how can one be proud of one's need of recognition?
yet one must needs recognize this need
and be proud of it, that it may lead
eventually to a deeper recognition, to where recognition
is authorized, to where one might grow beyond the light, in luminous signs of the unrecognized
*
daily we mix and mingle, and nightly our dreams yield up
semblances, resemblances, reassembled as
the flow of what we truly would want..., or need..., or are?
*
the sneeze coming out of me, the nose running, the blessed
event, tells me with a shout I am released! so I run
off into the distance, and, from where I sit seeing my spirit come up short against the body, would, like a gust of wind, make
a true inroad of myself, a self on its knees to joy
*
sure our sentence is a long one--punctuated with sighs, sorrows, situated in a larger paragraph of time passing, surprising in periods, while always given, or seeking after, an even wider context of meaning, where meaningful attains to fullness; but
when facing up to death I get tongue-tied; when falling in love, my syntax gets strained--your place or mine?--either way, this currency'll be restamped, superscribed as it is with the markings of a lovesick scribbler, by way of an ennobled cliche that has, yes, a mean and hungry look
*
fodder for hell is what Rumi calls those
who are heedless of beginnings & ends--
heeding the end, you achieve power & greatness, he says,
by dwelling on results.
heeding the beginning (more rare), you achieve ambiguity,
by dwelling on process.
while our paradise simply would be pretext
of a 'shadowless shadow,'
in which is held accountable
the origin of the world
Botsford, Alan. A Book of Shadows. Katydid Books, 2003.
Botsford, Alan. A Book of Shadows. Katydid Books, 2003.
