Between (An Imbolg poem)

"Is anything ever finished?" ~Michaelangelo

The most secret name of God is Between.
The sparkling stream of emptiness
between frog croaks.
Between coyote howls,
a wild bodhichitta stillness.

The silence between stars which is
the same voluptuous ocean of awakening
that ripples between my thoughts.

Whorls of the void, vast moments of night,
immeasurable hours of solitude
filled with radiant Otherness
when pure listening
is the dark energy of creation
settling into the cracks between,
and the only hope
is a greening of Presence
in every trough and hollow.

Now let the galaxies come down to kiss me
veiled in their fathomless intimate distances.
I sleep until the sparrow sings
yet hear the unstruck chimes of Imbolg
ringing in their icy seeds.

A February between breaths,
between dreams, between the thaw
and peristalsis that squeeze me
out of myself.

Equations all unbalanced,
symmetry shattered,
a crumpled universe tumbling
from the Bardo like a wizened plum
from its fist of probability.

Praise the gaping cotyledon,
praise the sproutless root, the ugly bud,
praise ooze in the cocoon,
praise the placenta.

Not the beginning or the arrival
but the process,
the shudder of uncertainty
just before, and just after

Death?
Praise the wholly imperfect,
the ordinary between feasts,
the pregnancy of ewes,
whatever is in the belly,
the nothing ever finished,
Spring.

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"The most common etymology of Imbolc/Imbolg is the Old Irish 'i mbolc' meaning 'in the belly,' and refers to the pregnancy of ewes. Another possible origin is the Old Irish 'imb-fholc,' meaning 'to wash/cleanse oneself.'"