Not Present
Being in the past--is jealousy on my part--in general
~ Leslie Scalapino
Not sentient : reliving an old photograph from college,
standing with her outside the dorm, last day
of the quarter, sunshine blinding me
Life is not retrospective : memory
confuses the brain : iron anchor
The floating world : being miserable on pages
of dust-stained journals : holding a mirror
to the boy, immature, who spilled ink
and so much more
in misguided efforts to be
Not sentient : not present
_____
Some mornings I do not know who I am until
someone speaks to me : captivated by the sunrise
or a dream encasing me in a cocoon of imagery
Not present : picking at a hangnail
10,000 things cloud my eyes, and still the raven
can wake me from retrospection and root my body
in the waking moment, the caw of now
_____
Lost presence : when her touch awakened me
to this flesh, everything reversed, the floating world
receded : how many years have passed?
____
Sentience : a boy at the time, and not present, then
the knock of death, everything reversed, split
wide open, a gaping whole in my chest
Fathers do not die : misguided child : the heart stops
and the earth opens its arms in acceptance
_____
All these things : not present : an inversion
of the laws, emptiness beneath the surface
of the fragile ice I called my life
Obviously : being fairly immature my whole life
as I waited for someone to speak to me, to know
what I was seeking : barking dogs, temporary
tattoos, blue cream Nehi
But not present : obviously
_____
Standing beside Sabino Creek, I drew circles
in the sand, reminders of something, something
I read in a book, or dreamed : circles mean
something about presence, or sentience, or . . . .
_____
Not sentient : being in the past
_____
Awareness : opening the ivy-covered heart, seeking
the girl I once knew only to find her grown and married,
lost to me, and yet, and yet . . .
There is feeling, not sentience, but presence : pain,
and the roots of my flesh secured in soil
Knowing nothing : everything opens
_____
Not present : seeking the anchor's weight,
setting memory aside : everything
opens : knowing nothing
Raven's caw : a circle
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1 comment:
Delighted to see my painting "Sentience" used in this way. You have my consent to include it in your blog. To me, the painting represents the instant when the first human became conscious of its existence.
-Fippy
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