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Posts Tagged ‘transmutation’

The Season

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 6, 2025| 2 Comments »


 
 
Rather not to lift this rotting pumpkin,
its cavern a fuzzy quilt of black, green
and white circles, intricate thread-like
filaments, a moldering world I glimpse
through the sagging holes of the eyes
and the gap where the toothy smile
has curled in on itself. Such disgusting
deliquescence, this clear puddle beneath it.
Of course, the hands would resist to touch it,
and yet, there rises also this awe for the way
life feeds on itself to nourish the whole. What
inside me is ready for such transmutation?
What story, what rule, what old and sturdy should
is ready to change from something solid
and weighty into puddle, then into nothing at all—

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Out from the Center

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 3, 2012| 5 Comments »


I live my life in growing orbits that move out over the things of the world.
–Rainier Maria Rilke

We let it be so small,
that which contains us—
the scalp, the skin,
the windowless room
with low ceilings and buzz
of fluorescent light.

We circle and circle
like dogs searching
for the perfect resting place,
traveling in tight orbits enclosed
by clocks that chime the wrong time,
black boards stained with yesterday’s
words, tangled wires and shelves
of books unread.

Sometimes I believe it’s possible
we might become less solid,
move through the walls
like the ancient wave of ohm,
like a rising song. It is so small,
this room of knowns,
and though we have
been bruised before, trying
to turn walls into exit doors,
let us try again a new unspiraling
something we cannot yet imagine.

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And So Live

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 25, 2011| 2 Comments »

at the splitting of paths
there is no sign

transform
or die

tough choice
till we realize
we must do both

*This is the first in a series of 84-character poems about transmutation, Brian Swimme’s seventh power of the universe. In EnlightenNext, he writes, “This is the way in which the universe sometimes insists that something new come forth. … When Earth finally emerged and brought forth bacteria, why didn’t the universe just call it a day? Isn’t it enough that tiny pieces of Earth jump with life? Apparently not. Our universe is a self-transcending community of beings, and transcendence is often a necessity.”

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