Tunnels of Light

Clothing is scattered across the carpet
And dinner plates pile up
On all the tops of tables.
Books go unread
And phone calls go unanswered,
While the patients of my mind–troubled thoughts–
Remain alone and without cure.

The dial of my day
Has wound tight
Around the sun,
Pulling quickly its trip
Between clouds across the sky.

The sand falls gently,
The hourglass grows full.
My lungs swallow precious air,
Gulping down life,
Just to spit it back out.
My heart beats rhythms,
Drumming in red,
Through limbs and eyeballs and stomachs just fed
‘Til the river runs dry
And the last notes resound.

And I wonder through all this despair,
What am I missing about the stars and the planets
And all that space out there?

Are they really so far,
All the lights in the sky?
Don’t they wiggle and fall
And send signals to my mind?
Aren’t they mirages of time,
Tunnels of light twisted
Through the galaxy and
Bent around black holes
At the speed of photons
(The infinite, where fast and slow unite)?
Don’t they have planets to circle them,
Like Saturn and Venus and Mars,
Like Earth with life and words and wars?

The wind is not dead,
But alive? We can’t say.
It blows through eternity,
Giving breath to the trees in spring
And death to their leaves in winter.
It comes from the east, moves to the west.
But east or west, it never rests,
It’s always born and never sets.
It has no destination, no reservation or respect.
It carves mountains and carries seeds.
It gathers storms and blows ships across seas.
It spells release and spreads lightness and peace.

And the winds of the cosmos?
What of their gyres are we to make?
From whence did they commence,
And just how did they become aware?
Mere vortices of light and dust
Sprouts life, a spark from nowhere?

One cannot imagine how it could be done.
One cannot see it hear it taste it smell it.
It arrives before our eye like the morning sun upon waking.
A dream image without cause or explanation.

Our past is but a story,
A fancy tale without beginning.
Its ending, no longer in our future,
Has been written and prepared.
We walk across its pages daily,
Smudging letters
Causing people to go crazy.
Erase and rewrite, go ahead.
But beware of what you want;
You may end up knowing less
Than the fate that knows you best.

Peel away the clouds and pick stars for midnight snacks.
Lay down your telescope,
Point your eyeballs inward.
Focus your attention on your attention
And mediate your own mind.
Find the circuit through the center
And puncture it straight through.
You’ll hurt and feel a pain you’ve never felt,
But the bleeding is temporary,
And soon your pulse will return.
The king is dead, but his kingdom lives on.
Point your sword now toward the sky again
And behold!
Night and day become one
In the marriage of moon and sun.