Woke up in the dark this morning, long before the alarm clock was set to go off. Unsettling dreams about feeling distant from G, J, myself. Poetry ensued -- the first poem of the new year.

Yesterday I went for a three hour walk, reading Dune. Best estimate based on mile markers: 7 miles round trip. The walk, and the bit where the Reverend Mother says "Humans are almost always lonely." (p.25) -- maybe you can see their influence. But then, it seems like I've been exploring what loneliness is all about in my poetry for -- what? -- maybe half a year now?

Walking in the presence of God

Loneliness is the origin of feeling...
The desire for another someone, with you.

Feelings are relational information.
If you're on program,
then you are alone
though maybe parallel in program.
Work hard enough
and you'll discover the emptiness of all projects.
Nothing paper has a soul.
Only people.

But even God you don't want,
are cut off from,
don't feel --
until loneliness gets in.
The emptiness of being,
the smallness of my mote of existence --
that existential horror at being nothing.

* * *

I talk about non-ownership,
which sounds like Buddhist non-attachment.
But I do want to cling to people and things:
my ear to your chest.

Compassion
to listen to what's inside you.
Compersion
my joy in you feeling joy.

So while I may say loudest
"you don't belong to me"
or in poetry the opposite
"I am bound to you"
my connection is really like
kneeling at a keyhole.
The line that connects the two of us,
like a tin can and string telephone,
is my ability to hush
and hear what's in your body
(the first language)
what's in your mind
(the second).

Knowing this is walking in the presence of God.

Hushed.
Listening.
Stilled by the coldness of the ever expanding universe
and its unimaginably wide vacuum.


January 12, 2005