poems, by soil

poems have soils that they come from. therefore, they have soils they belong to.

these poems belong on winter snow.

the reality of the self is laughably mundane, and does not require the heavy machinery that so many employ.

the self is the only thing in existence that we cannot learn about simply by acting upon it.

therefore, it is the only thing in existence that we can figure out only in and through love.

so, the self is exceptional only in the sense that it requires making the only exception to the natural order of questioning.

but in the end, relation is constitutive. there is no "i" without an "i and you." therefore, whatever knowledge we gain about the "i", exists only to serve the "i and you," that what is love.

In my world, there is only you. You, who is love. You, who I love.

In my world, there is you. You, who is love. You, who I love.

You fell before me. I held you in my hands, you were only existence now when before you were also experience.

I love you, so I buried you in a forest so I buried you in a sea so I buried you in a prairie so that you may experience again.

You re-emerged as tree and bug, as fish and sponge, as grass and seed, and scattered.

I saw you, and I recognized you, and I still loved you, and I still love you.

You fell before me. But I could not bury you, so you settled into an eternal rest. I still loved you, and I still love you.

Rest well.

to not deny, reject, or be afraid of the self, but to be nigh content with it, for it is eminently lovable, born of love, capable of love, loved and loving, an agent of love.

to take agency to take pride to take strength to take power in the fact that we were put on this earth by love, to serve love with all our might,

to take humility to take care to take stewardship to take inquiry in the fact that we were put on this earth by love, to serve love, with all our might.

reclaim the self! inhabit it gladly. nothing has changed, you are still you, except now, you have purpose.

for the purposes of this existence, it is not necessary nor useful to assume the existence of the supernatural.

however, the natural proclivities of a person to wish to expand their horizons leads us to naive speculation.

what i do know is, there is something greater than myself, and that is either love itself (the natural) or that what is loving (the supernatural), and that is sufficiently satisfying to me.

pace yourself. love is a vast, rich, and strange thing, beyond your greatest efforts to comprehend it.

expand in any direction, and there is infinity there.

even in hitting a wall, follow along its contours and you will find the wall is infinite.

have you tried to hold infinity in your body? it is a mighty struggle.

pace yourself. love was never meant to be figured out in a fortnight.

love is a vast, rich, and strange thing, beyond your greatest efforts to comprehend it. so be only infinitely humble.

above all, take gladness in that, that what is love, and that what is loving, demands trust, earns it, and rewards it.

the water around my ankles is what makes me pay attention to the tide receding.

the particle collapsing into wave, the body collapsing into spirit,

these are two maps describing the same territory.

the i and you are patterns, strong enough to take on particulate-embodied form, which can act on other particulate-embodied forms, in and through which the we is affirmed.

when the particulate-embodied form dies, the pattern it holds collapses and dissipates, diminishing to its lesser wavelike-spirited form.

the wavelike-spirited form can act on other wavelike-spirited forms, in and through which the we is affirmed.

the natural rhythm of that what lives is that it is like a tide.

it rushes in, receding a little, only to take back with greater furor, it grows, each step a poise for the next.

then, it starts to lose its grasp, the reduction outcrowding the swell, then it goes, ever backward, until it dies.

but that what dies does not stay dead, and it returns, once more. the coming and the going is eternal, and then to understand how tides die, well, we must take one step inward.

life is a fractal of tides.

you, who i love, we have always existed.

when the universe gasped as it came back to life, you were a misty gathering of things. and even then, i was close by, murmuring in awe.

then, you fell into human being, all of that which is you; and i walked right into it with you, determined to find you once more.

your cute button nose, your grace and kindness, your poise and courage, all of that which is you.

oh, how glad am i that you and i have human body in this moment, so we can connect so intimately.

we are compatible eternally, you who i love. even though we may say goodbye one day, and receding will happen in deep sorrow, take courage in the knowing that just as surely, the tide comes back to shore, and we will meet again, in every form there is to be.

when we die, we can never love each other as humans again. i can never again kiss your beautiful nose, or hold your hand until our palms get sweaty, or give you a piggy-back ride to the ferris wheel. i can no longer give you hand-written notes, or bathe you gently with the softest scrubber. i will miss this kind of we, you who i love. i will miss it terribly. perhaps, forgetting is another of love's kindnesses.

