The only reality, that can be proven to exist, is this moment. Not the popular moment of current activity, but the moment between thoughts, the moment that time surrounds, the moment of existence. I’m a realist. I mean to speak of what’s real. Since the language I love is the province of the relative realities of past, present and future, this is impossible, but I keep trying.
I hold my hand in the air in front of me. I wave it slowly. I take it away, What remains is the reality of the moment. It’s the same moment that was there, before I put my hand there, in the first place.
If I can’t describe the indescribable, I can speak of relative reality from the awareness of a non-relative place. As human beings, as thinkers, as poets, we’ve spoken of the moment of existence as something spiritual, abstract and philosophical, and we’ve spoken of our transient body/mind as if that construct describes us, concisely and accurately, as if that is who we are.
It’s true that we’re transient beings, and all our creations are transient. The center of our being is not. We’ve identified ourselves with our periphery and not our center. I’ve written from the center, and I’ve written from the periphery. Both are valid perspectives. We are transient beings in a transient universe. And, we’re able to be aware of our intrinsic nature We are able to recognize ourselves as energy that’s capable of being self-aware. We recognize the fact of our existence.
We’re able to recognize ourselves from within our intrinsic nature, without recourse to the identity of mind and body. This is the opportunity to speak from the moment, in the moment, about the moment of our own existence.
Everything in our history goes against this opportunity. We’re habituated by the neglect of our own reality. I’m a realist, and I’ve been a romantic. I’ve been inclined to speak from intrinsic existence. Letting the romance of reality fall away has revealed the reality that underlies the romantic and all the other postures of the poet.
In my life, I’ve gradually felt more real, and that’s been the reward of my nature. My writing that has been an attempt to speak from this awareness, has been seen by others as spiritual, abstract, and philosophical. From my perspective, it’s none of these. I describe what is, and what occurs, in my awareness, using this flawed, beautiful tool of language.
I see the difficulty in using transient language to speak from the only reality that’s not transient. Poets have always tried to leap into the center. When poets don’t effectively leap into the center, the description of the intrinsic sounds abstract, with a romantic costume, like religion or spirituality, or it becomes philosophy.
I love this transient world we live in, I love the transient life we’re living, and I speak of transient reality in simple wonder from the awareness of the real. The real is greater than the exquisite transience of its lesser realities. I’m not a physical being living a spiritual life, I’m awareness in energy, living a physical life. And all my words are only my hands waving in the air.
