the conversation

I've been shying away from writing because I have been standing at the edge of an ocean, dug in, while waves of truth and love wash over me, over and over and over, and I haven't had the time or words or perspective to synthesize all of it, or any. But I am seeing now that it just may not be the time for synthesis, but for living in the washing over and over, and expressing purely whatever it is that washes through me.

These are the themes.

Being vulnerable is probably the most important thing I've ever done.

"As it happens, the wall between us is very thin.

Why couldn't a cry from one of us break it down?
It would crumble easily, it would barely make a sound."

Rilke

 ~~~

Conversation is about finding understanding.

Breaking these walls

or discovering

that they were never there.

[Listen]

 

 [Talk to me]

Everything is a conversation.

Everything is a puzzle.

How do these two,three, four things

people, pieces fit together?

A puzzle.

How does my hand fit the rock?

Perfectly. Just there. 

Particularity.

My hand.

That rock.

Fit.

And so I climb

there,

that wall

and suddenly

the wall is not a wall

it is my life.

We are one.

~~~

Particularity.

Love particularly,

though

love

is not

particularly

particular

about who, what, how it loves.

Or it is.

I'll say it again though:

Love particularly.

Love the particularity of

his face

her voice

that sunset

my own words

that day.

That day.

That moment

of heart-shattering breath.

But then

love all-everything,

everyone.

Because

how could you not?

Because

one 

is all,

right?

[At last, I have to admit it. Because I stood at the edge of that ocean screaming in the night and I was screaming too, and the stars were there, and I was there, and there I was: one, all.]

But don't forget what you are bound to.

Don't forget the decay of time

and who you will rot with

 and where you will rot.

And don't forget

that tree

that you've placed your hands on and sung to 

songs of promise

a hundred times.

And don't forget

the particular slope of that land

that hand

that rock

the curve of that neck

of that lip

of that tooth

in his mouth.

Remember it like your tongue remembers the exact shape of the space inside your molars,

the exact edge of your incisors

overlapping

[over and over]

against each other.

~~~

The problem:

If you feel each particular thing

with this particular love

then you start to love 

every 

single

 inch 

of the world.

And then 

I'm afraid the particularity will start dissolve 

into the stale suburbs 

and crowded streets

of generality.

Because

who doesn't want to be the person

someone's swift-swimming eyes settle upon

and rest 

in the perfect peace of finally finding

what they'd been seeking

?

Who wants to be just one face in the crowd

in a sea of love? 

But love is a sea

washing over and over

me.

I fall 

and I fall 

and I fall 

in love

with everything.

~~~

So how do I know

who and what I belong to

except by 

continuing the conversation

hard as it may be

and it will be

and it is.



But this is probably the most important thing that I can do.