keeps slipping away from the moment
from the present, from the now,
from what is, from loving what is,
the way he used to slip his pew.
What can we do, what can he do
if he won't stay mindful? Not
a bad boy, really, maybe not,
but ripe for meditation and prayer
right? Only not his own.
The problem that does
not admit of any
solution is not
a problem. That damn
thing is a given.
That. That was it. That was
reality. I almost missed it.
But I remembered it
from childhood--peculiar
not-quite boredom,
not-quite melancholy,
stillness, almost
satisfaction, the underneath
of being human
doing human things,
when the not human
world rises, floating,
into uncertain
becalmed awareness,
be it a blue sky
outside, dusty sun
inside, the lack
of voices or music,
everything nothing
doing, a crack in the floor,
a long pause before
another long pause--
that. That was it.
That was reality.
Oh child, oh infant
if only you slept well
you would be happiness
personified. You, my joy,
are the most fascinating
child on Earth, I swear
and yet you can scream
oh you can scream
an extraordinary ascending
rupture in the night
sufficient to scare
the local mountain lion,
to send the desert foxes
back into their dens trembling,
to give the coyotes pause
and to silence the cry of the peacocks,
yes, a beautiful, powerful
arbitrary, murderous
hollering bellow to horrify
a horror movie itself into silence.
I'm so proud. I'm so impressed.
Please don't do it again.
Behold this spiral
in her hair, regard
those spiral branchings
in that tree, observe
that spiral made of
stars and promise not
to link them, promise
yourself to let them
be, to signify
nothing, let them mean
wonderful nothing,
nothing, the only
real world miracle
that cups everything
in its emptiness
dour only to us,
we few somethings who
remain the bridges
between manifest
spirals and unreal
labyrinths. Believe!
Believe, have faith, trust
in nothing itself,
wonderful wreckage.
Trying costs us nothing.
There are no signs
in this universe save
those we add to it,
such as the logo
on this air dryer
in a unisex washroom
at a roadside rest stop
in Utah, USA,
proclaiming "Extreme
Air." And that, my friends,
is what all our signs
and signifying amount to.
hard as diamonds to destroy.
This world is too delicate,
too hard on itself,
everything is breaking
on everything else, into
everything else. Nothing
isn't always crumbling
Risibly ancient mountains
serve up melting wrecks
of dissolving ruptures
carving up the winds.
The softest beats
the hardest core to pulpy
jagged martyred mush,
breaking down in breaking up,
one universal whirl
of rock, paper, scissors,
and, speaking of scissors,
not a moment's cut so fine
that smaller fractures
aren't continuously shifting
within each micro-moment.
The never-ending endingness!
How can awareness ever
be attached, be one
of any compound crystal
shambles twirling down?
Emotions and weather ignore us.
We are no more our sorrows
Than we are the rain, no
More the possessors of our joys
Than of a sudden shaft of sunlight.
“The weather will be what the weather
Will be, whether we like it
Or not.” So said you
In a brilliant coastal mood
And so, on a pearl blue afternoon
Waiting for your return, say I.
In truth, we're attached
to the bodies we dream.
Nobody will ever be
anybody else. Local,
gorgeous awareness
is all we are,
passing details, passing
shows are all we have,
in which our worlds perform
their matinees
and moonlight sonatas
over which we exert
no more control
than a theater space
exerts over its performances,
and no less. A lizard
scuttles in the sunny dust
of a rented window.
An infant snores
on her old father's
bony chest. Somewhere,
the woman of the house
is drawing a bath,
and the red and green valley
warms in late January sun.
These are not parts
of a world, nor
a world entire.
These are waves passing,
which are not waves
when we capture them
but are waves again
when we allow them, being
ourselves, spaces
for some things to happen.
