Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
excerpt from ‘Messenger’ by Mary Oliver
It was like a dream—and a paroxysm.
Downtown was covered in fresh tags.
As the city bus sped through red lights,
I read the scrawl as “cosmos” but
up close I could not determine its message.
What intent was behind this expression?
The next day, on the exact same bus, I saw
a lone pamphlet asking “Can the dead really live again?”.
That answer, and its implications, was also unknown.
Yet clouds scroll by already knowing having lived
a thousand lives before I even woke up that fateful day.
When the light hits blue, I knew an answer.
The astonishing present cannot be ignored.
When living in the unease of ongoing questions,
I must rupture the false integrity. I must seek what calls me.
I don’t have an answer prepared. My geology is unwritten.
Cache Culture 