Things Flare Up… and Then — Poof!

[Image: “Metanoia: transformation, a change of heart or mind,” by Patricia Wu Wu; found on Flickr, and used here under a Creative Commons license (thank you!). It’s not clear, exactly, but this image seems to be a draft, of sorts — sketches in black ink or paint: Patricia Wu Wu is a fashion/textiles designer. Apparently this image was included in her “Metanoia” show at the Glasgow School of Art (see the corresponding Flickr album for more). You can see more of the work she exhibited there at her own site.]

From whiskey river:

Then again, if physics is right, we shouldn’t exist. You can watch ions hop across synapses, follow nerve impulses from nose to toes; nothing in any of those processes would lead you to expect the emergence of subjective awareness. Physics describes a world of intelligent zombies who do everything we do, except understand that they’re doing it. That’s what we should be, that’s all we should be: meat and computation. Somehow the meat woke up. How the hell does that even work?

(Peter Watts [source])

…and:

Prelude

Waking up is a parachute jump from dreams.
Free of the suffocating turbulence the traveler
sinks toward the green zone of morning.
Things flare up. From the viewpoint of the quivering lark
he is aware of the huge root systems of the trees,
their swaying underground lamps. But above ground
there’s greenery—a tropical flood of it—with
lifted arms, listening
to the beat of an invisible pump. And he
sinks toward summer, is lowered
in its dazzling crater, down
through shafts of green damp ages
trembling under the sun’s turbine. Then it’s checked,
this straight-down journey through the moment, and the wings spread
to the osprey’s repose above rushing waters.
The bronze-age trumpet’s
outlawed note
hovers above the bottomless depths.

In day’s first hours consciousness can grasp the world
as the hand grips a sun-warmed stone.
The traveler is standing under a tree. After
the crash through death’s turbulence, shall
a great light unfold above his head?

(Tomas Tranströmer [source])

…and:

The plain truth is we are going to die. Here I am, a teeny speck surrounded by boundless space and time, arguing with the whole of creation, shaking my fist, sputtering, growing even eloquent at times, and then — poof! I am gone. Swept off once and for all. I think that is very, very funny.

(Charles Simic [source (via)])

Not from whiskey river:

June 15th, 8pm

The evening comes slowly over us,
over the cardinal and the wren still
feeding, over the swallows suddenly
swooping to snatch up mosquitoes

over the marsh where the green
sedge lately has a tawny tinge
over two yearlings bending long
necks to nibble hillock bushes

finally separate from their doe
mother. A late hawk is circling
against the sky streaked lavender.
The breeze has quieted, vanished

into leaves that still stir a bit
like a cat turning round before
sleep. Distantly a car passes
and is gone. Night gradually

unrolls from the east where
the ocean slides up and down
the sand leaving seaweed tassels:
a perfect world for moments.

(Marge Piercy [source])

…and:

On Erasure
(excerpt)

I

I was on a plane and, as often happens, the woman next to me asked me what I did. And it often happens in such circumstances, as we are no longer actually on earth but suspended in the ether above, that a lie takes place. But as I was in no mood for a lie to take place I said, “I do Biblical erasures.” And she said, “Bible erasers! You must sell a great many of them!” I didn’t know if she meant pink rubber erasers with Biblical quotes stamped on them were a commodity appealing to millions, or, since I claim ed to support myself in this manner, I would certainly have to sell millions of them. But as I was still in the truth – telling mode I said, “Actually, I haven’t sold a single one.” And as the air of the airplane was suddenly warm and oppressive, I struggled to remove my overcoat, and when she reached out to help me I was overcome by this unexpected and tender gesture of assistance and to my great embarrassment, and for reasons having nothing to do with our conversation, I began to cry. And she said, “Don’t worry, dear, God works in mysterious ways.” We never spoke again, but a month afterwards I dedicated my new book of poems to her, a perfect stranger whose name I don’t even know, because she had become by then, in my mind, the perfect stranger.

(Mary Ruefle [source])

…and:

Unholy Sonnet 11

Half asleep in prayer I said the right thing
And felt a sudden pleasure come into
The room or my own body. In the dark,
Charged with a change of atmosphere, at first
I couldn’t tell my body from the room.
And I was wide awake, full of this feeling,
Alert as though I’d heard a doorknob twist,
A drawer pulled, and instead of terror knew
The intrusion of an overwhelming joy.
I had said thanks and this was the response.
But how I said it or what I said it for
I still cannot recall and I have tried
All sorts of ways all hours of the night.
Once was enough to be dissatisfied.

(Mark Jarman [source])