by Mary Padilla
xxxIs that what it is, then?
xxxSomething that puts in motion
xxxa sort of cascade? Personal?
Write it down
before it slips away.
xxxSuch things don’t usually
xxxneed setting up.
xxxThey come into being
xxxby themselves. Impersonal.
Maybe the pieces aren’t ready
to be locked into place yet.
xxxTo need to do this thing,
xxxbut not necessarily
xxxbecause it’s likely to succeed,
It’s an exchange with the part that
observes, integrates, and only manifests
when the synthesis is complete,
xxxto wake up with it in mind,
xxxand live with it always before you,
xxxas a sort of waking dream –
like the cuckoo in the clock
that makes its presence known
only intermittently – rarely –
then quickly disappears again.
xxxwhen the fit is on, you must do it.
xxxAnd so you discharge it, this necessity,
It won’t be coaxed out again
until it has something else to say,
and that fully formulated.
xxxdeliver it in the doing.
xxxOr don’t, but then it will persist.
This sort of thing doesn’t – can’t – happen
on demand, under contract, or by a deadline.
xxxNot exactly taken over,
xxxhaunted, preoccupied, obsessed
xxxyou simply must pursue it,
xxxif you are possessed by it,
xxxor it just might destroy you.
It just bubbles up
when it’s ready
and can no longer be contained.
xxxNot its agent,
xxxbut rather reduced to it.
All that can be done is
to give it the time it needs,
xxxas everything else is stripped away,
xxxsuperfluous to what it in essence is,
xxxthis thing that can exist only through you.
and then record the result
xxxWhat matters is the essential need
xxxfor this inessential thing,
xxxmeaningful perhaps only to you,
xxxto be,
when it’s ready
xxxand to continue being,
to be delivered.
xxxeven after you no longer are.
Since coming to the LP2 several years ago, Mary has been trying new things, like applying the economy of the poetic form to expressing what can be more felt than understood.