what do I know
about time but that
she’s a live wire
running through
all the lives that ever live
their voices
a low hum within.
I sat still one day.
“listen to yourself,”
she whispered
“listen deep”
“your voice
isn’t wholly yours
it is the hum
of those around
and beyond
it is what you pull
out of yourself
in response
their harshness
—your anger
their kindness
—your love
it is
what you pass on.
be still, love,”
she whispers,
“be still.”
Does the frangipani
remain calm—
safe in the knowledge
she won’t absorb the dust
lain on her ivory self?
Does she know in her brief life
—the wind will blow away
the motes it had blown in?
Does she know already
—she need only dance
with the raindrop
before she rises
free of the dust?
Does she have the wisdom
to let the mote
rest light on her,
not weigh her down?
Is that why
the frangipani can turn
her golden heart inside out
to the skies and the world?
or does her calm arrive softly
as she resolves
—that not a wink of her week’s life
she must waste wallowing in the motes?
—that so long as she doesn’t take them in,
they do not become hers?
—that so long as she doesn’t make them hers,
they can’t weigh her down?
Really, is there a difference
between knowing and resolving?
as the frangipani drops
quiet as she arrives,
unfurling her heart.
Poetry in Life 