The burning sun lifts its bald head
over thick morning foliage,
shining equally on your world and mine—
miles apart, yet touched by the same fire.

But even light cannot enter
the closed circuits of blood and marrow,
those private tides that flow unseen,
nor can it steady the midnight surf
of thought that crashes, unbidden,
against the mind’s dark shore.

And doesn’t that unrest
mirror the world’s own searching—
the impossibility of living contained
within skin and bone
while the spirit strains toward what lies beyond?

We leap impossible distances
to calm the frightened child within,
who never understood
why love can turn so quickly to artifice,
why words fail at the edge of feeling.

Still, the motion continues—
tidal waves of the soul
curling over the small boat of the self,
again and again.

We fumble forward,
decades spinning like planets,
grinding through time’s dark gravity,
our tiny hearts burning,
wondering,
what is it that knows itself
and still cannot be known?

Pololu sunrise ~ bj 2016