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Fractal Beings

I am what I am made of,

The world is what I make of it.

You are what you’re made of,

The world is what you make of it.

We are what We’re made of,

Of you and me and what we’re made,

The world is what we make of us,

Of us we make what world there is.

We are nothing if we do not make,

The world is nothing if it is not made,

We are undone if we do not do.

From world to me to you to world,

What makes is made of what it makes,

All below makes all above

And all belittled makes all beloved

And we are in-betweens.

Live to be lived

The Chosen are those who choose The Blessed are those who bless The Anointed are those who anoint The Praised are those who praise The Forgiven are those who forgive The Enlightened are those who enlighten The Sacred are those who consecrate The Belonging are those who welcome The Sung are those who sing The Gifted are those who give The Beautiful are those who make beauty The Enchanted are those who enchant The Touched are those who touch The Heard are those who listen The Loved are those who love The Beloved are those who believe.

There Is A Cell In Your Body

Who has begun to question God. It asks itself Is there a plan? Why do I suffer, And why do I live? There is a cell in your body Afraid for itself Who asks, Am I selfish to want the things I want? To be desirous, or self-serving? Is it selfish, to want only what a cell wants to live and be happy? Deep down, the cell in your body Realizes that it can never be happy Till it has accepted itself And its place in you. There is a cell in your body That does not know you. It cannot. But to go on living, It imagines you exist. Between meals, Between work, While sleeping, Between breathing and laughing Between all the things it does for itself, The cell remembers and doubts and hears whispers That you exist. You must. Otherwise, why would it go on living? There is a cell in your body That asks itself, Is there a plan? And between your moments of doubting God As you go on living As you eat and work and sleep and breathe and laugh And do all the things you must do for yourself You answer the prayers Of that cell in your body.

By Rutted Paths

In the ruts of wagons stirs the nemesis of entropy. In deep rivers where ships pass lurks the challenger of chaos. In wrinkles of our tangled skin we harbor that same champion.

Dual fates of the wagon corporeal and its paths theoretical are enshrined by the dance between Eris and her adversary.

Arcs of ritual carve shallowness into discord. The deeper our entangling the greater love’s advantage.

As the wheel slips now Over the rim of habit on the wide unrutted road Strange futures meet

For so near its engraved routes not far lies everything the challenger forgot.

Love is Knowledge

The universe cannot know itself until it loves itself. It cannot love itself until we love each other. We cannot love each other until we know each other. We cannot know each other until we know ourselves. We cannot know ourselves until we love ourselves. We cannot love ourselves until our cells love each other. Our cells cannot love each other until they know each other. They cannot know each other until they know themselves.

They cannot know themselves until they love themselves.

Isn’t it curious how those who seek knowledge are often afraid of love, and those who seek love are often afraid of knowledge?

That all is known, there is no greater love.

That all is loved, there is no greater knowledge.

Half-lunged

It was always the skeptic in me who won.

Who defeated art, was the iconoclast of anything I made. And all the while the dumb one in me, The less articulate, the feeble-voiced, the half-lunged, the bleeding believer Cried out, to make me whole. The half-eared skeptic heard half of it and knowing halved beliefs are dangerous Trundled it down always, and so back we teetered into dust.

Until finally I listened to the half-lunged. And it was all the mute ever dream of, to be heard, And we were whole.

Invisible Impressions

Imagine that around us gridlines of colored light reveal the many paths we take in life. The more frequent the route, the more vivid the color of light behind us.

Imagine that everything we say leaves tracers in the air. That words do not vanish at the ends of our utterances but stay floating and fixed in the places we say them, visible to all. That someone can see what we have spoken and how long ago and in what tenor.

Imagine that our eyes leave imprints upon the things we see, but that each imprint is distinguished by whether we glance, or intentionally stare, or longfully peer, or are deeply entranced by the thing in our view. That if we find beauty in it, the imprint magnifies our adoration so that others can glimpse the same light in which we behold it.

Imagine that the things we hear echo repeatedly where we have heard them, but also that hearing itself leaves a mark on the world. That the more attentively we listen to something or someone, the more resoundingly they ring in our ears as we pass by, and afterward bear the mark of something listened to.

And imagine that the objects and people we touch, no matter how delicately, advertise our friction, wear it on their surfaces. That everything we brush or pick up or embrace glows with the memory of our contact.

Imagine that each of these marks bears resemblances to our selves. That others can look at a person we have embraced or loved and see our reflection in them. That they can follow the light down an empty road or the symphony of sounds in a familiar place and detect our legacy in them.

Imagine that we can look on our past ephemeral deeds and in the plainness of day discover our trajectories. That our senses are paint brushes that add to our realities rather than passively receive them.

In such a world, would we become more deliberate human beings?

Would we be better lovers?

Would we invest more in things of meaning and value?

Would we regard others with more intentionality, more focus, more reverence?

