The Two Kingdoms

Wiser than all the Vedas
or a thousand Bibles
is the silence between two breaths
as inhalation-exhalation merge
in the kingdom of stillness
just above the crown
where I guess I went to dream
when I was a child, rising
through my wounded fontanel
into shimmering vulnerable night,
ten million stars all bowing down -
to whom, to whom?
This space I hold for one
eternal moment, then release
a flow of luminous moon-stuff
down my marrow, pouring
those distant, promiscuous,
effervescent, ringing stars
into each cell, each bell, each grail
of flesh to fill with sky,
until each atom swells
with its own galactic saltarello.
Must be God, I guess,
who spills through my sacrum,
sowing a glitter of worlds in the soil
to hold another moment of eternal emptiness
in another kingdom, sacred, dark,
the empire of ten million seeds,
stirring, waking, drinking in
the light of my prayer -
to whom, to whom?
Through the grace of my body, I guess,
what is above, what is below
are both the same kingdom,
the only energy is joy,
and I must be praying to me.
________


Listen to a reading of this poem: LINK.
Photo by Bahman Farzad