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The compulsive universe hoards another day
being-for-itself, being-in-itself
the sweet swindle of spring
summer's hazy veil
autumn's vermilion and ash
and the secret cave she hid in
full of waiting
lodged in the stillness of an earth
lying stunned under some strange heaven.
She will ask her breath
what it is to be human,
how it feels to be.
She will trace it to its roots,
hers the choice, the act,
irrational or wise.
Even in the universe of lost things
or the midnight mind's wild schemes,
she knows there is only now
and the desert stillness
is the silence of her heart.
Even if nothing is her only something
she is and is
not like a stone, a tree, a tiger
with their fixed essence,
what they do and who they are.
But she, thrown into the vast,
has the power of rejecting all the May-I's.
It's a day like any other day
and in appearance the sky is blue.
But she also knows how small the day is
the rush of color
the evaporating brightness.
She hears a hairline crack before the rubble,
listens for thunder in the afternoon
and as she walks the narrow paths of thoughts,
hers the choice,
the move that opens wide.
Standing close and unafraid of meanings,
tart or honeyed,
she takes them in
or not.
Between the known and the unknown,
all names are but one name
and the power to name is finally hers.
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Rio:
A Journal of the Arts