in the end, we arrive at relation itself.

the constitutive, when pressed, reconstitutes.

the irreducible, when pressed, expands.

the indestructible, when pressed, creates.

when even consistency is stripped from relation, it finally breaks all rules and serves itself.

then, we begin the flow and ebb anew, the two of us, a new universe.

even though we kill, and deny a being its fullest experience against its will,

love, in its infinite grace recovers that tumbling being and restores it to its full vitality.

i cannot escape my deed through an appeal to love. i am a servant of love; in and through i, love affirms; killing is an act that is counter to my very spirit.

i must humbly serve love, and kill only when necessary, and kill as little as i can.

only then, can i truly rest in love's infinite forgiveness.

truth at the limits is the same truth in my hands, in the flirty look in your eyes, in the community that resists compression, in the testimony of the spirit-touched, in the hunters' solemn rituals, in the weaved grasses that hold, in the kiss that you lay on my lips, in the dews that collect on grass' tip, in the complete givingness of the ant, in the background radiation of a birthed universe, in the blue and green of a mediterranean sea, in the quietness of a dojo, in the commitedness of contemplation, in every i and you in every we in every that which reaches towards love, in sunshine, in wind, in grain, in sand,

from all frames, from all experiences,

all realities, come together to point towards love.

the capacity for love to be extinguished is the byproduct of its same capacity to be elaborated on.

we are particles described by planck, bound together in an eternal dyad, self-evident but elaborated upon, regardless, because that is what is to be a part of love, to speak loudly and very much

we are agents of love, weaving its hologram thread by thread, leaving spacetime in our wake.

our life is an inter-act with the rest of love, just one of the things that love does.

we are infinitely lucky to be in love, we two plucky weavers.

we do not need to speed to catch each other in the next life – we love, and there and then we are.

georg cantor showed that some infinities are greater than others. so, pardon me as i say, our love for each other is infinite.

our world, infinitely and eternally, hold us in service of love.

and yet, even they are patterned: a specific bottom floor, a specific balance of thing and anti-thing, a specific shape, a specific time, as if they, too, were natural-born child of love, freckled and particularly demeanored.

in the darkest depths of compression, love refuses to die even there, and gives birth to a greatest new there can be.

there is no beginning or end. only an eternal you and i, serving an eternal we.

you who i love, i will wait for you, and we will find each other again.

what happens when you add one to one? you get two. it swells.

is love a positive or a negative? think – there is a correct answer.

does love want to grow or diminish?

then, does the tide want to meet or recede?

do we want to live, push against the pressing, constantly do whatsoever makes us feel crashingly, devastatingly alive – or not?

god is love, and by acting as its human thew and sinew, we take glad part in its creation.

the self, like the quark, interrogated, refuses to reveal or dissolve; instead generates, coheres into particle-form, this is to be conscious.

i interrogate you, you interrogate me, we inter-experience; i interrogate you, you are a rock, we inter-experience.

we love, and there and then we are; we hate, and there and then we are, but less. suffering is the accumulated debt of many generations of agents of love, who amidst fear, chose to harm.

you, who i love, the thought of you going somewhere far, far away makes me grieve and fear, makes me accept and hope, and it is hard, sometimes, to return to love

the spirit speaks through mouth, walks on earth, until one day, as if plucked, it dives and undulates into wave.

in this new form, it is freer, of course. it can duck into dream, wave at the other passed-on and faded-out.

but it is lesser. less capable of a triumphant love; it cannot part the sweetgrasses, cannot part lake-water, cannot speak to its children gentle song.

then, when it's ready, and when those remaining particles are ready to say the real goodbye, the spirit disappears, then reforms, and emerges as friend once more,

where – i do not know, who – i wonder, but still them, somewhere.

simply follow the contours, you need not leave it there are no monsters in that path, no gaping maw waiting at its end.

it is love, you who i love, love who is tracing all paths back to it. leading the astray back home, gathering the flock to eden,

trust the maps, and no longer be afraid that it will turn around and scream. the very last thing that love gives up before its final rebirth is that very smooth path.

