Happy New Year
Because it’s obvious that we are not here there or anywhere
We are in not in Whoville, Trafalgar or Saint Paul
We are not wherever you or your third cousin thinks we are
I have studied this extensively
I have read books
I have listened to lectures
I have scryed the dregs of tea leaves
I have observed the stars
I have walked along the river with
A woman met just met a moment ago
And said we should meet again
We have
Again and again and again
In the non-existent places across this world
As I say
I have studied this extensively
It is not possible
It cannot exist
Just take one sixty second era to trace
All of this backward
Through your parents their parents, through
Disease and wars and chance meetings and
Couplings and couplings avoided
And this is just the human part
The immense impossible chance
Of who had to meet and not meet
For just this moment of my hand tracing
Circles across your back
Or any of you reading this
It does not touch geology or cosmology
The ice ages the volcanos the meteors
The exploding suns the white dwarves
The black holes
The 159 sub atomic particles
Or the vasty-ness of time
Where that first singularity was or was not
This is obviously all impossible
And cannot be happening
Even a single flower gathered into
A bouquet sold at a bodega
And placed upon your counter
Is beyond a miracle
To say nothing
Of us taking a walk along
A river in a small city
Tracing a river with our footsteps
As we trace the night with our breaths
All of this is impossible
In Saint Paul, Trafalgar or Whoville
Unstuck in time and space
Impossible
And eternal
Yesterday and tonight
Or any of the nights or days
Or that first time I took your hand
Across a table
Which is to say
In this impossible place
In this impossible beauty
In this first day of this new year
I dissolve in awe and wonder
at what obviously can not be
Yet is, is, is, beyond my knowing,
Resting in the sound of your breath.
PWS 1.1.2021
Six Notebooks 