One: swing legs over side of bed
two, three: stand, walk to bath
four, five, six: turn on water, clutch washcloth, flood face with suds
seven, eight, nine: scrub teeth, brush hair, look good—
already, tiny tasks number near a hundred,
and on to the kitchen, food, the ten components in a cup of coffee,
to my list, to the next twenty parts of starting a new day.
A string of separate acts becomes a stream
whose waves I can barely see;
this task creates the next, and that one the next,
and where is a line of demarcation?
Gone! I am swimming.
Each act is also a cooperation; no creation comes of itself.
Left and right hand, eyes and nose, make the buttered toast.
Voice, ears, and fingers make the first phone call.
I join with objects and others and movements.
Together we living and inanimate beings collaborate
on the thousand-million proliferating things,
and we welcome the help of untold others in unseen realms,
invisibly assisting the Flow.
We all merge into a big Situation,
happening of its own innate grace,
a river of enthusiasm and telepathy and helpful intent
and focused will and authenticity and release and fresh urges.
I am complex now, not really an "I"; identity is superfluid.
As I stop pausing to watch fragments, to count,
the Whirlpool pulls me in,
hypnotizes me, tires me, sucks me down
through the door to dreams
where I close eyes on the swirl and clutter,
feel true simplicity,
belong deeply in the dark,
spread out infinitely,
remember effortlessly.
When I wake each morning I think I'm alone.
This poem copyright by Penney Peirce 2009. Angel painting by Nanne Nyander, Sweden.