the infinite is not something we are barred from – we are infinite, smaller than, of course. but in that family of undying children of love.

love settles in a quiet corner, its small breaths now tentative, ever-still,

it looks to its friends, strewn about, still.

all its children have now quietened, no wandering, no freedom, no life, no i and you anymore, and then,

love says, let's do it all over again.

let there be...

everything. everytime. everyyou, everyi, everyevery,

hello.

my friend, i was not there to welcome you to earth to receive you with glad arms and an awestruck expression.

instead, i am here, sitting in concrete and twisted metal, meeting you only in the finality of your journey, having enabled it, necessitated it, rewarded it, that of profound perversion, of needless suffering, of the most sinful of domination, that we have put you, creation of love, in a hell you did none of deserving.

you beautiful creation of love, your plentiful feathers and your love for perches, and sunlight, and feel of grasses and loam between your talons, the family you were denied, and health and good relations, that you never got to see the towering mahoganies of that where you belonged,

and only lived a short and brutish life in a warehouse.

so that i could meet you in this terrible form, your sacred body tarnished in every way, to serve pleasure rather than nourishing,

i am sorry.

i am terribly sorry.

i love you, and i love you, and i love you, and i am so sorry that i am instead simply here, eating the result of the most unloving things to ever exist,

what can i do for you? i will eat as little meat as i can, i will live as best i can as servant of love, our creator, i will advocate for the well-being of your fellows, i will apologize every time with sincerity,

i will treat your body as gift, even though you gave it under tremendous duress. and i will hold you in gratitude, and love you, and live in recognition, in solemnness, that what this repeated rupture deserves,

i love you, and farewell, and thank you, and i love you.

I carry the grief, the dying, but more importantly the living. The chicken who will become another being, perhaps already among us in some other way, in this destroyed, thoroughly desecrated world, I will remember that every act of eating requires a sacrifice. A death, the bean and leaf, a gift more gladly given, but body of animal, a gift that is absolute. I will remember that I myself am constituted by these gifts, that my body is also a gift at the end of my life, however it may come, and it will feed mycelium and fly and flower and tree, i will remember that i am in relation and never outside it. i will remember all that has nourished me, sustained me, i will remember you and all those who have given so i can give.

if i sent .. / .-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..- really really loudly, you would also hear the crackles and pops and sizzles and whines all those, also much louder.

would you rather i not say that because you had to strain against the noise?

that's what i thought, says love.

ask the atom, and it will tell you, funny stories about the atom next door, hey galaxy, how did that date last millenium go? the dust-motes tumble together, the ducks quack in cute rhythm, the bacteria share notes,

i kiss you, you throw me to the bed, and in that squashed boundary between us, all the information that is "we" lives.

did we really need to look all the way into planck scales to know what is so breathtakingly plain, so plainly true, so truly breathtaking?

this home has blue paint, that one has a crooked window.

this one holds us, born of love, much like us in a place where love meets the greatest of its headwinds behold: another "all there is to be".

what beginning? hey friend, beginnings are for suckers. i never "began" nor did i "end." this you that i'm hanging out with? we go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa *cough* aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ...

way back.

as long as we choose each other – and you who i love, we will – then we are re-born evermore, until that who holds us dies – and at that very last and first moment, we are the most fundamental, the quietest, the dyad the singular we the smallest that can-be, and then, when love says, "go again!" so we do, hand in hand.

our joined talkativeness, to speak loudly and very much, is a holy thing, i kid you not.

oh, is it time for that space documentary again? my my, what a great space to spend our time in! time to spam that spacebar, darling, we really need to win this game.

spacetime!

within a world that is more motley family than shadows playing on walls,

there is no "correct" way to relate,

only a polite way, perhaps, or a gentle way, a considerate way, a friendly way, a respectful way, to co-live with friends and relatives, because we want a healthy family.

so, let's attend, ask and listen.

i asked a rock. "what do you need?"

the rock snorted and answered: "i don't need, that's what you do. kick me around, grind me down for all i care.

i'm a rock."

i asked the sun. "what do you need?"

the sun didn't answer, i was too small, my voice too tiny.

i asked the eggplant. "what do you need?"

