midstream

I

we are suddenly
one that needs care.
germinating in a culture,
located within a history,
of lives living midstream,
even as we do

II

as we look, learn,
taught the to and fro
with that which is named,
understood and then understood.
centered midstream among
the arrow of entropy, neg-entropy,
flowing,
even as we do

III

we operate without knowing,
living in abstract strokes
(explain your solid-state,
a candle,
a tree, or me)
but midstream, miraculous,
in a steaming, pulsing cosmos
between gas and blackhole,
even as we do

IV

so well an organism —
taking in, destroying,
assimilating;
yet, sensing late-ly,
swift as EM and neurons are. *
leaving us projecting,
believing an orientation
of midstream uncertainty —
maintaining equilibrium,
even as we do

V

the same that grounds us sane —
the identifiable:
the reiteration of a pattern
and basic quantum,
there but not always occupied,
excited by otherness.
and comparable:
a reliable reality,
peaking, leaving a trace
about the null line,
regularly,
even as we do

VI

connected, together midstream
partially — as some
mind-ed to then-when or down
shape the influx from infinities
into a stability.
yet, adding to, subtracting,
leaving still euclidean non-visible
out from the relative,
even as we do

* EM = ElectroMagnetic radiation

Note on technique: the refrain line represents the reiteration, vibration characteristic of being — a rhythm with a structure.

Copyright © 1974, 1998 John P. Healy