Or is it the fragility of all those actions that reminds us of our impermanence? Is it the feeling of loss in each moment that compels us to hug tighter, that draws us nearer to each other, to seek meaning at all?

I do not know. I like to think this type of world can be ours. That we can choose which moments to make last.

Until the day this world glows with our passing,

we must make symbols

buried as we choose

in each other

in each thing

of the invisible impressions we leave behind.

Of Higher Selves

There desert nomad, green-eyed gaze comes certainly on the known path Life is a labyrinth, not a maze

A mind the diorama of stars And love, the diaspora of cells A tributary life that never strays

There are no mundanities In a desert celebrated by mind where seconds are symbols of the days

A follower because heavens have course And leader because bodies are temples the nomad knows that good has place

Action was a drifting cloud Solidified on the thread of thought The mind, in those days, was a maze.

Desert nomad green-eyed gaze knows The thread of Ariadne makes Life a labyrinth, not a maze.

To Be Not Momentary Creatures

To be not momentary is, paradoxically, to be momentary but by rendering each moment momentous. And to be wholistic is not to think only of big things but to think of each small part as whole in and of itself; As a symbol of its larger structure rather than a solitary accident. Insodoing we become --who would otherwise be solitary, accidental, momentary creatures-- momentous beings.

Wooden Lullaby

The pact we made Once when we were barely human Was not a worded thing but wooden.

It was not said— —nor writ, nor carved, Once, when we were wooden.

It did not trail Or trace, or drop— Was not, in essence, made —but wooden.

Still we hear it, now and then When beacon fires burn to embers When battered bridges heave in waves When it drums, no one remembers

The pact we made Could not be false Once when we were wooden.

Young ones seek it in their lovers And find it in their lovers' eyes. It glosses there enshrined then fades with lovers’ sad goodbyes.

It could not be false Then When barely human.

Old ones going to the grave will catch it as they slip the world A tune that grazed their livelong years— just noticed, as a dream unfurled.

Once when we were barely human We did not ask what timbre Then, when we could still remember.

Still we hear it now and again when it echoes in a canyon floor Or whispers in a rainstorm rhythm No one remembers anymore

The pact we made Was not a worded thing but wooden.

It could not be false It was a pulse.

It was a pulse.

Minions of Microbes

The astronomer says we are infinitesimal specks crawling on a grain in the cosmic beach.

The biologist says we are blind giants blundering over tiny empires.

The microbiologist says we are minions of microbes; bipedal countries whose affluent citizens vote from our stomachs.

The chemist says we are bags of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen– elementarily reduced; champions of Thales.

The neurobiologist says we are emergent phenomena the self of which would cease to be, sans the chatter of neurons.

The computer scientist says we are computers faithfully living out the lines of an ancient code.

From this great body of evidence I must conclude: we are made of tiny poets. For at the limits of our knowledge we speak metaphor and all that we are, reduced to poetry.

Modern Communication

Cub human, bored, fists clenched, stands next to lion and shouts into canyon: "Notice me!" Echoes free three bees from hive. Gazelle hears, ears perked, piqued, asks: "What?" Kid frowns: "Not you. Talking to lion." Gazelle mumbles, "Modern communication..."

Secret of Poets

Secret of poets: The wor(l)d is; a distraction from what could be.

Part II: The Real Economy of Words

The bias of economic thought long preceded the valuation of currency.

It was born not in coins gold copper or beads,

but in words, and whatever their bubbling precursors: that objects could be bought and sold by sounds. That ideas could be traded in syllables.

The very homo sapien notion that reality owes us an explanation is derived from our economy of symbols.

It comes not from a desire to communicate with each other but from the simpler, more fundamental need to commune with our environment.

We call, and expect a response. That was the first economy.

The market we have created, we were born into, demands value from us and would tell us to carve it out from our bones and our genes.

It is as if we say,

Universe: look at what we have given you. We have given you

meaning by our conversation,

direction by our expansion,

hope by our passion,

purpose by our existence.

Now what will you give us in return? For those are the terms of our exchange. Our environment can respond in kind, or not at all. Identity? The story of your making? Enlightenment?

Bliss?

The transaction of grain and barley itself was first bound, not by their monetary value, not by a universal weight, not by an agreement in barter, but by their definitions as quantifiable units

in the bottled sounds

by which we signify.

Yes, there was math before there were numbers. And markets before there was money And traders before there were buyers and sellers.

The systems purport themselves to be right

because they have been for so long

and because they know nothing outside of themselves.

There is an unspoken solipsism shared by every system every infrastructure we inhabit.

Just as the architecture of words defined itself and made itself, and retorted an abundant outside, so too did economies. So too, did life.

So what now?

Yes languages push outward, yes buildings expand, yes economies grow and grow and grow.

But what about our view of the systems themselves?

Is this also growing?

