Clinamen (Swerve)

Straight lines bend,
like the supple willow branch;
even light can bend around a corner
and the voice in song
can, in the right conditions,
pierce the equanimity of the soul.

A passing thought might lead to an idea,
or it might land to resting point,
or even dissipate
into a cloud,
perhaps to reappear
—  though maybe not —
or reform in re-emergences
symbiotic with certain concurrent vibrations.

Being arises,
blossoming forth
from omnipresence
in unique expressions
based on exposure with
any surrounding elements;
attraction to certain resonances
or even repulsions,
conversions and distractions
divert every linear trajectory.

Continuity,
shaped by chance encounters
along the omnizon
with any resonant factor,
might follow a path
or diverge.

Differentiation
need not be disorienting;
every voice finds a place in the choir,
and while yet singular,
can by agreement
coalesce harmoniously
in a timely flow of momentarily
cascading resonances
punctuated by titillating,
even thought provoking, dissonance.

Each and every pathway leads,
whether blazed or followed,
divined or diverted,
elemental in its own way;
the traveler experiences
a full and varied range of
compliance or resistance,
from and with, betwixt and between,
toward eventual results that,
on one hand,
resolve to known
quantities, weights, measures
and tonalities,
though on the other,
fruitions that may never
accumulate or articulate in such a way
as to be seen, heard, felt or fully known
in the open-work of space and time. 

© 2018 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This is somewhat in memory of Dixon Adams ("Uncle Dodds"), that late, great book pusher, who would be tickled to know that I have found myself on a pathway through western classics, his specialty. A Lucretian/Epicurian martini of thought, blended with a whiff of Antonio Negri and Gilles Deleuze... 

Collaborations

for my twins and all twins everywhere

About connections and intersections,
we have learned very little,

but they are everything;
without them, there would be no life.

Is there something somewhere else?
No, it is all right here, right now,
waiting for you to choose,
waiting for you to act.

The magic place is here and now,
the alchemy is in the meetings,
—sacred ground is everywhere,
tread with courage, care and smiles.

Those who say “self-made” are lost;
no one goes alone in this place
—it is how we meet and greet and treat
the faces we encounter each day.

See what is before you, recognize
yourself in every time and place,
and know that all others share
experience no different from yours.

All things will change and pass,
you and all beings will change,
we shall all be changed
—but not our comings and goings.

On our meetings we are tested,
day in week in years past lustrum,
in our meetings we are judged,
not in what we have or know.

Be into being and being with,
the quality of life lies in being with
and well within with and in each,
with all the best regards possible.

When you can see yourself
in another, in and by giving,
you will know the magic place
is your heart meeting others.

We must learn to be well met
in our connections and intersections;
meeting and being met is everything
to know and experience of life.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen