©image Parker Stafford
I return in multiplicities
ancient riddles compounded by rhyme
whose reasons lie dreaming in mystery.
Heavenly syntax made vast and simple in one whispered word.
Living a thousand lives before
slave, king, thief, woman, mother, wife,
husband and son
all voices which speak to me across their times
their toil and challenges have all led
to this.
They each reach into me
their words like kisses
pulling me in closer
showing me their trueness
beyond all judgement
order
and reason.
I would not judge them
I may hardly know them
even though they are me.
I know
the way the moon glow
traces milky paths in motion and time
wrapping one mystery in another
undoing each as each procedes
precedes
in what we think is time.
They are vibrant and alive
even though their bones are dust
I can reach into their certainties
and dreams
like plucking flowers
fresh from a field.
All exist as surely as any other did
and shall
all hungering
for the conclusion of the phrase
that has been lifetimes in speaking.
A book of endless chapters
now condensed
like haiku
now into a a simple phrase
in total and complete summary.
I come at the end of it
a sentence,
a paragraph
chapter end
or book end
I know not which
but I know with certainty
of its finality.
I feel like the last word
on the end of their sentence.
I stand shivering and cold atop a great height
they all stand waiting for me to make my dive
into the deep waters of destiny.
Everything bears from past upon this
and future is shaped by it
and what we do now
and how we are
what we will become.
A vast living canvas
painted
repainted
undone
redone
recreated
and mysterious.
I want to say I don’t know how I could ever
be the end
countless souls shaping words
undoing themselves
so that I might stand here
poised
ready to jump into that great sea
and I want to say I am unsure
that I want to honor their rich chorus
but I am not what they seem to want me to be.
The king shakes his head
“no no no, that will never do”
as the slave genuflects
“there is a reason why you are you”
and the mother adds
“All the things that will be”
and son adds
“all are resting in the sea”
They all cry that the sea awaits
a sea
unlike any other
from father king mother or brother
I am nothing if not stripped
as the waters deep and blue
surge like a lover waiting to be parted
known
and plumbed.
Their voices rise
as fear turns to welcome
Every birth is a death
and every death turns to its opposite.
But we all must in our way
find our toes wrapped
on the edge like this
our lungs breathing cold air
our hearts pumping molten blood
ready for this sea of love
to take us into her
that what we know within
we will know without.
I have been many
who have sought to live
their lives like riddles
their words mysteries.
The syllables of their lives
cluster and form
the grammar and conlusion
of a story strung like beads
a few simple words now
born from a thousand different lives.
I might return in multiplicities
but I leave in singularity
wrapped and rocked in this great sea
of me.
It waits for us all
when each word finds its sentence
and as each sentence
knows its end.
Waking The Infinite 