Going In and Going Out

Passing over
and into,
beyond,

and back again -

is the movement

I make
stepping in
and stepping out

of everything that
consumes me
and I consume.

How can a step

into,

how can a step

out of
make all of the difference
between things as
seemingly far apart
as life and death -
the very beginning
and the very end.

Cross one threshold
into a vista
of the aching primordial
granite rises of Yosemite,
a thundering AWE
in the center of
your chest.

Cross another
into the ICU and
immanent death.

There are
countless
million
thresholds

and lines on
the earth that are nothing
more than entrances into
whole portions of change
and erosion in our lives.

There is no good
or bad there -
in erosion. Only moving
away from
or towards.

Learning to sense
the numerous,
transparent
shifts may help us
to take one turn
just before it is too late -

backing out of things
that do not render life.

Moving away from
that which may wear

us down - TOO -
much.

Awaken
to
the knowledge
that the
one who steps over the
threshold

and into or out
of some-new-thing
is not
the one who experiences
that thing.

Every breath
nurtures the
clarity
of change.

The bend in the
river holds no
favors for
the past.

It strips all
matter from
the shore;
all stumps,
and plants,

and the living
if they are in
the path

of its floodgates.

It is the me
that is cast
outside in the end.

The one who
experiences is
at once - in this place
and all places and can only
pulse, and pulse, and pulse.

To find
that we are
this one
is to know
the journey -
the grandest
threshold,
the transcendental
door and
immanent window.

Back and forth we pass
between inwardness
and outwardness;

between an inner
psychic wearing down
of being and
an outer geologic
abrasion of matter.

Feel

the steady force
of friction;

sense
the constant flow

of wasting away.

This is how the
stars slough life;

this is how the quasars
rebuild.

All
of this matter
and stardust

is suspended
in a ongoing passing

- this way and that.

It is all just

stuck here;
going nowhere
and back.

It is all
just

all there is.

Everything belongs.