“I love the sensation of shelter from
the storm.
I like it when it rains outside,
how it makes me feel warm.”
she said.

“I used to feel like that.”
I said back. “It’s a safety thing, I think”.

You said “Maybe…”

& I replied:

“It doesn’t happen now though, now the sound
just makes me sad.”

“Why?” you asked

“I can’t say I think about it
all that much any more…I just
don’t care.

It isn’t worth a waste of words.”

Then we were silent:

I was evading the question

again.

****

Created from a structure of complex
cells & cells we find ourselves in,

always questioning more than answering;
lost in
the distance between who we are & what we love;
the difference
between what we do &
what we dream:

both subject & object,
language & animal playing games in the cave…

We’re the process of knowing that
we’re reading this poem;

body & mind,
trapped between time & the view from nowhere*;

double-helix dance of meaning.

****

Security is the supremacy
of survival.

To survive is a zero-sum gamed played
against the Universe,

ritual is the same old tool we always use
to defend against improbable odds:

compulsions of culture, nature
& the vagaries of contingency
create a worship of the Self,

but worship has always been dangerous:

people do not treat their gods well.

If they did
there’d be less fear of Hell,

or banishment.

****

“I wish I could feel content again, like
when we were young,
but I’m trapped by everything I
have and haven’t done”

I said.

“But you are content” you
said back. “You told me once,
that only the moments of fleeting, true
feelings mean anything to you”.

“I say a lot of things my love..
& I talk far too much”.

Then our eyes found each other &

you smiled
as I fell silent.

* Sub specie aeternitatis