this window, this ground, this being

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
the window that lives
in the flesh and
pulse of my
energy
is a
torus
of energy
that opens out
only after condensing
and tightening around the
pure narrow stream of expansive
isness carrying the touch that is awake
to itself beyond any frequency of identity
that can change or contort the very aliveness

that is that simply is that is that is that simply is

so tight that only that which is empty full empty
moves through a kind of feed zone where the
cognitive semblance of what is perceived
has only the breath of the breath as a
ride to its own ecstatic turning in
to itself and back again all in
the very same moment
as the torus itself,
the inner and
outer curve
of space
being
space
being
opening
and closing
outward inward
spreading narrowing
arching out concaving in
the delight of movement as itself
no other not needing any identity but
this augmentation of harmonic dissonance
freedom pure freedom clear of intention clear
choiceless such as beauty itself rises from and cries

this one this all open out condense in penetrate emerge

such that blooming dying birthing arriving surrenders
and tempers the form through this window into itself
sourcing itself feeding itself through and through
as through and through attenuating its very
nature back into itself as the essence
that it will once again arise from
returning to itself returning
as both the rising and
the falling tastes
the measure of
the other
as the
other
falls
against
the rise and
rises against the
fall of spread open
wings, wings which taper
as they lift touching air to space
space to air to alight only to fall again
to the ground of beingness, this ground here
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

The Guest

The Guest

When you arrive at the tavern,
you breathe, first, on the window,
draw a wet spiral toward the keeper inside
You have wandered
crabwise
for years,toward this beaded light,
pulling the thread from edge to center

whistling along the periphery,
But here it is,
pulling you from the aching and brilliant day
to this even greater night.
If you follow that call
to the dimly lit threshold,
you’ll know you’ve arrived
by the catch in your throat

as you stand,
teetering on the liminal
wood beneath your soles,
wondering,

are you welcome? You know, peering in,
that you will sweep this cabin empty
if it is your nature
and even still, yes, Welcome

You knew
the moment you stepped
from the great prairie,
delivering punctuation
to the infinite
with this one word,
resting on its carpetbag,
drawing its name in the sand

all the summer’s drought of rain

slants down now in autumn sheaves

crashing off umbrella edges,

transforming this huge window to a vertical pool.

having been around and around the world,

this water is now temporarily destined

for boston harbor’s chilly swash

before lifting off again.

i move in this city as a stranger, gawking

like i have been transported to a movie set,

the people, buildings, cars half real, half roger rabbit.

jaw slack, it comes inside me

rapid fire sense-landscape tumbling, ever new

even though i still don’t really believe in it,

still certain i am walking in toon town.

it helps when i see it’s creature-ness lumbering,

transportation of nourishment down asphalt arteries

thrum of city breathing in breathing out

we are just organelles that wear raincoats

vital little energy generators.

and, rushing off to do our jobs, help this animal live.

the dark sodden evening lights up with

golden squares stacked in stories

behind which people move --

mystery of a red sweatshirt flash goes by,

now some people are eating dinner,

here somebody plays a trumpet that i can’t hear.

the roiling life of this city, and the key to it’s mad magic,

is in tiny secret motions of cellular beings

playing out behind infinite window stages.

i can’t tell if i long to unravel them all

or whether the greater joy

is to marvel, revel

in the pregnancy of collective veiled mystery.

i am a visitor here, but everywhere is the same –

our tiny flashes combine into a great coordinated light.

we live protected if we are lucky,

wrapped snug in some cytoplasm or other,

looking out at the rain.

Sam's Window

I drove all afternoon to see my friend.
I’d never known a more trustworthy man.
Sam lived above his aging mom and dad
In an attic room he’d shaped with his own hands.

His room was spare – a kind of hermitage
With creaking varnished floorboards laid with care,
A bed, a desk, a large Greek lexicon
So he could study scriptures after dark

After tucking both his parents in.
At 45 he’d never asked for more.
And laid out in the middle of the floor:
A giant pane of inch-thick window glass

Through which he viewed the living room below,
The fading sofa, TV, easy chairs,
Where his parents sometimes spent all night.
“This way I can make sure they haven’t fallen.

As for the glass, I ordered it last year
For a contractor who never picked it up.
It took six men to haul it up the stairs
and lay it in this custom frame I cut.

It does the trick. I spied Pop fallen once
and Mom too weak to help him back to bed.
There’s no way I could let them live alone
or in some wretched convalescent shed.”

We sat in silence. The long room smelled of pine.
I asked him if the glass was safe enough.
He broke into his first grin of the night.
“Watch this,” he said, and switched the room lamp off.

The large glass seemed to vanish in the dark.
Where it had rested now gaped a great hole.
I suddenly felt dizzy looking down
Into the glowing room twelve feet below

And just as I drew back, Sam took a leap
High above the hole with a yelp.
I cried for him to stop, but then – too late –
All six-foot-three of him flew through the dark,

A silhouetted shape of outstretched limbs
Heading straight for sure catastrophe.
But then he landed on what seemed thin air
That seemed to give a bit, but held him firm.

