i may come to see everything
as through water
as shadow fishes moving
in my aquarium eyes

 

i thought, i always have lived with ghosts, and i always did keep turning my head 
to the critters of the periphery as fireflies, of firelight. maybe i have always lived 
with my blindness like i've always lived with my ghosts. maybe now i am really ready 
to call them all together as friends.

after our swim sara said the beaches were closed and the bacteria was high and i said oh thanks for telling me. and i wonder if the fauna in my left eye is a tine bacterium looming larger in my convex lens. i used to rub my eyes and i would see these critters, shadowy and bright, like a kaleidoscope microscope, like dancing reflections in water. maybe i should not fear small things.

i was looking at a bookmark from the library 
for the coming solar eclipse. 
i thought, is that my dad's birthday?
r. said you can look it up on the blog.
i looked and saw a picture of an orange leaf
and a comment that it was for his birthday
before i knew it was his birthday. 
then a picture i said mister let's
take a picture for dad
and a white moth appeared above mister's head. 
it was the day before the solar eclipse.
then after the afternoon swim 
i had a circle shadow on my left eye,
like a water drop on my lens.
r. said did you look into the sun?
just as usual. 
now i think how long 
has it been there? 
i recall seeing movement in the periphery,
and then seeing nothing was there.
or brushing a phantom hair away.
it's coming, but it's here within.
it's inside looking out.
from such a thing, 
a coming eclipse, a drop
of the eye, a ghost spot roving
water sun shadow
may come a poem
someday
the day before, the preclipse
he was born
i don't know the day he died
father shadow blots the sun
i knew to be afraid
though i told the neighbor kid
in mount zion, look under the bed
it's only a shadow
i knew to be afraid not knowing
of what, what was before me
an afterimage before me
before my dad died
a shadow before me 
a rover
there will be a shadow before
the sun. it will be 
the earth. 
father will be son to the man.
what is i see sunspots
the rest of my born days?
before i saw an image
was forming in my brain.
from such a thing-
a coming eclipse-
i won't be ready.
i wasn't ready yesterday.
to go blind, but none of us
is ready for what is coming
it is always coming
when it's here. a blindness came
before me. i'm going 
to have to get used to it.
it could be behind my eye,
my eye eclipsing the observer 
behind my eye. 
so
what if
the coming eclipse
is permanent?
impermanence 
has haunted my vision.
if i go blind
will i be your shadow,
will i be your blind dog,
following your scent?
will you be my seeing eye?
will you still be my dog
if i go blind?

the sea was ethereally calm this morning, yet still no lily. lily, oh lily, do you hear that little voice inside your floppy ear? it is mister and me, calling from our lily beloved inland sea.

this is the time and this is the place
this is our time and place
this is our paradise
and we know how we got here
it happened by chance

it is easy to hate
and hate brings people together
after a fashion
it creates all kinds
of fantasies
it brings about various types 
of cooperation 
as in war

but love is
much more difficult
you cannot learn
how to love 
but what you can do is 
observe hate
and put it gently aside

don't battle
against hate
don't say how terrible it is
to hate people
but see hate
for what it is
and let it drop away

what is important is
not to let hate
take root in your mind

love must come 
to the mind




krishnamurti