It's turned out to be a beautiful, sunny evening. As much as I'd like to entertain you with another of my sociopolitical rants, I'd rather spend this time outside with Victor and Roxie on the end of their leashes.
So today you get a couple from the poetry archive. I wrote these two back in 2007 I think. Don't complain... as an added bonus, I looked through Sunday's Lake Calhoun photos earlier than I wanted to and selected the one above to accompany today's low-budget blog.
A MOMENT
Nothingness walks like an injured fly
on a window sill.
Time stretches when we are dying.
That slow fade is like giving up on him
despite the ingrained burning of his eyes,
looking skyward.
In space above, the nothing is incomprehensible;
it is everywhere, pulling away from you.
Yet absent your alien awareness
there is no focus in darkness.
The super-massive nothing is the primitive emotion
of the hobbling fly on the window sill;
it is powerfully closing in upon itself.
Even this tiny death is a black hole
collapsing:
in the grasping emptiness light is sucked
through space-time
and everything is spiralling inward.
Time stretches when we are dying.
Maybe death is like this morning's abrupt
awakening to the crow's scraping voice,
where our space curves like a tilted tree trunk
whose offshoot nevertheless rises vertically
to the warmth of a source light:
the dying sun.
Yet even this is beautiful,
yet difficult to admit
in my childish stumbling.
Existence is enough.
Yet this message is not learned through telling,
but only through the practice of living
through the center.
Receptive to heart-peace
we find focus in the serenity of an unfulfilled mind:
not-yearning for things which may never be.
This is the unlittering of the soul.
In our journey all is spiral; I strive for the center.
In the heart's curve I can hear her voice
disappearing and reappearing
and
I wonder
why so many songs are beautiful.
In the absence of light
we must be inured to darkness.
Where time stretches when we are dying,
the separation of consciousness ends
and falls together.
I thought her lips
pressed to mine
was still and pure
and the source
of the sun.
But it was false-reaching
in those soft moments.
ANOTHER MOMENT
the other night I
took a look back
at how my mind worked a few years ago
and I wonder when I'll stop growing
I find that so much has changed
my opinions
my priorities
my goals in life
even my loyalties
I feel like I'm shedding so much old skin
like everyday I get one step closer
to becoming the person I want to be
sometimes I think about
where I was this night maybe 10 years ago
what I was thinking
how I was thinking
and I have to laugh a little
because now I think about where I want to be
on this night
10 years from now
who will I be
and will I be happier
who is next to me
and will I think back
and wonder
what I was thinking
and how I was thinking
on this night so long ago
I know, I know... I'm no Robert Frost. Be happy I didn't post a video of me playing my guitar and singing.
See you tomorrow.
Good stuff as always Jonathan.
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