Continuum and Individuality

Our meeting
      the slightest exchange
            within the breaking of a wave

Close up
      atom bound to atom
            (closer up, even smaller ideas
                  within yet smaller ideas; begin or end
                        where you will)
Molecule within liquid
Liquid within wave
Wave within ocean
Ocean within sky
Sky within Space
All within Being
Being within,
      coterminous with,
            subsuming,
Mind.

About which particularities of Being shall we argue?
Which signs, effects, boundaries, concomitants
      shall we exalt to the point of blindness
            or brutally ignore?
For which particular path,
      for which particular, decorated death,
            shall we push each other,
                  push Seeing,
                        aside
To secure?

As long as I am alive
Every aspect of Being
      is an aspect of my life
Every subevent in the unitary event that is Being
      is an event in my life
So three blocks over
      a man contracts the muscle of a leg
            to climb a stair
                  or half the world away
                        a woman quickens
                              beneath clouds dark
                                    with tons of rain
                                          and these events are events
                                                in my life
For individuality
      is merely the stewardship
            of a point of view
                  and care of the creaturehood
                        that hosts it.

Between you and me
      there is no disjunction, only continuum;
Between me and the core of the farthest star
      there is no disjunction, only continuum.
As I am everything, so I want for nothing
And neither search for happiness
Nor run from sorrow.

This imparting:
      the slightest exchange
            among particles
                  within the breaking of the wave
Or a leaf
      flutters from the tree
            and is gone.


August 31, September 2–3, and October 4–5, 2005 Copyright © 2005 by David Newkirk (david.newkirk@gmail.com). All rights reserved.
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