* * *
“I hear a recurring note’s trace
upon the air, but can’t for long
hold that sound as I race
to catch up with the song.”
“It is eternal no. The no
is eliminated, so . . .
and we are only yes. I know
this this. Is this this also?”
“Today, the swaying tree made
the wind make birds fly, swell
hearts, and songs of rejoicing fade.
When it stopped, the birds fell.”
“If the combining of will and decision
is the valence of faith—the choices
of the past acting upon one’s vision
of the future—what are these voices?”
“I stood alone in a field of snow
and watched a tree shatter the sun.
A voice said, ‘This is all you know—
a dream and its interpretation.’”
“Sedated on the operating table,
I ceased to be, or to be to be.
Duration after death is a fable,
I later reasoned.” “But is eternity
time? We think it with our eyes.
You did awaken after all.
What, moveless, countless, lies
beyond the clockworks of your soul?”
* * *
“There is a charm in the taste of tea,
which makes it seem an ideal form,
that in repetition reveals the
charm of tea to be the taste of form.”
“Every day I tried to find
one thing through which spirit
that was my heart or god or mind
could speak and make me quiet.”
“Welcome, Blossom. Pink petals—
pale, pale—white, shrivel
around your spent stigma, settle
into earth without a shovel.”
“Continuum is continuum—
at each vanishing point exist
space thought time vacuum
exhaled upon a single axis.”
“The sun a rock among the canyon
faces, rapids deafening quiet;
tracklessly, I wade. The hidden
shadow trembles. Swifts riot.”
“The breath left my body for the clock
and held it stopped. When wind and rust
dissolved the clock . . . and our deadlock,
my breath inhaled the air and dust.”
“Sunshine floods the room and red
birds flash across the window frame.
There is no ease in joy. The dead
relax. The mind dances like flame.”
Note: This is two self-contained sections
from my long poem Voca Me (latin for "call me").
It is one of my "voices poems," in which
each stanza is spoken by a different
voice. More sections to follow.