To a Transatlantic Mirror
When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door. . .
—Suzuki
Sick of the self,
the self—seducing self—
with its games, its fears,
its misty memories, and its prix fixe menu
of seductions (so familiar
even to the seducer)
that he grows sick
of looking at himself
in the mirrored ceiling
before he takes the plunge into this new
distraction from the self
which in fact leads back
to self.
Self-the prison.
Love-the answer and the door.
And yet the self should also be a door,
swinging, letting loves both in and out,
for change
is the world’s only fixity, and fixity
her foremost lie.
How to trust love
which has so often
betrayed the betrayer,
seduced the seducer,
and then turned out
to be not even love?
We are jaded,
divorced from our selves
without ever having found
ourselves-and yet we
long for wholeness
if not fixity,
for harmony
if not music of the spheres.
If life is a flood
and there is no ark,
then where do the animals float
two by two?
I refuse to believe
that the flesh falls
from their bones
without ever understanding
ever coming,
and I refuse to believe
that we must leave
this life entirely alone.
Much harumphing
across the ocean,
my brother poet coughs,
clears his throat
(he smokes too much),
and gazes into the murky
depths of his word-processor,
as if it were a crystal ball.
I do not know
all that hides
in his heart of darkness
but I know I love
the thoughts
that cloud the surface
of his crystal ball.
He longs to leap
headlong into his future
and cannot.
This chapter’s finished,
his self peels back
a skin.
Snakes hiss,
shedding their scales.
The goddess smiles.
She sends her missives
only to the brave.
