The Incredible Fact of Existing at All

What’s to account for it?
Spin of some colossal roulette wheel?
Divinely timed orchestration of interlinked events?
Blind dispassionate physics?
Beneficent universal consciousness?
Time?
God?

What’s to account for this unraveling crosshatch of conscious matter
paddling (peddling?) his craft against the outgoing tide?
Always casting two shadows:
half atheist, half believer,
half cynical, half hopeful,
half resentful, half merciful,
half hiding and half searching for a version of himself
that would rise daily and peer serenely over this world of trouble,
half hiding, half searching for a vision
that finally lifts him into a knowledge of being,
     yet never sure he could live with such a wound. 

But today, he walks an ancient beach
under the apse of sky, on an alter of island,
incense of western hemlock sifting a southern sun,
stained-glass clouds lit brilliant from behind,
chorus of shore, shell, gull, otter, prayer
of trawler moving toward the Strait of Georgia,
     and for a moment, everything fades but gratitude,
        and his body welcomes him home.

12 Comments

  1. The wondrous mystery and experience of time-bound “conscious matter” begs for “knowledge of being” that’s timeless! Thanks, Steve!

  2. Gratitude is our heart’s response to this creation in which we groan. Thank-you for sharing your gift of language.

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