Part I: The Real Bias of Thought Architecture

We lean on a foundation with walls and beams cement and mortar an inside and out.

Our structure says you can build here but that spot is unsupported.

You can dwell here but that spot is unlivable.

You can view from this window but that vista is unknowable.

Our building tells us this is the only way to experience this space.

And after building on these same blueprints living within these same walls looking out from these same windows knowing only these cemented experiences we cannot help but be born to agree.

Champions of buildings will say “But! There is always the outside And we do go outside from time to time And we always build new and better buildings that expand and sprawl and capture more space And our experience of space is not limited by our use of buildings. Rather, it is precisely our use of buildings that allows us to live the unlivable, view the unviewable, know the unknowable. Our buildings do not create our reality they are only vessels that allow us to access the fundamental spaces that exist everywhere which would be vacant to us, were it not for buildings– As all space must be the same. Buildings are the only way to broach new terrain– without them, we would be constrained not by walls but by the great crushing outside.”

There is another bias whose conversation runs a similar course. The bias of language says:

We think on a foundation with words and symbols letters and grammars an inside and out.

Our language says you can imagine here but that thought is unsupported.

You can think in this mode but that pattern is unthinkable.

You can describe with these words but those phenomena have no name.

Our language tells us that this is the only way to describe reality.

Champions of language will say “But! There are always the unnamed things And we do make up new words from time to time And our language is always growing and becoming more accurate expanding and capturing more meaning And our experience of reality is not limited by our use of language. Rather, it is precisely our use of language that allows us to think the unthinkable, imagine the unimaginable, know the unknowable. Our words do not create our reality they are only vessels that allow us to access the fundamental truths that exist everywhere which would be vacant to us, were it not for words– As all truth must be the same. Language is the only way to broach new knowledge– without it, we would be constrained not by words but by the great crushing unsaid.”

And all this is well and good, for buildings as well as for words and we could leave it with the champions of each if it weren’t for a whispering blindness:

We describe our spaces in bricks, as we do build our meanings in words, and each self aware system cannot fathom the reality beyond its walls which lies gaping, yawning, vast, uncharted, unseen, yet might be described and built and understood by other mechanisms.

So words and bricks serve us well, but the praise of words and bricks is itself a circular inbred self-consuming reality.

No, not all space is the same. No, not all thought is the same.

And the one who subscribes to a false equality of all spaces and all things builds walls and words to make it so and assimilates each cell of reality to a binding unity it had not been before.

Such that, retrospectively, all things do look the same and languages and buildings, in their conquest, have arced their self-fulfilling prophecy and claimed all creation and all time for themselves.

The one language and the one architecture spread outward and level all fields, all trees and look back, saying, “See? See how similar everything is? See how accurately we have defined this space? See how the world works? See how simple it all is, really?”

And surveying the treeless deserts, the biological continuity, the one language, the one science, the one knowledge, who can disagree?“

So it is, that saying makes it so.

Rain Factory

Old man plodding on a blue brick road green coat, bunched tote, hunched throat—toad Ambling, rambling, bumbling; slowed: Puddle stumbled, mumbled—sodden-toed Sudden skyward glance from under undulating hat: thunder rumble roar on a distant flat Barn burning grass waving door with broken latch Flaming yellow field lit by barn red match Hay-buried glassy sill of broken window rattled by rain-through-rafter crescendo Storm reaming rivers, teeming gullious streams while barn planks, straw flanks dream dry dreams Old toad droops. Scoops puddle drops Small bottles brimmed, capped, cork-stopped Old toad singing, swinging vials in tote: “Each drop’s sound is the sweetest compote” One drop: windward barn door moans Two drop: furling thunder groans Three drop: clicking wet glass clacks Four drop: tidal fire-peeled field cracks Five drop: dog bay in neighbor valley Six drop: chimed tree pleas winded sally Seven drop: handle on a well creaks steady Eight drop: trill of bird dips in branch-tipped eddy. ~~~ Back home, shroom dome, toad sits heavy No sound, no storm, walls a pitted levee Damped, cramped, wrinkled, tame; miles from a barn-clipped, hay-flecked flame Far and far and far away, a winding blue road: “Where is the place for a storm-pricked toad?” Round about the hollow hallowed fallow things hang metal things, straw things, hinges and panes a clockwork mobile of farm-tools found a rusty shovel, a yarn-spool wound From ceiling grid, framework hid, cork-stopped bottles Each on a string, on a hook, under bobbles Toad pulls spools, corks drop from And all the hollow hedgehole now a raining hum.

Blind Fork Forward

Where is the thread upon which we string our words? Where is the rail by which we guide our steps? Where are the ligaments of time bridging this moment to the next? How is it from all the tumultuous sea of thoughts and gaping perceptions we drive a blind fork forward with seeming intent? Was it a blink first of consciousness?

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