Empty Spaces

This is one of the selections from my recent release, Words Transcending Themselves.

1

In a single second, the voyager spacecraft travels eleven miles through the darkness.

In one minute it travels the distance between Boston and Richmond, Virginia.

In one hour, it covers the distance around the equator.

In one month, that is a trip to the moon.  And back to the Earth. And back to the moon.  And to the Earth, again.

 

But the hundreds, thousands, millions of miles that it actually covers

These are through an empty dark:

Even The scientists  call that place

cosmic purgatory.

Nothing, and nothing, and more of nothing.

 

In 2025 there will not be enough energy left within 

To power a single instrument on the vessel.  

The blackness outside  will finally have its way with the world within it.

 

If we had aimed it at a star in the first place,

It would have been arriving for a lunch date

Sometime in February.  around the year 72, thousand three hundred.  eighteen.

 

2.

All the things I know and think I know.

All my feelings.  Memories. Words.

Begin, of course, 

In fifteen centimers located beneath my eyes, 

Between my ears

 within my skull

100 billion neurons weighing less than 3 pounds.

 

In the beginning there was an impulse.

Follow it with me

In through a dendrite, 

Away past the nucleus

Down the myalin sheath, 

And out those axons…

 

But between each of the cells…

There is this open space.

The synapse is a gap bridged  by neurotransmitters.

 these countless empty  spaces, these darknesses between the neurons

I declare 

That they be named 

 the tiny  purgatories of the mind.

 

3.

I am thinking about open spaces today.

I declare that as above, so below

As it is outside

So it is within

 

There are these

Billions of voyagers traveling billions of synapses

Each with three radioisotope thermoelectric generators

Propelling her among an oort cloud made of  serotonin, glutamate, norepinephrine and endorphin.

 

And I declare that the emptiness,

The pause, the waiting, and the anticipation…

These are the things which might just redeem us.

 

I am thinking about open spaces today.

And I declare that our one great hope

Is in nothing, and nothing, and nothing at all.

 

Memory, Foreknowledge

Here is the latest selection from my collection, Words Transcending Themselves.

This Earth:

Mud and rock.

 Worms.  Shit.

 Roots probing out like fingers that just found their way into gloves.

 

This earth,

Where the light filters green through dewey leaves and lands on spider webs.

 

This earth, 

Where my boots leave their tracks.

And the frog thrums.  And the mosquito sucks.

And the breeze and the bees carry pollen

 

This earth,

Where the dead baby field mouse 

Feeds the bugs and the microbes and the scavengers.

 

Memory and foreknowledge are the same things here.

Prophecy is history here, and history is prophecy

We grow old and we die and we grow young then.

 

Morning and noon and night.

Summer.  Fall. Winter.  Spring.

Chase.  Pounce. Eat.

Clouds, then rain, then sun,

Moon and sun, waxing moon, waning moon, moon and sun…

 

These cycles,

Fractal themselves. 

Infinite repetitions at every scale imaginable

 

Consider, for example that rain:

Drops came down.  

Lightning split open the sky.

Ripped A fissure to Elsewhere,

A crack in the stuff of existence.

It release the thunder: a roar from some other world.

And then it is silent again.

 

This is the place where stories are born.

This is the womb of myth.

It is the swampy fertile birthing ground of poetry…

 

If I will let this background become my foreground.

If I will submit to the dissolution of  the line between setting and character,

Between theme and plot.

Between me and you.

 

some magic will move through me.

 

A flute looks like such a small thing.

Out of context, you might call it an ugly metal little tube.

But behold the glories that rise up from it.

As the column of air moves up it and through

 

This Breath

This poem is available in my compilation of mystical and ineffable-focused poems: Words Transcending Themselves.

It’s an act of trust

Living in this wide open moment.

To sit in this silence,

Where anything could happen.

 

I want to rise up, loud

Take charge of this openness

Fill it with mediocrity

To save me from suffering.

 

It is an act of trust

To breathe

And just breathe.

To sit down in the passenger seat.

To pull my oar up and out of the water.

 

It is not my breath.

Just breath.

 

I had deluded myself into this sense of ownership.

It is like when there was this ride: 

Disneyland had these “cars” they ran  on tracks, 

They had steering wheels.

And i was 7 and took my driving responsibility so seriously.

 

My breath is like that.

I step in and announce i am taking over for a few minutes.

Then i go about my day. 

And i don’t give it another stray thought

 

But somehow, i keep breathing.

