Shelves Of Unknown Objects

Shelves of unknown objects

A flashlight flickering, rolling across the floor

Arms and a torso turned to the wall, alone, absent yet alarmed

The middle of the tunnel is dark, for both the beginning and the end lay too far to declare any light

Spin four times around, and guess

What meaning exists in only the present

What world turns without a curve

What Sun

What Sol

Even the blind use bookmarks

Hold this place for me

Speak this old name

Marvel the sound of the fallen tree

Wonder that you knew

Wonder that you’ve flown a billion years

Through skies that begat skies

Great good comes from instinct

Instant decisions to flee to kill to defend to mar to forgive

The morning will surely raise us again

Until the last night

Until the final breath before all air disappears

I remember you

From a time when you were human

And I the simple beast

We spent days in that burning forest

Nights together fearing the embers

You left me by the cooling river

You said many things I could not understand

But I listened

If mind is made of mental associations

Do the connections of recall work only in one direction

Can not the memories cause the inspiration

Or are we so locked in the relationship of cause and effect

So held in our image of time and consequence

That we will never reverse birth

Nor bestir death

What is this longing

This need to preserve, protect, provision

Such animal fear

Such desperate ephemeral puffs of hope, courage, love

What game we must be to the creator

Who makes creators such as we

In the end the best beginnings become pairs

Like a couplet grouped unawares