Working Out

Every Thought Is A Prayer

Week 7: Mathematics

The month of February continues, everything centered around the day of hearts.  In this capsule, I am still head over heals.  In retrospect, love would require work, though maybe, and too often, more than I gave it. 

02/12: At The Bus Stop
02/13: On A Park Bench
02/14: Motion Pictures
02/15: Long Ago
02/16: Braided Cord
02/17: Mathematics
02/18: Moleskin 1.7: Groundwork


02/12:

At The Bus Stop

At the bus stop, as the city flies by,
A local pair, a man and a woman,
In love without words, married I suppose,
Sit quietly, simply biding their time,
She with modest make-up and a wool-blend coat,
He with a two-tone polyester suit,
Each with the same haircut, close to the scalp,
Neither one concerned with the day ahead,
And every morning, never fail, they’re here,

As am I, but I’m just a passerby,
Rushing to my world an hour away
While they hold the moment: this is their pond;
I don’t really know them, barely see them,
But something tells me I would miss them
If ever they were gone.


02/13:

On A Park Bench

On a park bench on a city streetside,
Backwards to traffic, facing a storefront
On an overcast afternoon, between
The sun and rain, breezeless, pleasantly warm,
In this time of waiting, they take a chance
To stop and sit and simply talk awhile.
Pedestrians buzz by in ones and twos,
All to themselves, not really noticing
The soft spectacle of husband and wife
Or wife and husband, wed to each other,
Talking of children, thoughts of the future,
Where they are going and what’s for dinner.
Home is a dozen miles away.  Life is
Routine.   Love is here and time, for now, is kind.


02/14:

Motion Pictures

Some movies leave you feeling sad
worked up or happy, but they leave you there
retwisting scenes, revisiting the air
and sorting out the ugly good and bad.
They try to linger in your soul.
The best films take a hold and don’t let go:
they dare to move beyond the picture show,
they grip you past the credit roll
and draw you on the empty screen
the winner relishing the victory,
the tragic hero bearing the defeat,
the voyager letting where you’ve been
and what you’ve seen ultimately
define you far beyond your theater seat.

You will remember this.    

                                  Some shows
are only popcorn, local strangers all
faced in the same direction, a big wall
reflecting light-and-shadowed rows
of patronage, a flattening screen
that turns all living colors into grey.
The worst ones don’t have anything to say
but good flicks scream in every scene:
They sing and laugh and make you think
and turn you unexpectedly
into a kindred soul.  As light projects
on screen, as sound tracks into sync,
as motion makes its own reality,
you find your spirit in the cineplex.


02/15:

Long Ago

Long ago

when it felt like
the day was young
every morning

the sun would rise
on a world of
possibilities
and I would wake up
smiling and you
would be there beside me

with an arm to keep
me there a little
longer.


02/16:

Braided Cord

We learned the lesson of the braided cord,
two strands strong, three unbreakable
according to scripture, the old testimonial
inspiration woven into our lives
     with romantic embellishment
     spun from a preacher’s words.

We kept an invitation from our wedding day
in a frame, hung it on our bedroom wall
as a daily reminder of the ongoing occasion,
which we enhanced with an inimitable piece
of that stranded cord not easily broken
     and lovingly spun: we invited, we wed,
     but it was you who framed, reminded, enhanced.

                                             We needed this cue
in our feeble youth, and in the sharpness of age
we need it still, something more to celebrate
than fading photographs and anniversaries
     and this is true: my need is yours,
     your need is ours, what time will never fade.

The snapshots are in boxes, the memories
are gathering dust, but the braided truth remains.


02/17:

Mathematics

based on passages from Walled Gardens

1*1=1

Once one is one and only one:
the perfect unity;
one less than this is emptiness.

One finds one cannot be
without the other; none’s the lover
who can love alone,

but when two lovers come together
and become their own
identity they start to see

the journey they’ve begun,
their heart and mind as one combined:
once one is one is one.


n/n=1

One unexpressed, no more, no less
than one, will always be
itself, the integer of

individuality
existing to exist. One who
insists without a sound

on keeping his position is
a shadow on the ground,
no more, no less than emptiness,

a countenance unknown,
a spirit unsuspected:
one unmoving, one alone.


1+1=2

One added to one more is two,
a plain duality

and nothing less than two, unless
each looks for unity

receptively. Two cannot see
as one as long as one

turns from the other; none’s the lover
who can love alone,

and lonely thus, there is no us
to see for “me” and “you”;

But if there’s “us,” there’s one. We must
adjust our point of view

Or be as lonely marchers, one
plus one forever two....


1-1=0

One from itself
is none, the self
defying gravity

to find the place
that has no place,
a new reality

of nothingness.
It comes to this:
leave everything behind,

the ground you stand,
the world you wander,
every gravity

that spins you ‘round
and weighs you down;
believe that there can be

somewhere a love
that is enough,
a love that will allow

one to be none,
two to be one:
the perfect lovers' vow.

|1-(1+1)*1|=|(1-1)+(1*1)|=|1-1+1*1|=1!


02/18:

Moleskin 1.7: Groundwork

So now I have the groundwork, the riverbank work, for the first several chapters of my story: I was born, I am alive. I have an audience who shares my moment and a studio that gives me peace. And I have an opening prayer to accept what I've been given. After this may come those chapters on love and faith and health and pride and humility ---maybe, if I am drawn to write that far and if there is still ink in my pen. And if, of course, I am whimsically stirred to remember those big daunting subjects when the time comes and the blank pages are before me. Or maybe, on that whim, I will simply set the pen down then and there, and let the opening chapters speak for themselves, being the heart and soul of what I remember. Let it be, one way or the other. But let me begin.