by Mary Padilla
How odd that
everything is
mostly nothing,
if you look closely.
We are accustomed
to the big picture,
the broad brush stroke,
the macro level.
But when you see
below the surface,
it’s mostly nothing,
just empty space.
Music is all about
spaces between notes.
Art is all about
spaces around things.
Everything is seen
by contrast with nothing,
which is mostly all
that there actually is.
It’s the via negativa
that defines a thing
solely in terms of
just what it is not.
The occasional somethings
deform overall nothing,
affecting other somethings,
but only at a distance.
Paradoxically, we find that
to transcend somethingness,
we must first be willing
to embrace the nothingness.
Only then can we know
what it is to be something
other than something
to be reckoned with.
There is no reckoning
with evanescence,
and yet we can be
aware of its presence.
It is something
that exists
on the cusp
of non-existence.
Similarly, meaning is
what you encounter
when you are not trying
to discover what it is.
Mary Padilla: I write to see what will come out.