Riddles for the Now & Not Yet

Stills from 新少林寺 (Shaolin), 2011

What

It is pain in the needle in the corner of the hall.

The ether of some vision that once stung you

with hope, the kind that brings fever.

It is the fire escape nobody knows of

that you hang tender plants in glass 
baubles from the iron rungs.

The tree in the middle of the tenement 
city whose tiny lights pierce the fog every 
night with a glittering code of love notes 
for ships passing by, lonely, each one.

Where

Holy city of flames beneath the 
log in the campfire.

The great carved wall behind the unreachable 
waterfall in the mountains.

That music box built into the innards of 
an old piano in a storage locker.

Places you hide your heart; places no one looks, and if they look, 
no one sees.

Places I only find, eyes closed, all else forgotten, 
fingers on fire.

Places worth climbing to, ascending 
inch by inch.

When

Now. No—then.

The night before.

A day later.

Your name was

written for you

in the book of life.

We sat in silence,

we left in silence,

we aged in silence.

Not now. Yes—then.

Another year later.

Another second before.

Why

You tell me.

I tell you fragments of the

story that surely you know in full.

Mystery loves me madly, and these vows

are a wearying thing, wearing thin.

I wonder that nothing is found.

I wonder that you still appear only to wander

when I know you battle by night; that you feel

the pain of this want even as you march forward,

straight-backed. As I crawl toward this sliver of light.

Who

The only truth:

we are to become.

And love for this becoming

is only grasped by the fools who wait.

And wait. And­—

You are; this substance

is held in cherished suspension, a notch

in history pulsing blue fire.

I am, and we

are pulled from the river mud with

joy, with pride. Even in the dregs of our slumber.

Put aside these thoughts of ruin;

you are here.