No.  The universe

Keeps breathing me.

 

I am a carbon dioxide reclamation vessel

For that forest over there.

And i 

I am a spontaneous rising up of the universes self awareness

A gentle punchline.

A cosmic selfie.

A moment of reflection.

 

The universe breathes.

Me.

 

They say that the eternal name can not be named.

They say that the Divine Tetragrammaton

Is not a thing we can pronounce

Those unspeakable letters,

Just the universe’s breath:

 

And so this inhale, exhale

Is the universe naming itself

Through me.

 

 

A Reckoning With the Nature of Silence

This is the first poem in my recently released collection Words Transcending Themselves.  Click the title for more information.  I will be placing several favorites from the book on this blog.

1.

There were no sounds.

 

2.

Your presence is tolerated.

No one will ever tell you that your kind is here to be seen and not heard.

Why make anyone uncomfortable by saying it outloud?

We all know this is, what it is.

 Your presence here will be allowed

But not your participation 

Not your questions.

Or your contributions.

Where is your gratitude for being let into the room at all?

 

3.

And yet.

Anything could happen in the quiet!

lips pursed as if to kiss the air.

Who knows what will come next.

It could be  the thing that finally makes everything make sense.

 

There was an empty place inside.

And the words still echoed in there.

I don’t love you.

I never did love you.

You weren’t enough.

But that was only on the inside that she heard those things.

There were no sounds on the outside.

Everything had already been said.

 

5.

And yet….

Have you ever heard the snow fall onto a lake that hasn’t yet frozen?

A lovely living white noise.

At the edge of hearing.

Or maybe you are only imagining it.

Because now, there is only you.  

In a field with a lake in the winter at night.

It is so quiet here.

 

6.

he saw their eyes heavy with fear and worry.

And he tried to hold back the moan.

It all hurt, though.  

Everything hurt.  

Mostly he was ready for it all to be over

The body blotted out his best intentions

he moaned.

Gasped.  Clutched out for a hand with his wrinkled hand.

Her heart stopped before they touched.

There were no more noises here.

 

7.

And yet!

The first time 

I released my thinking away truly.

Placed it gently on a river like a floating leaf.

And just let it go.

The first time I sat in this True Silence.

I glimpsed myself truly

Just a brief reflection in the river.

Then the breeze came in, and wrinkled the water up.

But I had seen it.

The me behind me.

The observer of the fools parade of thoughts.

 

8.

You think its the worst thing.

When they stick the filthy rags in your mouth

To muffle out the screaming.

 

It’s not though.

The worst is when they offer to  take the gag away 

And you agree to be quiet

Because you have learned your lesson

 

9

And yet!

I might end this right here.

I might say these words and then stop..

Right here.

I might open this

Wide.

 

White space, pure on the page.

A quiet can fall among us and draw us together:

 

 Silence, a curse and a gift

Here, take it.  It is yours.

 

The Great Un-naming

Twitchy itching… An almost-stinging.

When the bandage has become a part of you,

When you peel it away to explore the extent of healing and loss.

 

The bloodied cloth I hold in my hand is my name.

It is the first thing that ever happened to me.

It is surprising to find that it is not so organic after all.

Peeling it away

 

surrendering this name.

Relinquishing it.

 

Place it gently on the stream.

With the twigs and debris and floating leaves.

The current washes my name down river.

 

I will sit in this quiet alone.

My burdens strangely lighter

 

Emptied

We are a handful of dirt.

Hollowed out by This Profound Breath.

And when we stepped into this instantiated glory.

This embodied transcendence

 

There is this vastness within!

 

It is not nature but our own little hearts

Which so abhor this vacuum

And so we grab fast the things that come along

Offering to make us full.

 

If we were younger or older

Wiser or more naive

We would never have held on to them in just such a way

these things we were given

That were never meant to be our possessions.

 

This, this is why when we enter into this world where they call us adults.

The world takes back that which began in it.

It is not because the world needs it.

It is because we never did.

 

This kindness.

Returning our great empty space.

When it is returned we find

Nothing that ought to be abhorred.

 

Silence

1.

There were no sounds.

 

2.

Your presence is tolerated.

No one will ever tell you that your kind is here to be seen and not heard.

Why make anyone uncomfortable by saying it outloud?

We all know this is, what it is.

Your presence here will be tolerated.

But not your particpation.

Not your questions.

Or your contributions.

Where is your grattitude for being let into the room at all?

