Black pools with cerulean
Beneath the trees at summer’s end.
This season’s leaves are laughing in
The breeze that leaves them on the limb.
The memories of inner rings
Are buried deep beneath the sleep
Of winters they have never seen.
Their inky shadows hug the cool
And pull the dark into the wood.
Thank you for the sacraments
And your stewardship of
The sacred texts. And thank you, too,
For handing me, while I was lost
In lucid dreams, a box so dark I could not see
Its contents until I was older.
Sometimes I sit and think of you,
But do not turn my head or halt
Because I know that if I do,
I’ll turn into a pillar of salt.
The moon and the ocean
Have pulled on each other’s
White cords for as long as
The earth’s been in motion,
And it has been slowing
Its spin as if answering
Unspoken questions
About its intentions.
Gravity can pull in
Bodies in motion
And hold them in orbit
Until they can absorb it.
When you think about how narrow the scope of human vision is in any single moment— how small your actual perspective is— it’s amazing to realize how much synthetic data your brain adds to your memories. I have many memories that I recall from up above rather than from inside of my body, even though I was a part of the scene. How does my mind conjure so cleanly a perspective that I never inhabited? When and how and why does my visual cortex set about fashioning an omniscient perch from which to view my own lost history?
And for that matter, why does humanity so often presume to narrate its own history from an omniscient point of view? What is it in us that so easily slips into an outsider’s perspective and escapes our own? Even in our memories, we escape the confines of our corporeal being.
*************************
The lust for freedom always needs a boundary to transgress,
Whereas a freedom freely given provides for rest.
Take me with you to the hall of mirrors
You retreat to when you think that
I see through you. Let me shine
My light on all your solid edges that you fear
Are disappearing when you’re near me.
Let me stand beside you
While you learn to see yourself anew.
When the nights grow short
And the ground sheds the heat
It’s absorbed from the sun
In the circle of days,
There will form every once
In a clear, still night
A mist that hangs low
And close to the ground.
And it cloaks all the beings
Who already know
How to wrap the night
Around themselves.
Some people, too, share this
Curious gift—
They know how and when
To be wrapped in the mist.
Perhaps it is my future self
That stands behind a creaking pine
Along the hill that, in the sun,
Becomes a slow and labored climb.
I hope she sees that, though I slow,
I do not stop my quest to meet her
At the top, although I know her quiet knack
Of vanishing before we meet—
It is a skill I have honed well
And taught to her to spite myself.
