The Wandering Now

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

Are there times, plural? Times

That exist multiplied, added,

Subtracted, divided?

Or is it one time and one time only?

Is it one borderless time—no alpha,

No omega time? No chronos,

No Kairos, no linear, no anywhere time?

We do know there are

Rhythms of moons and seasons,

We do know we breathe—

Our lives,

Our breath,

Sifts through many branches,

Spreads through many bodies,

Moves in a wind that is kin to silence—

Yet even amidst the changes that don’t

Really change, even amidst the sound

Living in silence, and the silence living in sound

It is still a breath—an expansion and contraction

Of our place in time—

A breath that is, in itself, a spirit,

A spirit that is, in itself, a body—

A body that is, in itself, the now made manifest.

And from where we stand,

In all of the mystery, and all

The effort to find a center

We blossom and wither

In no time at all—

So here we are—maybe

You need to join me in

Lifting our head, lifting our hands—

And with all the earnestness of a lost soul–

Say to the everywhere:

“Show me.”