The Essential Thing

Nothing to write. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I will never experience the field of becoming because I have too much anxiety to contend with.

All day I've paced back and forth from one corner of my head to another. Paced until the pounding begins in the womb and moves into the ribs, a heat-baby that gets stuck, nestled next to my heart.

Something in my bones said “be still.” Not that I am the kind for stillness. “Waiting has no object.” But there are objects and then there are knots. The knots overwhelm me. The heat-baby stirs, bumps up against my heart. And I cannot sit still for the plain to come into view.

So all I've accomplished is a small chewing piece. My mind feels like trout have been nipping its edges all day. Nothing to sustain. Nothing to care for.

Except, perhaps a small offering. Though it is so flawed. But I imagine it still and blue, in the corner of my room. Standing there, hands curled one over the other. Or maybe it's an air. Yes, more of an air moving around some central point. The point is the poem, and its edges are a starry blue sparkling. If I could get through the atmosphere, I could read its text. But for now, I just enjoy watching it swirl, though imperfect. So, hang about in the corner, blue swirling node or knot or kind eye. I hope to get to know you.

Here it is, in it's baby-ness:


The essential thing has been stolen.
A monk, it crawls out into the night
to worship a moon in secret.
I know You are missing.

It was not that I awoke, but
the filed woke in me, a tree
lying upside down, tangled
in faith-matter, hope-birds,
wet, out of nest. I want to be
alone in this, to cry by the night
stand. My sudden joy. I forget
how to bar the door with my whole weight.

The monk has left his tower,
his robes dirty up in the muck
by the river, his hands pray
into the mud-mistress. I watch.
The essential thing has been stolen