NOW IS THE EYE

Now is the hour, the time when time widens 
to enclose perfection of the rose,
but not the flower, flame, but not the fire. 
Now is when the in-be-tween
conspires to make the valley green,
conspires against the sequenced years, 
the distance of the spirit's winter.


We are nothing on the pinnacle of time,
we mediate the timelessness of age;
we are the spirit only as we turn the page.
We are the nothing that we see beyond the mirror. 
We are the matrix and the nadir.


We are again impossible beginning,
fusing hallowed need with blossoming and fair
beyond all death, beyond all fear.


We walk in solitary flashes,
we are the phoenix and the ashes.
We are the pyramids, the sweat
that built a pointed precipice in sand;
we are the boomerang or bread,
as though we met and mingled in each other's blood.


The vanity of little faith
divides us from the breath
of melody within the tune, but still
we are the water in the spring, or summer noon 
within the peach, we are a spark within the brute. 
Conceive the seed, forbear the fruit,
and hold out begging bowls and wander.
We are one within the center.


Now is the time when time divides itself, 
re-patterning amoebic aeons
east beyond morning, west beyond sight. 
Now is the eye
within the light.




© 2010 Charlotte Merrill Jensen