we are time less

here i am, perched on the edge of earth’s balcony.

the beach at night—how i’ve missed it, the way the sea and sky merge into one big dark blue sigh;

the way the soft black-blue cushions you, makes you forget your fluorescent fears, makes you let go of the artifice, makes you feel like anything is possible, makes you feel;

the way this buzz goes deeper, into the curves of your being, winding through your veins and vessels and tunnels and channels, climbing through your cochlea with a vibrating message: you are alive;

the way the sand digs into every part of you and forces you to be present, to feel every granule, every atomic angle, measured out;

the way the clouds open up just enough to show you a sliver of moon, of reference and reminder on this glint-edge of spoon;

how it makes you really feel the earth, the roundness, the expanse, the way she takes full breaths, the way you could just fall off the ledge, disappear and be swallowed up into the depths.

we step into the tide and feel the grains and rocks and tease of seaweed and slip-slide of shells. we talk about sharks and the recent attacks and how the ocean is their natural habitat, and we are the real infestation;

we talk about death, and life, and family, and memory, and poetry, and cycles, and the canals we all move through, and the sounds, and the barriers we try to put up, and the way liquid light still pushes in;

i think about you, standing next to me, sitting so close to me in the sand, breathing this same air, sharing this same lens and space, like a kind and sacred hand being offered up for us both to hold;

i think about you, sitting in that chair, looking up at me and into me while i act out my script, play my part in that beautiful-tragedy, soak up your smiles, walk shaking circles around that stage of words.

we talk about how we’ve been here before, and how we’ll be here again, when we’re old and still time-less and still connected.

i slip out of my coverings just a bit and feel the moon and water on my skin, just enough to make me levitate, forget land for a moment, all the ties that bind, all the promises and commitments and labels and losses and lies left—

you, like the night ocean, have that effect.

and in the midst of all this thinking and talking and surging and being—a miracle right at our feet! tiny slippery white flashes of light—riding in on the tide and seeming to fly right off the crest!

like the floating particles in the eye that you can’t really see or look at directly—we try, and then they’re gone.

we squint and bend down closer to try to make out their shape, follow them down the shore, but we can only see faint patches, glimmers of light, scurrying schools of squarish white blobs, round at points, shifting together and then apart—so rapidly we can’t pin them down.

but we know they’re there. we don’t know what they are, but we know we saw them. we’re glad we’re not alone; we have each other as a witness that this phenomenon was real, is real.

we wait for the next sighting, for the next mystery-swarm to come through; we’re amazed and six years old again and true.

we’re glad we’re not alone. we’re glad there’s always a miracle when we meet.

here i am, perched on the edge of earth’s balcony; and the show is free.

away and to

i want to climb

up, up,

away onto

that glorious

gibbous

and ride its

hump-back

all the way

to, through,

beyond that

broad stroke of stars.

 

our house divided

inside this body are seasons:

orange, brown, white, black, green, pink.

they oscillate in the wind; they keep

trying to tell me who i am.

 

i am a book of years wrapped in

ribbons of non-time; i am matter and

anti-matter dancing along a loop of infinity.

we still do not know what lies at the core.

 

each month i unwrap one year;

every few days is a new moon,

waxing and waning with terror and beauty,

hunger and spirit, numbness and nothing.

 

no one can tell me who i am.

i must move this spectrum through space,

cutting closer to the center:

galvanized by love, rage, curiosity, grace.

 

if you have ever sustained anyone of any age,

you know the cycles we take: trays, cups, utensils, bottles,

napkins, needles piled up all over the house—pills counted

and swallowed, like stuffing wishing coins into a cuckoo clock.

 

we perch and hang onto the edges until we can

no longer fight the urge to lie down, to face

our house divided, to be horizontal like the rolling hills,

waving and watching from a great depth-distance.

dark and deeply (or, hope doesn’t always float)

sometimes the weight of every

sad thing you have ever

 

known washes over you in

waves and converges in a

 

water color hush for depths of

days; how can the under current

 

of joy sustain? it is the dark and deeply

beautiful loch ness looming in a

 

hopeful still ness that cannot

be touched or verifiably seen.