My mind knew what had caught him. Nonetheless,
he stood there flaunting the miraculous,
like Christ atop the waves of Galilee
as Peter gaped in incredulity.

Five of Ten

The sun lights up to piercing bright
ness the multiplanar web floss of autumn's spidering harvest.
Spiders come out in autumn to harvest the dreams of the year
and its fruiting (in flight).

Light so harsh, sideway sun,
all I can see are leaves, crimson clusters of yew berries,
and webs and floss:

One web, a large dial, a stylus to another timespace continuum
only eight strands on the edge and a donut hole of apple tree greenery possibility beyond, aslant from me. Closer in a large geometry radiates, rainbow flickering in the slight breeze. Some of the webs I can only see because I spy the spider in the middle,
a spot of brown seeming to hang in space, to fly. Wait, webs work because they are barely visible, because something can try to fly through. They are mesh but also air. [The air of the web is its most functional component.] It's ironic to notice and glory in their beauty when they are momentarily lit. Their true purpose is a darker one, more kin to shadow and flicker. They function in twilight best if also best praised in sun.

As in Abrams' Balinese webs, they must be viewed with soft eyes, seen whole,
the myriad of them a metapattern of shining, radiant rainbow spangle, taut lines to sundry circles, Nets cast to flight. A maker's symphony of complex weavery. A multiplanar dream. A galaxy.

Suddenly the wind brings another into view and I see the graceful legs weaving out from spineret's fine floss, in the moment of making. Is the air to floss ratio the same as in outer space, the space between atoms/electrons/matter and matter? The space between electrons in an atom, is it that wide? Like the web of outer and inner space?

How do they decide where to attach and swing, silk fluming,
to build their webs? They like the edges of things, how to connect something to something else.

Here I am, half way through the semester, fifth day of tenth month - so 5 of 10 in more ways than one...

Here I am, perched on the edge of the year, insight slanting in,
hovering on my discus of connections, between the edges of things, half- air, swayable, fragile, a momentary artwork praising coherence,
functioning in twilight but artworthy in moments of sunspangle.
Placed at the center of my thinking, furiously weaving.
Or just waiting, surfing air and an ocean of flying things,
waiting for the next great thing.


10-5-10 r2

Goodbye

They’ve lined up at my window tonight,
ancestors, lovers, querulous neighbors,
teachers and bosses, boorish civil servants,
that kid from third grade…
a host of spirits unable to rest.
Murmuring, they wait for their turn
in my mind. Perhaps they carry grievances
of their own, but this is not why they’ve come.
I keep them on call to relive my petty complaints.

They don’t rap at the glass or scratch at the screen.
They don’t stagger, bleeding or moaning,
up my street like drive-in ghouls.
They dress neatly, queue patiently,
very much alive to me,
no older than our last encounter.

Astonishing, how I can adorn
the fecund plum tree outside my bedroom
with resentments. It takes focus and devotion
to burnish the delicate ornaments of my anger
and string them so carefully in the limbs.
Even better, the tiny ringing that they make,
swinging in the wind as the leaves yellow
like aging affidavits in some bitter archive.
A tree would let them simply blow away
but I do not forget.

They’ve lined up at my window tonight,
no matter that it’s three floors up.
I have time for each of them. I cue
their agitation and we repeat our scenes,
hurling invective again and again
so that someday — maybe someday —
I may reinterpret these lines.

I treasure my invisible guests,
cherish their argumentative gifts,
make a fetish of my pain.
I gladly open my own wounds to the night.
Because I’ve never been good at saying goodbye.

"Black Phoebe"

Sure as a leaf tangled in spider thread
means there are spiders (and trees), feral cats
mean feral-cat food thrives beneath our tread.
But they're asleep now—or maybe got caught.
Through the conference-room window—from inside—

I see a small bird with black back and white
belly whack the dragonfly in its beak
against the rail—once, twice, thrice—then it eats—
gone—and flits from view faster than a spark.
After the meeting, I check the bird guide

we keep in the creative lounge we call
"the hatchery," where, by bay views, we come
up with ways for our clients to attract
money from people through multiprong cam-
paigns. We're some brains behind AB&C.

All these entities of mind, mouth and limb.
Once, out to lunch, I saw jellyfish swim.

DA

Door to Window; Seen to Unseen

Go to the window. Take some time there. 

Then write about something you sense through your window, but can't see from where you are looking.

Please take this (and all prompts) as you will. Your window may be a meditative space, a pool of water, someone's eye, or a photograph, as easily as a physical window. You might interpret "something you can't see" as something out of sight, something ephemeral, something abstract, or even something wholly visual, but described in non-visual terms. This isn't to over-think the assignment, only to empower each of us to ways that any prompt can generate inspiration.

This week, let's try posting as unique blog entries instead of as comments to this prompt. Then we can decide which we like better. When you put your posting up, assign the keyword "window" to your post to help support site index-ability.

"Beyond Limitation" by Lauren Ari