Orselig - 無 The Invisible Dance

New Moon, New Year

This is གཙང • 西藏 Tibet, once pure and central.

Sanity Sanctity

The Fitting, Mary Cassatt, 1890-1891, Cleveland Museum of Art

I do kind gestures. Remove my appendix.

I put my ear to a flat shell and—nothing.

I play the lottery ironically. Get married.

Have a smear test. I put my ear to the beak

of a dead bird—nothing. I grow wisdom

teeth. Jog. I pick up a toddler’s telephone,

Hello? — No answer. I change a light bulb

on my own. Organize a large party. Hire

a clown. Attend a four-day stonewalling

course. Have a baby. Stop eating Coco Pops.

I put my ear right up to the slack and gaping

bonnet of a daffodil—. Get divorced. Floss.

Describe a younger person’s music taste as

“just noise.” Enjoy perusing a garden centre.

Sit in a pub without drinking. I stand at the

lip of a pouting valley—speak to me!

My echo plagiarizes. I land a real love plus

two real cats. I never meet the talking bird

again. Or the yawning hole. The panther

of purple wisps who prowls inside the air.

I change nappies. Donate my eggs. Learn

a profound lesson about sacrifice. Brunch.

No singing floorboards. No vents leaking

scentless instructions. My mission is over.

The world has zipped up her second mouth.

― Sanity, by Caroline Bird

Source: Poetry (February 2019)

In a fevered state, you project a past and a future onto the present moment. The present is boundless yet you persist in clinging to these projections. With a cool mind investigate carefully from where they come and go and discover the timeless reality behind them. 

Nisargadatta Maharaj

“In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” ~ Albert Camus

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