I don’t think I add much to this world;
in fact, I don’t think much at all. I do obsess
about the wrongness of it. Don’t think much
about what goes right; instead I think much
about people, their sadness, their depression;
how to stop them from becoming endemic.

So I don’t add much to the world. What with my health failed,
my being slipping off the table of bounty;
my being feeling ripped off and then violated.
Don’t think much or add much; when I do
it’s in trespass on the meaning of humanity.

In fact, I am not of this world; at the least,
not much of me is. These days I instead am seated
angrily in my corner chair, wanting to rage
at something, anything; then the seconds tick by
and I grow calm, calmer, waiting for something
to happen that will ease my anxiety. Nothing comes

and it dawns on me that I don’t in fact belong here; rather,
I am from the present moment somewhere else,
somewhere which exists only moments away
but is a footstep closer than anyone can go
without an escort or a fellow traveler
to guide them. I am the escort, the fellow traveler;

in that role I have become seamlessly hungry
for experience, am dancing light among the clouds
of worry and pain. A split second away
is my home, exactly like this one but
newer, fresher, filled with bones and blooms.
I don’t think much of it. Instead I feel it,

I stick it to my own bones, I sit with it
until it fades and is gone into a different world.
I cannot follow. I cannot go there
for a long time yet, say the shadows.
I stay here, not thinking much;
I stay here with you, and we are fading away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

The yammering on the radio
frets on me in spite of
my strained work at not listening.

Two people are talking about
how not to trust anything you read
or hear.

It’s seven thirty in the morning
and I don’t trust them to know
a damn thing about anything.

I force myself to say it:
I don’t
believe them. I don’t know
who they are,
I can’t trust them,
I will not believe them.

Now one quotes
National Geographic.
I don’t believe them.
The other quotes the Bible.
I can’t believe them.

Do you believe them?
I don’t believe you.

Meanwhile, there’s a dog barking upstairs
at a car driving slowly by.
My cat sleeps on the couch,
her back to me. I hear a bird above the radio
chatter and I strain to tell myself
its name — a mockingbird, a sparrow?
Perhaps something more exotic, like
a ruby throated grosbeak, immature,
wounded in the wing, damaged but
still chirping? The cat continues
to sleep and the dog shuts up
and the bird does too.

Soon enough,
full silence will come. You won’t
believe anything except your own
breath. Even that you won’t trust
entirely, until you sink into the depths
of it.

When you come back to this life
you will be redeemed and carry
that silence within you
through the noise, through the lies,
through everything you face.
Like a crystal. Like a
formless fire, a single
belief without name,
lighting the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Think about when to pull back
the window shades. Step to it:

using the cords, level the blades of the shades
just so. It’s grey outside, no sun yet.

The lavender flowers, the white flowers,
some with pistils just as bright

and others, stamens brown to black,
sitting side by side, waiting for the bees

to come. Step to it: go outside,
it’s just about dawn and there’s nothing indoors

that you need to do. In fact, why you’d ever thought
there was something you’d need to do indoors

is a mystery. Today, there’s no
mystic crystal revelation here;

the old songs, chestnuts of your youth,
vanish in perfect silence. You turn off

the radio and shut your imperfect eyes.
The flowers await your presence, or they don’t.

But you love them, or something like that.
You blink once, hoping it will mean

something to them, but it’s unknown
for now if it does. You blink a second time.

This is the second time.
Has anything happened?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T