What is the weight of air?
What is the weight of emptiness?
What is the value,
the cost,
of space in your soul?
How much would you pay for the real thing?
Not an imitation but space itself
like a cube
or a rectangular solid in your heart–
like validity and simplicity
no questions asked?
Like -that was a question/no it wasn’t
Like an argument that turns into gravy
over laughter
which you eat like spaghetti
when no one is looking.
How much would you pay,
what is the price
on transcendence
and transparency?
And is the price tag golden?
Or shut?
Or cranberry sauce and eggs?
How golden do you want to be? is the question.
How much will you say you’re worth?
And how did you calculate the dividend?
And how will you know tomorrow?
When doors are shut, when peepholes are open,
when everything you once knew has evaporated and the sand is dry…
dunes on dunes.
How many times can you ask the same question?
How many full moons can you breathe through? Up and down
with the tides,
ever changing, ever standing still,
relaxed and open as if the world were here for you
meant for you
even created for you
which is not how you ordinarily feel
but it is how you like to drink juice,
it is how you like to walk on the beach
and fly through the sky
and it is your weapon, your middle name and your tactic
even though you’re tired of tactics,
they are so boring and predictable
yet they come in handy
when it comes time to rule a world that wasn’t made for you-
it was made for them
so destroying them is all you’ve got,
pulling tricks out of your net bag;
importance qualifies everyone
to do what they do
important or not
smart or stupid
hello or goodbye.
I asked myself yesterday if I’m busy being born or dying
and hated Bob Dylan for the umpteenth time
and millionth reason.
I didn’t have an answer to that question as I walked through Autumn in Portland
where everything is being born as the rains just began
and everything is crumbling and dying too-
so I knew
Bob Dylan had nothing on me
I knew nature had proven him wrong,
that it doesn’t have to be either/or
and it’s okay to be dying and being born simultaneously,
and we all are and there’s no us an them, livers and dyers.
No.
For we need the dying amidst living-
it is what gives us our emptiness, what gives us our worth.
It’s why the rains stream down our faces,
warmly washing dust away with their salts
and why memories come willy nilly from nowhere-
from the past
and a place that must be called dead
since it sure ain’t alive no more.
As the waters stream down,
I am cleansed of myself- my life
and even my death sometimes
in rare moments
valuable ones
where I find space in my soul
and feel the weight of air and emptiness
crashing me open
shattering my heart to pieces.