Standing in the Center

So cold. So frozen.
Where am I?

So far. So distant.
What is this that I see?

So continuous. So still.
How can this be?

The one punished for looking back,
The one reprimanded for thinking forward,
The one imprisoned for being in the present.

When has it become this way?
Why? How? Where?
What?

I cannot seem to remember. I cannot seem to recall.

Perhaps from the moment that light was declared, this was the way
that it had always been.

What’s the difference?

What’s the matter?

How is it that there can be no movement and no sound,
not even the slightest trickle of the night’s rain?

So calm? So quiet? So at peace?

Is that how it is now?
Is this what it is like?

A simple stone on the edge of the cliff with no sense of
fear, shame, sadness, or anything?

What is that? over there. look? will you please?

I turn back to the cliff to reach down and pick up the small round marble,
this tiny fragment of the Earth, and
I throw it far across the ocean.

What is this?

Carefree? Lightened? Free?

I turn away from the scene and look at the empty space ahead of me.

Water in a jar.
Air in a balloon.

A reflection in the mirror.


The crystallization of nothing.

~ March 23, 2010