out of nothing out of nowhere
which meets something falling down
out of everything out of everywhere
how else does matter
become understanding
thus we are bordered
by above and below
by east and west
by front and back
we are 7 cubits by 7 cubits by 7
we are the holy of holies
carried through the desert cities
we are the seeds of the worlds
3 comments:
potentiality. let's hope we do it justice.
you've brought this poem to mind (did you know it?),
Concerning the Atoms of the Soul
Someone explained once how the pieces of what we are
fall downwards at the same rate as the Universe.
The atoms of us, falling towards the centre
of whatever everything is. And we don’t see it.
We only sense their slight drag in the lifting hand.
That’s what weight is, that communal process of falling.
Furthermore, these atoms carry hooks, like burrs,
hooks catching like hooks, like clinging to like,
that’s what keeps us from becoming something else,
and why in early love, we sometimes
feel the tug of the heart snagging on another’s heart.
Only the atoms of the soul are perfect spheres
with no means of holding on to the world
or perhaps no need for holding on,
and so they fall through our lives catching
against nothing, like perfect rain,
and in the end, he wrote, mix in that common well of light
at the centre of whatever the suspected centre is,
or might have been.
~ John Glenday
Thanks for this, Erin! I did not know of it or Glenday. Is he Canadian? Interesting too that he speaks of "hooks", of catching "against nothing", which was an idea/word that followed me from "Bordered Valentine" and led to "Gone Fishing Valentine".
yes, this evolution between poems. i noticed.
that is how i found the poem, evolution - i was making similar connections, while a friend of mine was doing the same. then i encountered this poem which had already done the work. strange how these things happen. since then, time to time, i've been encountering things hooking into existence from nothing all over. i suppose it is intuitive. it feels like an explanation of why something instead of nothing.
i gather he's scottish, although i only know this one poem of his.
i love your, "we are the seeds of the worlds" although personally i do move to open the seeds into a larger category. earlier today i was face to face with a fox. i daresay he was a mightier seed than i am. i fear he met his end though. there was a dead fox of similar size near the bridge on the way back into town later today. now his death is seeded into me as well as his earlier wily faced life. i saw him hunt and pounce upon something in the bushes. perhaps that death was seeded into me then too.
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