If I could see you now as you see me,
I know I would be ravished by the sight–
upheld by light, a ruffling breeze about
your hair, your eyes moist, even kinder
I have arrived and known myself alive in the rainforests
of Veracruz, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo,
and felt like one of Moses’ Israelites crossing the Red Sea
between two interminable walls of water–
I am not only who I seem.
I am haunted–deeply, truly, irremediably.
I am a labyrinth of indeterminable dimensions.
What goes beyond itself, usually unbeknownst, is always
yawning toward Infinity.
If it realized this was the tenor of its tendency, it might
rethink its goals.
There was not a puff of wind or breath of breeze
when the sickle moon slid sharp and gleaming
through the darkening trees,
Standing, feet well-planted on this rough limen,
fronting the night full-on,
I hold the door all the way open, brace it with my
left elbow and forearm
Nature, our dwelling, familiar to us on one narrow band of reality
to which our mental apparatuses and senses have been fitted–
Nature creates from within, boot-strapping on each creature’s actions into the next available place-and-time–call it an “adjacent possible.”
“You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink,” they say.
I say, “Lead the horse to water. Encourage it. You’ve done what you were able.
There is only one cause of death, and that is Deity.
God uses whatever tools
might be at hand to ensconce us, whelm us, catch