Saturday, January 12, 2008

New Poem: Not Present



Not Present

Being in the past--is jealousy on my part--in general
~ Leslie Scalapino


Not sentient : reliving an old photograph from college,
standing with her outside the dorm, last day
of the quarter, sunshine blinding me

Life is not retrospective : memory
confuses the brain : iron anchor

The floating world : being miserable on pages
of dust-stained journals : holding a mirror
to the boy, immature, who spilled ink
and so much more
in misguided efforts to be

Not sentient : not present

_____

Some mornings I do not know who I am until
someone speaks to me : captivated by the sunrise
or a dream encasing me in a cocoon of imagery

Not present : picking at a hangnail

10,000 things cloud my eyes, and still the raven
can wake me from retrospection and root my body
in the waking moment, the caw of now

_____

Lost presence : when her touch awakened me
to this flesh, everything reversed, the floating world
receded : how many years have passed?

____

Sentience : a boy at the time, and not present, then
the knock of death, everything reversed, split
wide open, a gaping whole in my chest

Fathers do not die : misguided child : the heart stops
and the earth opens its arms in acceptance

_____

All these things : not present : an inversion
of the laws, emptiness beneath the surface
of the fragile ice I called my life

Obviously : being fairly immature my whole life
as I waited for someone to speak to me, to know
what I was seeking : barking dogs, temporary
tattoos, blue cream Nehi

But not present : obviously

_____

Standing beside Sabino Creek, I drew circles
in the sand, reminders of something, something
I read in a book, or dreamed : circles mean
something about presence, or sentience, or . . . .

_____

Not sentient : being in the past

_____

Awareness : opening the ivy-covered heart, seeking
the girl I once knew only to find her grown and married,
lost to me, and yet, and yet . . .

There is feeling, not sentience, but presence : pain,
and the roots of my flesh secured in soil

Knowing nothing : everything opens

_____

Not present : seeking the anchor's weight,
setting memory aside : everything
opens : knowing nothing

Raven's caw : a circle


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Delighted to see my painting "Sentience" used in this way. You have my consent to include it in your blog. To me, the painting represents the instant when the first human became conscious of its existence.

-Fippy