Here and now is my beginning, not mattering
where I am or where I come from, my voice
of ash and cornstalk and leaf finds its ally.
With stones, this folly and forewarned failure
of words no longer tending that which once
tasted the palette of timelessness and seeing,
I return with those twenty years, also, that feel
wasted and yet not, steeping within which may,
just may resolve the quickened art of questions.
•
I will have this kind of conversation, however alone
it leaves me, But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of this woman only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
It is these stones that rise to meet me here, good company
yet uncompromising, as must be in folly, casting shadow
of experience haste and heavy and also humble.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
•
My day, this time, this world where I traverse and scold
as a private affair, the interior tides occasionally spilling
sometimes tarnishing, but also giving possibility to the polisher.
When should I, if ‘should I’ is the way to say it, when is it to be
plain, as uncontrived as animals coming to greet and pose
as themselves, not how we might wish them to present
only to fulfill matters that are ours, when is it to be plain?
Something is held back, reserved, calculated to create
a hidden reserve with interest, interest in and of what?
Let the dark come upon you, thus the beginning of the unraveling
and there are those who are with me here, in that here and there
that does not matter gives rise to exploration, communion,
even desolation ~ The sharp compassion of the healer’s art.
•
Thank you voice of voice recognized
Whether posing or not of one time and place
I find the ground of heart of heart synchronized
Mess of imprecision of feeling within this space
Fierce, monstrous, Love is most nearly itself, grace.
•
I’ve found something here of myself and of you
And found and lost again and again
It is that tarnish I now polish but seeing the hue
before the scour
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been.
Having considered apology, I carry on
in my work of this day of words and all that I know little of.
Life Being Life 