We take that which is ...

We take that which is beautiful
to be true,
that which is beautiful,
but not true,
to be excusable,
that which is ugly
to be false,
that which is ugly,
but not false,
to be ordinary.

We take what we have for granted
and we take what we do not have ...

we take what we do not have.

Those few who give
are drained
and those many who take
are never satisfied.

What do we do, then?

We give
only to those who give
and we never take ...

we never take.

A Thousand Eyes

A thousand eyes come to rest
in arabesque pechée,
phalanges,
metatarsi,
tarsi,
tibia and fibula,
femur,
ascending
from crypts to spires,
stones from
Figueres and Vilafranca,
Lleida,
Montjuïc,
Garraf,
one on top of another.

Do they know they're the same:
the dancer and the mason,
the choreographer and the architect?

Which of them can understand
the thousand tears?

Which of us can still see the beauty
in something we hold so close?

Barefoot across Burning Coals

I don't believe for a second
that people walk barefoot across burning coals
and reach the other side unscathed.

I've never done anything of the sort,
but I imagine it would go something like this:

I would begin.
It doesn't matter how.
I would step on the ash
and avoid the coals.

Simple.

I would soon realize,
however, that the ash was hot too
and the coals were unavoidable.

In the midst of the searing pain,
I would need a new strategy.

It would be this:

At the risk of losing my feet
up to the ankles,
leaving cauterized stumps in their places,
I would make it to the other end.

And if I stumbled,
at the risk of losing my hands
up to the wrists,
I would make it to the other end.

And if someone then asked me
how I did it,
I would respond,
jumping up and down on two stumps and
waving the other two in the air:

I decided to.

Lost

"I thought I'd lost you,"
said the earth.

"Where would I go?"
replied the air.

"The moon could not hold me
and the sun would only use me."

"No, I could not go."

"Perhaps you mistook the wind
for my departure."

Maple Leaves Blushing

maple leaves blushing,
landing alone on a liquid landscape,
rushing,
converging within the outstretched arms
of a mill at the end of the run,

(even Feynman moved in only one direction)

blown over by the wind they once embraced,
turning faster and more uselessly
than ever before,

maple leaves trailing in their wake,
facing each other as if to say,
as they descend:

"... your satin robes are softer than mine,
your branching veins more perfect,
your gradients more subtle ..."

forward and forward,
up Escher's stairs,
endlessly

moving forward, turning corners,
moving forward, turning corners,
moving forward, turning corners,

but never ascending.

A Tango

“I'm going to teach you a different way to be strong,” she said. She placed her hand against my back. “Relax here.” It reminded me of something my tai chi instructor might have said years ago. Weighing less than ninety pounds, missing the right side of his neck, and draining a tube from his stomach every few hours, he was immovable. Even the three-hundred pound linebacker he selected during the first class of the semester walked away with a different understanding of the world around him. “Now here,” she said. There was a wall in front of me, and then it was gone. I had chosen yoga as a balm that could be rubbed into my hardened skin and the process was not unlike choosing tango as a pillow to hold over my face while I shouted.

“The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca” was the first I had heard of the man and between the covers of his book, “In Search of Duende,” I learned of the creature I had been trying to silence. Those peering in from the outside may be led to believe that tangueros dance with each other. They do not. They dance with the bulls inside themselves and either one or the other dies in the process. “There,” she said, finally, and I welcomed the release.

The Bohr Model

one proton,
one electron,
hydrogen.

two protons,
two electrons,
helium.

three protons,
three electrons,
lithium.

and so forth,
everything in concentric circles,
or so we learned
in high school chemistry.

in retrospect,
neither the proton
nor the electron
have very much at all
to do with an atom.

in retrospect,
it is the space between them,
the cloud of possibilities,
fading in every direction,
the lobes of uncertainty,
mirroring each other like
so many lungs,
the rings of chance,
circling like an embrace,
that give the atoms
their character,

and we continue
to find them
even more beautiful
when understood
than when imagined.