"There was neither non-existence nor existence then.
There was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond.
What stirred?
Where?
In whose protection?
Was there water, bottomlessly deep?
There was neither death nor immortality then.
There was no distinguishing sign of night nor of day.
That One breathed, windless, by its own impulse.
Other than that there was nothing beyond.
Darkness was hidden by darkness in the beginning,
with no distinguishing sign, all this was water.
The life force that was covered with emptiness,
that One arose through the power of heat.
Desire came upon that One in the beginning,
that was the first seed of mind.
Poets seeking in their heart with wisdom
found the bond of existence and non-existence.
Their cord was extended across.
Was there below?
Was there above?
There were seed-placers, there were powers.
There was impulse beneath, there was giving forth above.
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Who really knows?
Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced?
Whence is this creation?
The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?
Whence this creation has arisen
- perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not -
the One who looks down on it,
in the highest heaven, only He knows
or perhaps even He does not know.."
~Creation Hymn excerpt from the Rig Veda
:thumb308140260: Things that made me sigh...
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Things that made me smile..
The Nature of ThingsHere, with my hands in the dirt.
I never imagined myself
as much of a gardener.
Then again,
I never imagined myself as much of a cook either,
let alone a poet.
Knuckles so broken,
I can barely hold a pencil.
Every time I take a breath,
I feel the ribs that never healed.
Though they should've,
long ago.
So I guess I've changed.
So much so
there are times when I don't recognize myself
in the mirror.
I think,
who is this person standing before me?
Where did he come from?
When did he get here?
But he doesn’t answer.
I guess this is the nature of things.
Though part of me longs to reach out.
To tell the `me that was,
there is a better way.
But there is no `me that was anymore,
only the `me
that is.
MY TURN TO SITI.
Tomorrow ticks
in purgatorial percussion
like water torture
on my tectonic forehead
The mountain seizures of my brows
identify the tips of perspiration
My chin could sleep at least
But my eyes must remain
doomed as deserts
in a moonless world
(where they used to bury gangsters
my father's movies say)
II.
My own heart an airlock
my autopilot presence
serves to wedge into
the unrelated beds of
my unconscious parents
The vigil kept honest
by my mother's onion-skin slumber
and its sudden snore jolts
smoke-ringing in the remnants
of the conventional silence
and ripped to fruitless strands
above the bed of sleeping hiccups
where my father's gangsters hold serve
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And...ten days before my trip. Mmmhumm...I'm counting. Yes. I. Am.
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