An Infinity of Now in All Space and All Time. {poetry}
I struggle with spiritual dogmas leading to treasured beliefs swirling around in my psyche which lives largely in my heart.
Some teachers help us journey away from conceptual thought, away from any thought at all, but for the noise of their mindful chanting. The passions of the Sufi and Romantic poets drown us in images and feelings refilling the void of a hard-won empty mind.
“Be here now” (nowism) is a modern dogma professed to keep us safe from messy entanglements of love and deep connection for longer than just a fleeting fancy. We cling to this treasured belief for protection from the suffering and beauty of human longing and recollection.
To my mind, now is a moment richly endowed with the sum total of all of the nows of my life entangled in the quantum expanse that is an infinity of now in all space and all time. Now is ever unfolding and folding back into itself, not a solitary virgin breath to escape the full catastrophe of life.
This poem was written in rebuttal to all of the deep sacred partnerships that might have endured if not forestalled in the narrow confines of finite nowism.
***
When is it now
before it slides into then?
How can we be
in the moment
a bit longer than now
stop the clock a nanosecond
milli-beat of a half-breath
of quarter of a quark,
put the brakes on the speed of light
swerve one tachyon to the left
to savor this zeptosecond
trillionth of a billionth of a second
a tiny jiffy to tarry in the emission
of one sizzling neutrino
from you to me at Planck speed
where gravity and space-time cease to be
at ten to the minus twenty of a photon?
Is it now yet?
How ’bout now?
This time, is it now?
Oops, it’s then again.
Awaiting the next now
I miss this now.
Wonder what I missed?
While pondering what I missed
another now goes screaming by
begging for my full attention
heading for my recollection
at the tick-tock of a man-made clock
comes another now
and now
and now
and now
I shall have to bow to the now
for now.
[youtube]oEGL7j2LN84[/youtube]
***
Pamela Pietri is a California board-certified acupuncturist, herbalist, published journalist, writer, editor and decorated winemaker. Like many of us, she’s lately been reflecting on the trappings of time and space.