Beyond Notice

A tribute to the unseen.

I can accept appearances without keeping them up, without submitting to your notions of their perpetual preeminence. Call me what you want––and this, too. I can absorb any label because I hold none with any pride. Some create awe, sure––like living, like mother, like still here––but this is an awe for what is given and just as easily removed, that I get to witness for the time being, this fleeting now, swelling in all of its fullness, even when the bulk of any presence, any matter, any one of us at any time––is entirely unseen.

For Courage

An invocation.

Not fearless but moving through peril––not undone by it but doing. To draw from the reservoir that sustains any worthwhile action. To examine danger well enough to draw its portrait, and still move against it. Instead of blocking ears against its detailed threats, to answer them. To resist the urge to reel toward relief. To recognize impending death and continue to grow; witness destruction and dare to love; recognize enforcement of silence and dare to speak aloud. To refuse the given stories and unfurl your own myth, replacing willingness to die with courage to live. To bear the agony of doubt and raise it like a torch, toward some new beginning.