Casting Off
“Although understanding itself is time,
understanding does not depend
on its own arrival.”
– Dogen
Casting off is a poem journey
notebook and pencil in hand, ancient now
as clay tablets but more intimate than a computer screen
and Intimacy is what we’re after
strange we have to travel to get there
strapping on our Kevlar to wait in an airport
while our luggage flies to Cairo
This time mind is an ocean, ocean this time-mind
easier than subject/object and heroically post-modern
but very strange; the trip’s first lesson
We’re flying Discontent, the world’s oldest airline
and first language (and the last?)
only the blessed are at peace and they’re all dead
a high price for a ticket
We’re hoping this isn’t a death journey
squeezing through slimy underground passages
with a flashlight in our teeth
but we’ve notice we can’t really choose our Context,
can only visit what’s there, the trip’s second lesson
but can choose an attitude
from a nearly endless rack at a nearby mall
including a large section of nearly identical white suits
all sizes with no labels and a box of crayons
After two weeks at the airport we realize
that was the journey
and try to piece it together from memory
with a series of disposable questions
The first dozen or so are blanks
then we begin to pick up clues
no leaving, no arriving
pacing or sitting staring out large windows
at an unchanging patch of tarmac
reading the news over and over
making small-talk with total strangers
slowly the mind turns these
and begins noticing the ocean it always is
in an endless intimate intriguing return flight
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