Over the Know-ledge

-

OVER THE KNOW-LEDGE 


Take a geometric shape, a space. 

Eliminate the edges, then once 

again erase those stubborn edges

that your mind—like so much loose

sand—insists on filling in. 


Forgive it this propensity, this in-born 

habit of fencing in to verify

what’s what. It likes to know 

what it’s dealing with, but for today’s 

exercise we’ll need to exorcise 

this hard-wired love of lines

and open the cage if we're to meet the one

we're after, the one who does the dealing.


Now look at what you’re holding. Nothing? 

Everything? Are you even sure

you're the one doing the holding

anymore? Hard to see, or say.

On second thought, why

look? If you look it goes away.


Welcome to the turvy-topsy,

your intro course in dyslexic theology

in which you meet the one

in whom we being and whom and have.

The textbook's wild and illegible

as a dog—no wait, a God—unleashed,


so your best bet is to ride it out,

the way you would

when your insides want out,

hunched over the toilet

and all of it swirling. (I'm the person

in the next stall over, or I'm the person

rubbing your back. Either

way, you're not alone in this.) Here's

a glass of water, and here are two consolations 

to ground you in this endless opening: 


You’re over the edge now, meaning

at least what you’re careening 

towards is a bottomless ground 

on whom you’ll never thud. 


Secondly—strange as it is 

to use logic here—logically a borderless

being means infinite centers.


So rejoice: you’re yet at the heart of the matter.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Holly

-
  HOLLY             — a yellow labrador One day you'll say your childhood  dog’s name and it will sound  a bit odd, flat , as if it  were someone else’s pet  who wandered its way  like a hair into your mouth.  You haven’t thought about her  much the past few years,  but still, you didn’t expect she’d just disappear like that.  The scary part isn’t that she’s gone— you loved her, but it’s a given dogs will run away, true  to their nature. What haunts you,  rather, is the crowd of other constancies milling about your house, the question of which will slip out next if you forget  and leave the door open,  even just a crack. The girl lying next to you? The name of your homeroom teacher? The drive home, those turns you know in your bones? And then  what really troubles you is how   you’ll go on living without them around anymore, how you might even do just fine at it.
Read more

7th Period

-
7th PERIOD Safe to assume we’ve probably got it  mostly wrong, or if not quite wrong  then likely a right that’s misinterpreted the question. That being said, students,  the fact remains that at the construction site  behind the classroom there’s a trailer-load of 2-by-10’s used to frame the concrete  foundation that I struggle to believe  they’re throwing away. Perhaps  it would be a more advantageous  use of our day were we to spend what’s left  of class time shouldering lumber across campus to the bed of my truck.  I, for one, plan on spending a few afternoons of my remaining puzzlement to puzzle  together a table where my children can pick up the pondering where I left off. It seems as good  a use of time as any. It's coarse work, but with every pass of the paper you can’t help  but feel that you’re getting somewhere,  like maybe, in the proverbial 8th period,  we’ll get up from our desks and gather round just such a table, sharing a laugh  about how splintered it all used to b
Read more