Sliding

Painting by Gustav Klimt


Sliding


For
the briefest
of moments my

face
in the
steamy mirror looked

to
be someone
else, a doppelganger,

a
lost twin,
an unknown cousin.

***
Are
we powerful
entities coexisting in

several
dimensions simultaneously,
sliding between them

at
the scathing
speed of thought,

like
a spiritual
traffic cop, a

cosmic
juggler, or
just sentient slabs

of
meat churning
out our individual

tale,
perched precariously
on the slippery

shoulders
of one
solitary lifetime? Well,

this
morning I
feel connected to

everything,
able to
positively lay claim

to
my participation
in genesis, my

co-creation
of this
blue dream, this

plane
of existence,
this planet in

peril;
yes, I
am even willing

to
accept ownership
all the boneheaded

red-herring
forays I labored
to fuse into

the
spectral spine
of my Bardoian

plan—
am able
to grasp a

large
digit of
the metaphysical notion

that
time does
not exist beyond

the
veil, that
my mother, ravaged

by
cancer and
dead at 39,

there
in the life
between lives, young

enough
to be
my daughter, will

still
know who
she is, or

was,
during that
brief maternal chapter

of
my Book,
and will clutch

me
to her
breasts, that paradise

lost
but ever
sought these many

years
spent without
her, rediscovered in

the
loving arms
of other mothers.



* * *

Soon
enough will
arrive the morrow

with
its clouds,
forgetfulness, chores, projects

and
problems. On
a day like

that
it is
much harder to

see
the sun
behind the shoulders

of
a storm;
but it’s there.



Glenn Buttkus March 2010