Sublime

There is a depth of wisdom in language’s flexibility, in the soma of its poetry.

So, he said, are you happy? It was an intimate question, nearly as personal as asking about my salary, acceptable in our homeland but not here. What was worse, however, was that I could not think of a satisfactory answer.

I’ll hold all your terrific ugly.

Rejoice, small ant, she thought, in your one life, though too soon dimmed it shall be.

For, as Epictetus reminds us, “the first and greatest task of the philosopher is to test and separate appearances, and to act on nothing that is untested.”

In recovery when I threw myself into poetry, I was drawn to poems that were certain of nothing, poems that embraced mystery instead of trying to resolve it.

deep, mysterious, wild emptiness of nature and creation.

I considered the stars, the smattering of blue-white phosphorescence, and wondered how anyone could call the night dark.