the day and how we saved it

everything we needed suddenly came to us in a flash, like an idea or lightning; and once we realized what we wanted was mostly ours to start with, well, we let the days roll over our heads and watch the nights turn into an aquarium of stars.

how did we do it?

it started with the city: everywhere we turned was something larger and longer-lasting staring us in the face; so instead of saying "skyscraper" or "powerlines" we decided to say nothing at all. no sooner than we tore down the words did we recognize that wherever we turned, we found ourselves: in the buildings we built, the cables we strung, the orderly streets and yes even the collapse of that order; and once we began we found we could not stop. soon we could not watch the birds or climb a mountain without finding ourselves waiting at the top. even our greatest abstraction became a window opening up to a mirror looking back at us: god made the world because he needed us to behold him into being, and so everywhere we turned we found proof of our existence in his creation. without us there would be no leaf, no tree, no church -- neither skyscraper nor the sky it scrapes.

years before, when we didn't know, many of us were lost to madness. if a rock is a rock then how did it get there? who made it? what is it for? what makes a rock a rock and not something else, like a sunset or a pear? what makes a pear a pear? who made it? this was the madness of questions, and many lost their lives to the horrific inability to rest; to just stop; and eventually they died, fists clenched, in their sleep.

there was worse madness than the questions disease, though, and worst of all was the madness of separation; namely, attachment -- for if a rock is in fact a rock and not a road, then that rock is something we can hold on to when all is else is swarm and uncertainty. well, we know how that one goes. those who held rocks to keep themselves anchored ultimately forget what was what and mistook the rock for a part of themselves, like an arm or an eye; and whosoever tried to take the rock was treated as anyone who might try to take an eye; and the limbs were always piled up high, and there were no rocks nor pears nor sunsets nor love for anyone.

no matter how far we stray from the things we built with our hands, we cannot avoid the circle leading us back to the Self. so now we follow paths through city streets and bedrooms and mountains in the dark. we keep passing through, and the days keep rolling over our heads, into our hearts, and through our open hands...