Aperture
I see my small hands cupping snow,
pink fingertips outlining white magic fluff.
I feel confused by my numbed digits,
sheer joy at this landscape
and mood-transforming substance.
Did I know what I felt?
Did that smaller vessel of me
recognize feeling and emotion, I wonder.
I see the rounded toe of my yellow boot
step at the base of a just-unfurling crocus.
My diaphragm softens into a smile at the pale purple jewel
and I peek curiously at the half-hidden star within.
Brow furrowing into a question, stomach jingling with delight,
did that boot-wearing creature know
its capacity for questioning and sensation?
Could I have known they were connected yet different modes of being?
I see a taller, tired me watch its arm
reach out to touch a glacial stone jutting out from the hillside.
A pleasant flutter in my heart signals it knows this ancient stable
strength I cannot feel on my own anymore,
an anchored altar of energy cool, slick, and grounded.
I did not know then that something - maybe body, stone, or both,
was telling me that the mind is a labyrinth
one can wander within endlessly, forgetting about the exit.
I see my head turn as it follows the hand-shaped
leaves of the oak tree wave as they sail down slowly to the ground.
Watching these leaves fall, you wonder
who knows to ask who is experiencing this.
Your body relaxes, and sometimes you feel content.
Did you ever think you would be here,
someone picking up crackling hand-leaves
holding them up to your face, searching for their veins
to compare them to your own?
Shall I call myself a filter or a point?
A collection of chemicals recalling moments
or a container of emotions each vying for the spotlight.
You can be them, or be of them,
I don’t think you can be without them though.
Try as you might.
Go out into the snow and feel it fall onto your skin,
watch it swirl into drifts and hear it hush the air.
Go looking for the tiny green shoots that push steadfastly
through the hard brown earth, always reminding you that endings
and beginnings are fingers crossed.
Hold onto something strong.
See if you can see yourself in everything or
rather, see if everything is of you, and you of it.