Hello! Back today with three more poems. I don’t know how long these poems will keep coming. Are they even poems? I honestly don’t know. Whatever they are, they’re taking me to new territories within and without.
At the beginning of the year, I vowed to go to the edges, but the edges have turned out to be elusive horizons, like trying to catch a rainbow by walking towards it.
Check my previous post, Seized by something, for the first three poems.
It All Goes In
How to define god? Reality
Said Pico Iyer without thinking
How many realities are possible
In the infinity of time and space
As fluctuations and possibilities
Teem in the cosmic cauldron?
Who made the cauldron? What
If it’s made collectively, each of
Us adding things in? Dreaming
Goes into the pot. Amino acids
Go in. Every teardrop that came
Or wouldn’t come. Harnessing
Fire. Reproduction. Calcium
The concrete I poured on my
Studio floor today. It all goes in
Protozoa too. And dark energy
And all the things we haven’t
Discovered. From the primordial
Past to the far future, whatever
Has been or will ever be, it’s all
Simmering in there. For who
Or what is the mystery that
Feeds us and keeps us alive
Phantom Theories
I often start sentences with and
A colleague recently called that into
Question, saying her 5th grade teacher
Told her to never start sentences with
And. Here’s the thing. In 5th grade, my
Teacher said we only have five senses
Turns out we have many more. My 9th
Grade teacher said it’s scientific fact
We only use 10% of our brains. Right
And my 11th grade teacher said that
Crustaceans feel no pain, so when I
Saw lobsters being boiled alive back
Then, I couldn’t imagine the immense
Torture they were suffering. Then, in
Freshman physics, my professor gave
Me theories about the universe I could
Count on as laws. They were fixed and
Reliable, always to be followed. Most
Have been disproven now. I’ve learned
So many phantom theories throughout
Life that, if stitched together, they’d
Form a long trail behind me, dragging
Me down. Right and wrong, good
And bad, they aren’t as absolute as
We’ve been taught. At some point
We must all let go of what we think
We know. Follow the right answers
All the way to their wrong questions
Follow questions all the way to their
Dissolution. Then maybe we’ll have
The faint chance of glimpsing, for a
Split second, something close to truth
Of a Wilder Nature
There’s something about animals
Know what I mean? They’re aware
Of things I’m not. Sometimes they
Even seem to recognize me while
I, in my blundering humanness, can
Not remember how we could have
Met. It’s as if there is a wolf in me
Who had to leave my pack, find my
Place in new territory, like the one
Whose tracks I found last week so
Near our new home. It’s as if there is
A whale in me too, that giant sperm
Whale mother desperately trying to
Save her pup from the jaws of orcas
Only to flee the bloodstained waters
As they ripped her baby’s tongue out
Somehow I recognized her as she
Wailed and wandered in grief so
Heavy it took all of her effort just to
Surface for a breath. Sometimes
I think there’s a bee in me, dutifully
Maintaining the hive. Or that bee
I once caught sleeping in a dandelion
Who woke up and began tapping
My finger with its antennae. Do we
Know each other? I wondered. Yes
It’s crazy, I know. But nature recycles
Everything, down to the level of
Atoms. Imagine, every atom inside
Of you was once apart of something
Else. Life passes between forms in
A continual dance flowing in and
Out of some fundamental source
It seems we could be billions of years
In the making and only just beginning
Lately I’ve become interested in animal
Tracking, and let me tell you, it can feel
Like trying to solve cosmic mysteries
I’ll find these clues, clear markings on
The land that transfigure in perplexing
Ways. An animal that’s been hopping
Suddenly begins to waddle. It went this
Way and then vanished into thin air?
Days later I’ll stumble upon the same
Bizarre tracks in another town, think it
Can’t be the same animal, it just can’t
And yet why not? It’s like molecules
In quantum physics. They’re waves
And also particles. They won’t behave
In our equations, won’t be reduced
To a word or concept, won’t stay still
Enough to be pinned down. Find
A molecule in one place, then blink
It’s in a totally different realm. ‘Here’
And ‘there’ simultaneously. If only
We could explain it all, make all the
Pieces fit together. One thing I’ve
Learned from tracking wild animals is
My mind gets in the way. When I think
Too much, I lose the tracks. All I can do
Is ask, Who are you? Where did you go?
Why did you pass on this rock where
A snake now lies in the sun? I can ask
Any question I want, and then I must
Let it go. If resolution comes at all, it
Comes when I’m not searching for it
It comes as a feeling, a strange pull in
A certain direction. It comes as I go
Deeper into my creaturely body with
Pheromones and processing systems
We abandoned long ago. It’s the best
Chance I have of coming face to face
With the wild animal, of peering into
A window of the world I’ve never seen
Before. Even then, there’s rarely any
Explanation. Just a sliver of a story
Still being written. A vast puzzle with
New pieces constantly arriving. It is
Said the Universe speaks in numbers
Which I don’t doubt, I’ve experienced it
Many times before. But it also speaks
In poetry and in the wind and in the
Movement of a frog’s tongue as it
Reaches out for a insect. It speaks in
Music, symphonies really, and in the
Silence between notes. It speaks in
Echolocation and mycelium, in rain
Drops on the lake and colors our eyes
Cannot detect. Physicists want one
Mathematical equation to capture the
Logic of the entire universe, one grand
Theory of Everything that might tell us
Once and for all, who we are, if we’re
Alone, what on Earth we’re doing here
Our definitions and calculations, they’ve
Taken us far, but maybe they cannot
Take us all the way. Life might be of a
Wilder nature. Like an animal, like you
And I, maybe the universe, too, is still
Becoming. Moment by moment, it’s all
Undecided, it is alive, it is unfolding
xx Beth
