When Everything Comes Together

The first stanza and half the 2nd stanza of this poem were recorded on my phone while mountain biking in 2020. Through quick reflexes but while still recording, I just avoided a small sink hole that surely would have made everything fall apart.

At the time I was mourning the loss of my friend Gene Kritter, and worried about the fate of my first grandson born three months premature, and two days after Gene died in a tragic accident. Camden’s doing great now, and I mourn Gene’s loss less, and mostly just miss him.

I don’t know why it’s taken so long to complete this poem; it’s the nature of how these things go, for me.

Three Times Ten

When everything comes together

Solar systems,

Entire galaxies,

Are digested.

Star stuff is born,

And expands into

A billion new

Possibilities:

From black holes

Are civilizations created.

When everything comes together

For the chosen few,

The mind

Unfurls and expands

Into actions

Practical and sublime;

That touch those

Fortunate among us

Who are present,

Here and Now.

When everything comes together

It is not necessary

To make a great noise,

But simply recognize

A valence

of consciousness:

Real like breath,

Like skin on skin,

Like a heartbeat,

That joins us all