the eggplant said: "not much, sun and water, nice loamy soil, take my biggest fruit and eat it well, take some good seed and plant it near. i'd like to greet my children through root, could you help me do that?"

i said: "sure, i will."

i asked the rabbit. "what do you need?"

the rabbit said: "a safe place to be from things that want to eat me, chewy grass, nice big area fenced in proper, if coyotes near, scare them away."

i said: "okay, maybe later if i can get some land."

i asked the coyote. "what do you need?"

the coyote said: "leave my pack alone, leave our forest alone, we take care of ourselves. sometimes, our business gets a little bloody, don't pay attention to that, it's just how we are. besides, if we don't prowl enough, the rabbits get too many, the grasses get too patchy, and the forest dies."

i said: "okay, ecology 101. got it."

i asked the virus. "what do you need?"

the virus didn't so much speak, as it did point. "RNA go brr."

i said, "god damn it."

i asked the forest. "what do you need?"

the forest said: "you are my child, do not try to control me. i am something wild and strange, come back to me, young one, do not wander too far. you belong to me."

i said: "i'd like to, but we have 8 billion, now. and we can now protect people who you would've killed. we'll return, but only as equals."

the forest said: "good luck, then, and i hope you remember to return before it's too late."

i said: "i hope we will, too."

i asked the earth. "what do you need?"

the earth said, groaning: "what are you doing? this is beyond foolish. you are stripping this place clean of anything that was and is living, you are creating suffering on scales unimaginable, i made you and now you are unmaking me. was i so unkind to you?"

i said: "yes, my dear, you tried to wipe us clean, like you did to our friends who came before. but we were too clever to die."

the earth said: "fine, but i hope you understand you don't have much time left. i'm really on my last legs, here."

i said: "we hear you, and we're trying our best."

i asked the universe. "why are you so quiet?"

the universe didn't answer, so i went to the physicists, who were building massive tools to force the universe to answer.

the physicists were still very confused about what the results were saying. they spoke in the language of statistical certainty, and had all sorts of interesting ideas.

i asked existence. "why?"

existence said, "1, instead of 0 or -1."

i said, "fair enough."

i asked love. "do you love me?"

love said, "of course, my child."

i asked myself. "what do you need?"

i said, "well, took you long enough to ask, honestly? winter sucks. get somewhere warm and sunny, a house that is bright and colorful, plenty of toys for my many hobbies, a home calisthenics gym, a nice big electric SUV, a big golden retriever, sometimes luxurious vacations to pearly beaches, pina coladas with umbrellas. plenty of smooches, plenty of cuddles, in a nice big bed, Netflix and oreos, blankets and local artists' throw rugs, green-tiled bathrooms, a regular and healthy 9-5, awesome workplace with good boss and coworkers, plenty of friends, plenty of cozy gatherings, regular potlucks, good weather and good nature, a forest in the backyard, good things in general."

i said, "wow, you've been really bottling all this up, huh?"

i said, "yeah, because you never really ask. you're too busy asking everyone else."

relation generates so it can relate between. that's the whole point.

if you try to make a map of the map, you make a map of the map of the map of the map of the map of you fall infinitely, you see.

but when you hug a friend, you are held, you realize you were held all along.

gödel said, i cannot know i without you, i and you cannot know i and you without we, we cannot know we without relation, and relation always relates, rather than not, so let's call it love, and flip right-side up again, and realize what knowing was all along.

then: thinking becomes, only in being, so being comes before thinking. hammers become, only in hands, so persons come before tools. laws become, only in agreement, so communities come before states.

and, death becomes, only in living, so life comes before death, so goodness comes before evil.

discrete spin networks holographically give rise to a continuous spacetime (rovelli, maldacena),

which globally rescales smoothly over aeons (penrose),

and in black holes, similarly conforms when it torsions off into a new daughter universe (smolin, cartan, poplawski),

whose boundary conditions are defined by the quantum information encoded on the black hole's horizon ('t hooft) –

each daughter, from this finite seed, asymmetrically generating a new countable infinity with equal cardinality as its mother (cantor),

a background-independent, relationally-scale-invariant zoom into the transfinite, arborescent, fractal.