a Profane Litany

There Is

There is the crack, the fissure, the egg, the lime, the shell,
the split, the opening —
and what’s left behind, no longer of any use.

There is the surge, the rising sun, the song,
the bird, the weight of sky, the blue.

There is the breath, the pull of air,
lungs filled,
the wild cry,
the horse.

There is air.
There is the nothing,
the empty,
the space —
and the intent.

There is the moment —
the hand opening
with no thought
of love
or of killing.

There is life,
blood running its loops in vein and artery,
the heart beating.
There is the dance.

There is what one thinks,
what one thinks one thinks,
what one would rather not think
but thinks still.
There is fatigue.
There is the struggle.

There is ignorance, the unknown, the unknowable, the edge.
There is the shrinking ring of I-know,
growing smaller year by year.

There is the slip, the grip that tightens
on nothing —
fear.
And the act of letting go.

There is the fall —
a vertiginous plunge into a bottomless well
whose end we’ll never know.
There is time to get used to the fall.
That is its gift.

There is waking to the taste of ash,
the mud, the earth silencing the mouth.
There is silence.
There is waking to the crash of silence.

There is death.
There is night.
There is forgetting.
Absence.
The end of hoping.
The end of despair.
There is the nothing —
and its secret gift.

There is a rooster that cries.
A bell that rings.
There is the memory of swallows
and their nests of straw and dirt.
There is a second chance.
There is a spring.
And a line of chicks
crossing the mud
in the farmyard.

Yes

Yes — all of it is true, and none of it is.
It’s beyond judgment.
Yet judgment is what we’re left with.
Yes.

Yes — hatred comes easier to some,
and maybe it’s more honest
than the flattened “I love you”
we’re fed like milk gone sour.

Yes — people kill each other every day.
People save each other too.
And no one holds the scales
to say :
this is justice,
this is not.

Yes — beauty is not the most evenly shared thing in this world.
But it’s not the fault of ophthalmologists,
nor opticians,
nor pupils,
nor eyes.

Yes — the elements don’t care if you are kind,
or if you’ve tried to stay kind
for the last eight days.

Yes — what is just always seems closer
than what is not.
And yet, all of it is just —
when you think neither of yourself
nor of others.

Yes — we all die as we were born :
without reason,
without memory,
without any desire we can truly call our own.
Nothing ever belongs to us
but what we give
without meaning to.

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