Drawing

I am sketching

reality as it appears
before me;
as it is to me.

It is all about light and shade;
noticing presence and absence—
being and non-being.

Things are either there,
or they are not—

and it is this contrast,
and the gradient between the two,
that I am sketching in my poetry.

I am putting down
marks with a pencil
to depict what I see
in the things in front of me;

or what I see within
things as they occur;

the things that have happened,
or are before me.

There is a fundamental separation
between light and the dark,
at the very fabric of existence itself.

Darkness is never present;
light always is—

black is always missing,
and things—
everything—
reflects light,
in the most manifold ways.

The most remotely—

horrifically torturous,
or grotesquely abhorrent,
or horrifyingly evil,

thought, deed, or experience,

emits background light;
enough to display the
wonders of awe and fear
that beautify all of reality—

real and rarified as it is.

My earliest memories
are of wondering:

I held a hen;

and as I hugged it,
I called out:

“I can feel the egg
coming.”

I found beside a creek
a silver skink,
lying motionless on its back,
shining in the sun;

and, pulling out my pocket knife,
I carefully opened it up,

peering in—
as through a zipper—
into a bag of secrets—

to see what lay within,
hidden under the wrapper
of its beautifully smooth skin.

Like that tiny toddler,
I feel life and love intensely;

I am still that little kid—

looking into everything,
including my moments
of loss and loathing;

when light itself
seems to be hiding;
covering itself up
as it bleeds—

like silver red drops,
darkening into a silhouette
behind its blankets of grief.

I want to know things as they are.

I want to see and touch and feel
reality as it is;

as it really is,
in and through things,
as they appear before us.

I was to see the separation;

and to separate what I see
of the light, and its absence;
of the shade and the darkness.

It is in knowing—

through sight;
to touch and feel
what is really
real, and raw—

that we enter into
life and death itself;

and within life,
and through death,

come into the life and death
that is truly life;

and the death
that takes us deeper yet into it.

I began sketching as a child.

As soon as my eyes grabbed hold of animals and plants,
mountains and seas,
and really held the things around me in my mind,
I wanted to study them;
to draw them.

Drawing as such gave way in my teens
to studying science and theology,
and reflecting in writing;

whether in journals,
or articles,
or stories,
or sermons.

It was not until well after a degree in physics and chemistry,
and ministry training,
and working as both a teacher and a scientist,

that I suffered what would become
the first in a long series of traumatic tragedies,
that brought me to poetry.

Poetry, for me, is sketching;

what I see and touch and feel
within the things I see
and touch and feel
in reality—

what is real;

what is inside of real,
and raw reality,
we call experience;

what is our existence.

It is light,
and it is shade;

there is knowing,
and there is gradient—

there is absence where we are dark;
we cannot see despite our hearts.

And there is darkness
that isn’t black—

there is a dim faintness
staring back.

And there is contrast,
and separation;

there is distinction
and definition.

Some things are stark;
some things are grey;

some things are bright—
more alive than day;

and some things are past,
but still remain;

some things are being,
or have not yet been made.

And some things are not,
nor will ever be;

they are nothing,
just as that word means.

And some things are present,
and are really real;

like childbirth;
makes us really feel.

Even now—
especially now—

approaching half of a century,

I find myself transfixed by things—

living things;
non-living things—

collecting pieces of drift wood,
rocks of all types,
specimens of perished creatures,
seeds of all types;

placing them,
and planting them,
inside and around me—

and watching them—

staring back at me;

as if silently speaking
a language I can understand in my heart,
but not yet perfectly speak myself.

And within those things,
within it all,

I hear all call
that I can’t ignore;

it is the sound of light—

it turns my head,
and makes me look
with a heart wide like death;

to let it in,
and wonder in fear;

sometimes cry,
and sometimes shy—

to laugh or sing,
or to lament and write;

but whatever the truth—

whether love or hate;
indifference or utter faith—

to really know,
and know beyond;

and within and without,

in fitting response.