There are here

There is a lotus flower in my head—
I put it there.
I put it there like the oceans were put
Like the rivers were put
Like the lady lakes
This passive putting,
Not really so passive, but rather mysterious


Mysterious as everything we try to illuminate,
Everything we simplify by illuminating it.
A man walks in and begins playing piano
And suddenly the light through the window touches my arm
Bending across the carpet
The way it ripples
And I think how we conjure so much of nothing


How we pull and sound appears.

I do not want to become a part of you.
I want only that you recognize we are already parts of each other
There is no boundary
Here

I do not end.

Nor do you,
But you have known this in other ways.


Believe me
when I say there is a lotus in my head.
Believe me when I say there are angels here
There are tigers here
There are kittens here
And fishes.
You can pull from this world anything
And you must give it back.


This, in the end, is what we forget.
It is why we lay bare that land that might have fed us eternally
Why we sleep with heaviness in our heads
Where flowers might have bloomed
if there had been a promise
to let them die when they needed
 

Quella

VT

YWP Alumni