Excerpts / Manuscript

The pieces below are optional companion texts (not part of the manuscript):

A Time to Shine

(a passing poem)

This poem opens the media space—
an orientation offered before entering the work.

What are the things that become us?
Why are we laughing and crying in the dark?
And who carries us into the light of day?

I am not important,
but I am allowed
to make a difference.

When I stand at the crest
and look down into the valley below,
I see a matrix of possibilities—
cars moving every which way,
each carrying an encyclopedia
of things no one else knows.

It is inside that gift,
that locked box,
that impenetrable barrier,
that something becomes manageable
if we listen closely enough.

It is there, within,
that we discover who we are.
But if we open it,
we best be careful—
for what flies out
may injure the ones we love.

Some of us fool ourselves with noise.
But in quietude, we may arrange
what is in the box
into a coherence
that holds us
as we go deeper.

When I close my eyes,
I see tiny oscillations—
currents of light
in every color.
Then I find that the finding
is more a passing through.

My fingers feel their way
through the light
and an energy enters me
that did not seem
to be there before.

A road at dusk,
Snow-covered trees.
On the horizon they rise
and speak, saying:

Go on.
You have learned.
Now it is time to shine.

Read “A Letter to the Reader—After the Storm”

A Letter to the Reader—After the Storm

This work was not written
to persuade you of a belief,
or even of an intention.

It was written
out of a long encounter
with a question
that does not allow easy answers.

What are we — really —
and what does that require
of us
now?

As I’ve been working
with this material,
I’ve realized that
if it is to remain
true to the work —

and if it is to sound
less like instruction
and more like experience —

it has to begin
closer to home.

For me, this inquiry
is not abstract
or global
at first.

It begins inwardly,
in the slow, uneven work
of healing
and re-ordering,

of bringing my own inner world
into something like
sequence,
coherence,
and balance.

Only from there
does anything larger
start to make sense.

What I see as imbalance
in the wider society,
and in our relationship
with the living world,

does not feel separate
from this inner disarray.

It feels related —
multiplied across lives,
systems,
and histories.

Change,
when it happens,
does not arrive
all at once.

It moves through individuals,
through relationships,
through each component
finding its place again.

Like a polyphonic piece of music,
no single voice
carries the whole.

Each part has to listen,
refine itself,
and learn how to move
in synchrony
with the others.

What we call harmony
is not imposed.

It emerges
from relationship.

Our first and most primary relationships
take place
within ourselves.

They shape,
from inside out,
how we meet one another,
and how we interweave
with the wider world.

We are not abstractions.
We are not self-created.
We are not separate
from the living systems
that carried us here.

We are here
because we have come
a long way.

Ancient voices
live inside us.

And that is good.

Each of us is a body
shaped by deep time —
by animal inheritance,
by evolutionary layers,
by lineages of survival
and loss.

We carry inside us
older nervous systems,
ancient instincts,
and the memory —

sometimes conscious,
sometimes not —

of what it has cost
for life
to continue.

We have made it here
because we have held on
to what we are.

Civilizations have known this
before.

Some preserved it
through story.
Some through ceremony.
Some through law,
discipline,
and restraint.

They understood something
we are in danger
of forgetting:

When accuracy fails,
balance fails.

When restraint is lost,
power becomes
destructive.

Modern culture often lives
as if inheritance
were optional —
as if limits
were weakness —
as if we were not bound
to the Earth systems
that sustain us.

Many of us have forgotten,
but that is
what we are.

This is not only
a moral failure.

It is a failure
of recognition.

To recognize
where we come from
is not to retreat
into the past.

It is to understand
that belonging
precedes choice,

and that responsibility
grows
in proportion
to power.

A species capable
of altering climate,
extinguishing others,
and reshaping the future
of life

cannot afford
to confuse appetite
with freedom,
or dominance
with strength.

Balance is not achieved
through innocence.

It is achieved
through restraint —
through the ability
to hold force
without being ruled by it,

to act
without severing connection,

to remember
that survival
has always depended
on limits
honored as carefully
as possibilities
pursued.

This work
does not offer solutions.

It offers
orientation.

It asks the reader
to stand
inside a longer view
of time —

to feel the weight
of inheritance
carried in the body —

and to consider
what kind of ancestor
they are becoming,
whether knowingly
or not.

If we are to endure,
it will not be
by denying
our animal nature,

nor by surrendering
to it
unchecked.

It will be by remembering
that we are members
of an Earth community —

bound to other lives
by systems
older than our politics
and more fragile
than our myths.

What must be done
is not heroic.

It is
precise.

To see
clearly.
To name
accurately.
To act
with restraint.
To refuse
the illusion
that we stand alone.

Nothing less
will suffice
now.

If we do not find
that place
inside ourselves —

the place of restraint,
of belonging,
of being within
rather than above —

then destruction
is no longer simply
a moral failure.

It becomes
an inevitability.

 

After the Storm

Feeling the rain washing over our faces
Feeling the wind blowing in form unseen places
And hearing again all those ancient voices
Seeking revenge against the imperial forces

Well, I would not sing this song
If I did not have hope for us all
After the storm.  . .
After the storm we will go there
Come on baby take my hand
We’ll meet you there (After the storm) . . .

Feeling the pain of a thousand lost races
Never to speak again
The language of their people
But knowing the same
The law of the west wind
Their spirits will return
And take back this land, take back this land.

Well, I would not sing this song
If I did not have hope for us all
After the storm. . .
After the storm we will go there
Come on baby, take my hand
We’ll meet you there (After the storm),  in Zebulon…

 

From Elmo’s Diary

The this of the this
can be the that of the that.
Yet the that of the that
is seldom that.

No wonder
you’re driving
a one-way road
the wrong way.

The plane I’m flying
is not made of feathers.
The landing strip
is not stone.
It’s particles behaving
in a way
that makes my head itch.

I scratch my head.
It doesn’t help.

Look in the mirror.
You see yourself.
Put two mirrors together
and there are many of you–
Possibly infinite.

That’s who you are.
Don’t get too excited.
In this version of things
they’re all
the same damn thing.

If it feels like dog shit,
smells like dog shit,
tastes like dog shit—
it’s probably dog shit.

Particles or not.

If there are no particles,
you’re dreaming.
But what about
the circuitry of the brain?
Is that also a lot
like dog shit?
Am I just dreaming
up shit here?

If you grit your teeth
and squint during pleasure,
what does that mean
for your lover?

I’ve considered this.
I am alone.

What’s the value
of saying you’re smart
if it’s not smart to say so?
What’s the value
of being courageous
if you won’t say it plainly?

What’s the value
of knowing yourself
if you spill yourself
all over the table?

I’ve flown many places.
I’ve seen many things.
Here’s what matters:

Stop being self-important.
Clean your ass.
Throw the toilet paper
in the toilet.

That bowl
is your best resonance chamber.

How many times
have you sat there
dreaming things
that should’ve been forgotten?

Count them.
Make them boards.
Build a ladder
stretching toward heaven—
or more likely,
down to hell.

If you insist
on being self-important,
a mere board
won’t help you.
You’ll be
too heavy.

I dreamed of you last night.
You were dreaming too.
You tried to puff yourself up.

I quoted Corinthians 13.

You laughed,
popped your cheek,
and spit coffee–everywhere.