I have an interest in the word "you" — the address that intimates use for each other, that yearning we might have, that sense of addressing self, other, Other, the void, the past, the unknown, the deeply known. That word allows me spaciousness without definition, and I like it, so I regularly repeat the word "you", in Irish, with the in and out of breath, until I've forgotten who is speaking and who is being addressed. ("The eye with which I see God / is the eye with which I see myself", my bewildering friend Meister Eckhart says.)
Is this a prayer? Sure. Is it a prayer? Why not? Is it a prayer? No. Is it? Yes. Too many years of theological study have immunized me from any interest in definitions that ask the impossible of the intellect. I'm interested in practices and signposts to the present. And breath is such a signpost, such a practice, and such an infinity.
A field of light, and my need to say
that it exists. Each morning I walk here
almost blinded by water the sun shines on...
Limestone and granite give back radiance, and we
Walkers in this field lift our feet and set out,
moving through our once and only mornings,
afternoons... What if light
did not find itself renewable? As my necessity
for these words, mirrors I carry into the sun
of this blazing day, this dance, this carnival
where I am given access to another world,
to the spirits who walk with me
pointing out the properties of light.
that it exists. Each morning I walk here
almost blinded by water the sun shines on...
Limestone and granite give back radiance, and we
Walkers in this field lift our feet and set out,
moving through our once and only mornings,
afternoons... What if light
did not find itself renewable? As my necessity
for these words, mirrors I carry into the sun
of this blazing day, this dance, this carnival
where I am given access to another world,
to the spirits who walk with me
pointing out the properties of light.