My sojourns repeat themselves, going
after relics that never existed, recapturing
the memories of ghosts. You may ask
why I continue to tolerate a hopeless
cause, finding solace in circles—
I do not know how to define existence,
or the way to measure its boundaries.
I am lost and confused by an absence
that seems to be devouring what
might have become the future.
What can I do but shelter the things
I can’t yet see inside an identity
I do not yet possess? Soon there will be
nothing left but the letting go. Until
what isn’t there becomes all that remains.
Here is the place I must abide.
For earthweal, where Brendan asks: Working for the best present, this shifting, dysynchronous, pre-apocalyptic now: That is your challenge this week. What does the landscape of this look like where you live and celebrate your being?
K. 
Kerfe – this is very very thought-provoking and beautiful.
❤
David
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Thanks David. That is high praise.
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Kerfe, the last word says it all. Sometimes it’s all we can do. A wise person once told me “look for small movements.” I’m thinking of a robin, in early spring, flown back too soon, huddling until an unexpected warm rain thaws the turf. She watches for an earthworm to sniff the air….
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Nature is resourceful, never asking what if. We must be that way also if we wish to survive.
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All we have is now. There’s no core it’s just circles after circles, endless matryoshka dolls, an infinite onion peeled forever. The place is here, the time is now, the word is love
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That’s it. All those 60s platitudes turn out to be true.
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I think if we can abide in that place of letting go, we can make peace with ourselves and with the world.
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I agree Ingid. It’s not always easy though.
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I really like this as a response to the challenge — the now as the difficult possible, a “shelter (for) the things
I can’t yet see inside an identity / I do not yet possess.” Maybe too ghostly for the possible too, so that that isn’t there is all that remains – a ghost town, this encirclement. Thought carefully and well done.
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Thanks Brendan. Another thought-provoking prompt.
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I love this, coiling seems like another expression of infinity, of the cycle of life … it’s all that and more, lovely!
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Thanks Kate.
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This is beautiful and reflective. The stitching makes me think of a spider’s web–both fragile and strong.
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Thanks Merril. A spider’s web is a good analogy.
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You’re welcome, Kerfe.
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Beautifully said. Concentric circles eddying out from now to eternity.
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They do. Thanks.
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This reads like a prayer and the art is like a labyrinth – where one can walk and uncoil the knotted mind!
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Spirals and labyrinths…the only way to get close to the center.
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A center that is the moment moves with the ever-widening circle. I don’t know if there ever is a letting go, of what was or what lies beyond our ever knowing.
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So much is mystery.
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“Soon there will be nothing left but the letting go.” I really feel those words. Tried to comment yesterday, your site wouldnt let me…trying again.
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Thanks Sherry. I often have problems commenting also. Not sure if it’s my internet, or the program.
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This one is so close to the way I feel too, how I interpret it at least, that feeling of the fabric barely holding together, and what is it anyway? Who makes it, and how to hang onto what we feel is important when so much is swept away? There’s a mesh of sorts, but it circles, never resolving.
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Never resolving–that’s exactly it.
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I never know whether I’m depressed, frightened or stoical about it.
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First – the art work – totally lovely and inspiring. Then the poem – it reaches deep inside me and touches not a chord but an entire symphony of heart strings. Abiding in this void where all that is left is the letting go so that new can form in the spaces left behind – yes, yes. That’s it. 🙂
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Thanks Suzanne. It is.
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to me, this is zen, Kerfe. the circle, the is/not is, the ‘nothing left but the letting go’ ~
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Thanks M. The circle is life or maybe life is the circle. That’s what I think anyway.
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