The Universe Inside
I am nothing
and yet I am everything required
for life and life abundantly
for death and death wholly
the full capacity
of human experience contained
in this sticky skin, this wet material
the sinewy strands and the fluid
that courses through fragile
and delicately sewn fabric within me
the touchable, breakable stuffs
that miraculously blur together into
sensational waking life
the tear of pain, rush of excitement,
agony of loss, fear, confusion, love
the equilibrium of these mechanical
wonders that we
experience as
contentment
the mystery of questioning mystery
the untouchable, unfathomable deep
that chills as with ice
within and inexplicably without
of longing in search for meaning
for reasons these meaningless fibers
seem to mean so much
the urge to experience that which is beyond ourselves
outside of our own confinement
outside of the eyes we’re caged in for all of
our own conceivable time
the voracious desire to share
all of this inescapably selfish experience
with someone else so confined
what is and why does
any of this exist
and does it exist at all
Life right here in me all along
in the infant, in the child
in the weathered woman
already resting inside
in the dying that is living every day
the aging of that which makes me
absorbing, releasing
and, wrapped together in the mystery of time,
changing
Image via Raisa Zwart
