No Still Life


“I am a teacher... I am a disciple....
I am a doctor... I am a patient....”
No, friend, I am not this, not that.
Neither wizard nor fool,

nor a color or a race,
not an angel, not a man,
neither christian nor buddhist,

nor republican nor democrat Am I.
I sinply Am,
shouting the absence
at the end of the sentence,
proclaiming with
eloquent silence
that this is no place
for nouns.
Nor a flower but to burst,
nor an oak but to root and trunk upward,
inhaling ten thousand stars
to acorn the sky.
I branch like bolted lightning.
No ocean but to froth
and bear a savory panging.
No moon but to luminously
wax-wane, splitting the atom
of every infinitive.

Neither energy nor matter,
but to pulsate, atomize, astonish.
O You in whom to sigh
sun-plodes my bone-dance,
mountain-heaves the rippled earth,
vineyarding what umbers and thirsts,

purple-plushing the Merloted unborn

roaring in the belly of the sparrow,
let me never forget
that You are the Verb         
who breathes me.


Collage by Rashani Réa

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