Not sure of or not comfortable with looking my own eyes in the mirror, a foolish post-modern person whose wisdom is original as Indian cheese, growing older, whose love for the reflected vision waxes and wanes like pro and con opinions. How might come the gods of home today to roost? Other aeons are not known but wondered on as other worlds once occurring, now owned by history and closed by time, although some conceptions hold over, since our souls cling organically to continuity. The moon's empty oceans record comets' unholy journeys, orbits out of our control, although Oppenheimer's atom bomb might yet obliterate those homely objects, an entire solar systems' abject debris. Do growing illumination, silvered communication, sensed imagination, cosmic affectation and molecular manifestation show us our common construction? What is that root making the words unfold? What are these words in sole chronology given form? Could it be merely random thoughts showering down upon this body operating as its quotidian self? I am borne by longing to move beyond this operation, beyond work, towards that which is born as One.
Author’s Note: I delved into a box of archived poetry notebooks to unearth the pieces shared above. The poem was first drafted in February 1997, while the self-portrait dates to a few days prior. The clearly frustrating poem consisted of multiple versions covered in marginalia and strike-outs and arrows shifting parts around. The fourth (valiant? still salient?) version is shared here. Thank you for reading, dear ones.