
i remember while you forget
until you take me apart
and unspool my eyes
burning the memories away
in our minds, we right
our wrongs–
in our hearts,
we’re always right.
left of center,
but still in the field,
chasing the moment
to voice our righteousness–
all hearts closed,
all tongues sharpened,
whetted by indignation,
quenched and tempered with pride–
voices lie fallow,
hearts grazing on ash–
I am awake and one thing
is clear: I am
having coffee, watching Godard,
writing this, long-haired
kitten purring in my lap,
waiting for the early morning
ritual of brushing-the-teeth,
washing-the-face, making the self
presentable to the other
selfs judging themselfs on the
merits of all other selfs.
And such is the value
of the selfless, I suppose:
no judgement, no comparison.
no ego to uphold
and no standard to which
conformity is mandatory.
Such is the life
of the saint.
Such is the aspiration
we respire day in, day out.
with one hand on my ego and
the other on my fear, the sense
of lost pride i once had is now fading–
thank God
no more nights spent in sleepless haze
worrying more and more.
no more studying to find my place.
my place is wherever i am
we may be small, but so is everything else–
far off, on the other side of the galaxy, life probably exists, but we are still isolated–
a grain of sand is no different than a mountain: everything is huge to something,
everything is small to something–
everything is–
everything never was–
everything will always be.
