POETRY | PARADIGM SHIFT

Bear Up New Love

First thoughts after experiencing Ava DuVernay’s transcendent film, Origin

In fact, if you removed all the space inside all the atoms making up the stone, glass and steel of the Empire State Building, you’d be left with a little lump about the size of a grain of rice, but weighing hundreds of millions of pounds. The rest is only empty space.

— Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos: What Is Space?

Lukewarm yet frozen solid, inner Monk begs the cushion for more down. This morning’s tea was bitter, sourced From a slow leak of atoms filtered over Eons through a speared heart, Soul Dripping dry on colonial parchment While mumbled incantations cloak Birth’s self-illuminating spells in lampblack ink To protect false prophets from new light. Prayer Beads spent like coins, ruling parties Purchase dust and fiber from cotton fields gone Fallow — Earth demands her refund:

She didn’t send up cane sugar and salt Crystals to fund fetid crops of bondage, Strife and slaughter for millennia Scything out her light. How overripe These thoughts — this Thinker — how muddy Each plucked fruit becomes when dropped Behind war’s mindless ploughing.

Worn out, the monk neglects his tea, lets fold His prescribed posture and begins to weave A hammock — a wish — not to carry the world, but To be held apart from gravity — a child Coaxed sweetly to nap midday, or a body Groomed to woo the air like an aimless heiress Floating buoyant in spa waters, uplifted Despite a downward pull of jewelry hiding guilt.

Quietly Subtract the space imposed between Neutrons, neurons, quanta these Men so proudly call a skyscraper — tall Matter shrinks, fits neatly in a seed grain So small that you — we — I might lose It to a tide of clutter before ever feeling Its true mass. Glass. Steel. Plaster. Cloud And mournful raindrop, gone. Footfalls Of old sleepwalkers we fear to wake Alert the cubicle monks — rally dormant Lightworkers to accounting. Change is coming.

Surely more than ever, we have better things to do with our time here.

Maybe peace is a myth, like harmony or stillness, A bedtime story for the innocents, whispered Spells imparted by clock strokes and sand Cascading: to see it clearly, one must Stop spinning — yet we are made of motion. Sticks of compressed sandalwood and cedar Don’t facilitate meditation; they burn. Nothing physical is still. If you’re tired, Perhaps a nap’s the last thing you need. Like mitochondria invading Archaean swarms, Embed new strength within the industry you seek.

Cells and organelles — quarks and ideas mating, The monk knows the difference between hard Cypress slats and silk puffed with feathers — how One resists while the other yields more Room for a steadier pulse deep inside the Muscle of this Presence born to harvest tea And sweeten it. Unbind the rope, step Out of tight laces to run barefoot — it’s time To wish outright for better ways to sow The once enslaved, suffering fields free from Thorn and greed — grow wild and wise With messy roots entangled — bear up new love To appraise an endless sky.

: 🌳 Laurie Perez

Thank you for reading and reflecting today. If you haven’t seen ORIGIN yet, add it to your must-see list. I have no affiliation to the movie, only a profound appreciation for its potential to change our world and illuminate new paths to better days for all of us. DuVernay’s film is an experience worthy of Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste— bigger than a blockbuster, more life-giving than a soothing breath when you’ve just emerged from deep water. It’s like entering into a conversation with wisdom itself.

Abiding gratitude to Sadie Seroxcat for including my work and sharing it with marvelous Rainbow Salad readers and beyond!