 

3.

And yet.

Anything could happen in the quiet!

The lips pursed as if to kiss the air.

Who knows what will come next.

It could be the the thing that finally makes everything make sense.

 

There was an empty place inside.

And the words still echoed in there.

I don’t love you.

I never did love you.

You weren’t enough.

But that was only on the inside that she heard those things.

There were no sounds on the outside.

Everything had already been said.

 

5.

And yet….

Have you ever heard the snow fall onto a lake that hasn’t yet frozen?

A lovely living white noise.

At the edge of hearing.

Or maybe you are only imagining it.

Because now, there is only you.  

In a field with a lake in the winter at night.

It is so quiet here.

 

6.

You think its the worst thing.

When they stick the filthy rags in your mouth

To muffe out the screaming.

 

It’s not though.

The worst is when they offer to  take the gag away

And you agree to be quiet

Because you have learned your lesson

 

7.

And yet!

The first time

I released my thinking away truly.

Placed it gently on a river like a floating leaf.

And just let it go.

The first time I sat in this True Silence.

I glimpsed myself for the first time.

Just a brief reflection in the river.

Then the breeze came in, and wrinkled the water up.

But I had seen it.

The me behind me.

The observer of the fools parade of thoughts.

 

8.

She saw their eyes heavy with fear and worry.

And she tried to hold back the moan.

It all hurt, though.  

Everything hurt.  

Mostly she was ready for it all to be over

The body blotted out her best intentions

She moaned.

Gasped.  Clutched out for a hand with her wrinkled hand.

Her heart stopped before they touched.

There were no more noises here.

 

9

And yet!

I might end this line right here.

I might say these words and pause.

Right here.

I might open this

Wide.

 

White space, pure on the page.

And a gift

Emptiness

Here, take it.  

 

Now

It is not only this single immortal moment

Stacked up on itself, like turtles all the way down

It is every moment

Every moment.

Every moment lead itself

To this now.

 

Everything that happened.

Every moment from my conception.

.every moment since the earth cooled

Every moment since God laughed a big bang into existence

To just now.

Every one of those moments

Will give itself up.

Culminating….

 

In that soft insistent breeze,

Drawing my bangs to caress my earlobe.

In the thisness and thusness of right here.

Right now.

 

Boxes in the Attic

Sometimes i feel like a boy who lost a parent

When he was a baby.

The widow or widower

Boxed up all their things.  

And placed them in the attic.

For me.  When i am old enough to go through the detritus of that life and begin to construct

A theory about just how many claims that existence

Can make on my me

 

Sometimes i feel like that boy

Filled with mourning and wonder

Lament and curiosity.

 

Only the attic

is the world.

The wide wild bewildering world

 

The boxes

are everywhere!

Clouds filling the sky some as wispy as the fey

Others as substantial as iron girders supporting the roof of a parking garage.

 

The sting of the coffee splashing up around an ill fitting lid in the morning chill.

Scalding my fingers and landing in the muddy snow.

 

Those boxes are the smile touching the eyes of the woman who gave me my change before i pumped the gas.

 

Those boxes are the heart knowledge

That you cant love somebody into loving you.

And the wicked will prosper.

And the body grows old.

And then the body dies.

 

This one life of mine is an excavation.  

Dusty boxes in an attic lined with pink insulation.

They can be opened like brown flowers that making squelching noises

As the four interlocking petals are pulled up and out.

 

This life is an act of discovery.

The truths  i am shaking the dust off of

The things i am holding up in dirty light.

 

They are awe inspiring and monotonous.

They are wonder filled terrors

And terror filled wonders.

They are who we are

And who we are not.

And what we should have been.

 

The Latest

When I began blogging, bunches of years ago, this little site was where I started.  I cast a pretty wide net: theology, politics, culture, and poetry.

A few years ago, I mostly narrowed my focus in blogging.  I came back here, to Jeff’s Deep Thoughts, for a few things that did not quite fit into the Contemplace.  At the Contemplace, I shared my observations about meditation, prayer, and mysticism.

I continue to narrow my focus.  I have put a whole lot of sweat and tears (can’t honestly say I shed any blood) into The Faith-ing Project.  This site is intended to be a bit of a playground for the mind,  a training gym for the soul.  It is not directly about my journey at all.  Mostly, my hope is to assist others by exposing them to spiritual exercises and contemplative activities.

Why don’t you come and check it out?

https://faithingproject.wordpress.com/