Becoming

“a man feels the world with his work like a glove.” 

From Open and Closed Spaces by Tomas Trastromer

The sun shines through my window,

finds me sitting behind my desk

and ruffles work papers 

with tiny particles of dust, floating in the air,

because they are simply there.

Like me, they hang,

suspended on invisible fingers, only there 

when light touches the surface of a finite thing.

To be here, I must be seen.

I may be fully present, acutely here,

in my own skin, but if you cannot see me, hear me, 

feel, smell, or taste me, if you do not acknowledge me

in some way, I am not truly here.

So, when I become present in the moment,

I must also be mindful that without you,

I am nothing, but a part of the ever-present universe,

the Tao, the nothing and the every thing.

To be present means I must also receive you,

to accept you and acknowledge you,

for the sun shines on each of us,

makes us visible to the world.

To be present is to see, to understand, 

to hang in the air like tiny particles of dust

suspended by invisible fingers of light.

— Paul Causey

Resemblance

My mother looks at me and sees only my father 

Our noses that settle the same way

Our lips curling into identical smiles 

Which I suspect now only looks like gritting teeth 

To a snarl

She sees likeness in our addictions 

The likeliness that I too never find satisfaction with just one 

My hard working nature distorted to hell bent 

I can not fault her hurt 

While my brain knows it’s misdirected 

My heart still fries in my chest as her glare peers instead through me 

How can I not hate my reflection 

My father looks at me and sees only my mother 

Delicate hands that move to create where she said crafty he heard manipulate 

Feels unease that at any moment I will be gone with the next spark of inspiration 

Call it impulsive 

Nothing to tether me here 

The flight home takes me each time to the pit of my stomach

Preparing to show up as the worst parts of two people 

The love from the other tainting what little they have to give me so each warm embrace instead feels ice cold 

Uncomfortable bones clashing like dead branches Morse code messaging me in the middle of the night 

The signal is received on this end and it reads “a battery two parts negative, never to work, with the audacity to even try for functional. There is no charge. There is no spark”.

— Harmony Hagadorn

The Hand of God

 

— Kim Mosley 

Waterfalls

from 

transfinite 

t r a n s c e n d e n t 

  s k i e s 

          t  r  a  n  s  l  u  c  e  n  t 

l  i g  h  t  

f

 a

   l

  l

    s 

     a

         s 

w

  a

   t

      e

      r

             f

               a

     l

     l

       s

— Ksenia Alessandra Petrova

When The Penny Drops

And still,

when the penny drops,

I’m startled to find

how little there is to know

about our quaint genesis of life,

about our birth-forged resolution in death,

about how little we think we need to know, 

engaged for days and weeks and months, 

intent on obfuscation,

assumed impervious with the distractions called youth.

As year after year after year

living our silkworm lives

aging continues a hunger for its due,

patient like a feral cat.

Wary that there is never enough.

Yet never never matters.

So questionably we only flirt 

with pivotal questions: 

like how am I to be seen?

Does water flowing, know it has depth and tides?

Who demands to know (and why) 

the degree of wet that makes water moist?

Now, unquestionably close to being inactive, 

we’re told (or maybe I’m finally learning):

Penetrate the doubt.

Take comfort that inquiry permits response, 

that response enriches inquiry.

and as these days to contemplate,

by default decrease,

I’m yearning for a legacy, 

a koan-bred presentiment  

that’s thankfully saying:

to be content, 

there is no need 

to ponder if trees consider 

what water means to fish.

And still, 

when all is said and done, 

there is only a grace of spaciousness,

always a fullness of intimacy.

— Ed Sancious