IOWA: Nocturne for Whoever We Are

Lyrics

That opening of hinges 
of gray doors backed by 
spectrum light 
open to the distance arriving 
without warning but with 
total intuition, knowing 
that ocean's deep sound is 
music for all creatures 
in and out of the tides, 
in and out of everything 
calling for our love. 

And we belong to 
one mystery or more, 
one reflection of a vision, 
that mountain on smooth lake 
and rising above it 
moon and moon, 
brightness as certain 
as a lightbulb turned on 
by the hand of God, 
universal grip of the cord 
connected to the beyond 
beyond beyond.... 

Alone at night, far away 
from everything I believe 
is my love, all be-longings. 
Is darkness always blind? 
By lamplight, in the company of 
tiny suns, those small fires 
matching the heat of our hearts, 
and the beat as ocean-wide and deep. 

We wander nearer to and further from 
those hands reaching out 
to steady us on the edge 
between day and night. 
On one side dark sleep, 
the other so white, 
that canvas waiting for 
whoever we are. 
Should we ever come in again? 
Or do we stay between blue and blue, 
red rivers pumping thoughts 
from brains to toes, 
from a vision, from a hallucination, 
a belief unmeasured, unproven. 

The stars even at such great distances 
speak to us, explaining everything, 
but we may put our fingers in our ears 
and cry, "No! No! No!" and this 
does not make liars of the stars. 
They tell us everything we own 
is as useless as darkness hiding 
the next uprising of the sun, 
its fire touching every civilization and 
its message carved in light 
on every stone, on every wish, 
and every desire in which I hold you, 
asking for undying love. 

From the forever of now 
to the always lost 
we find a path 
and extract the meaning 
of what we know and feel, 
the last renditions of that song 
which began as one blinding explosion, 
if anyone had been there to know it. 
Instead, that blindness by nearly infinite being 
still makes us blink our eyes 
until we see the circuits 
of thoughts rising, circling, falling 
in multi-dimensionality 
understood as flat and deep 
as one foot on the ground of 
this brief earth, 
mind both with and beyond 
every simple thing.