By Long Division, Thoughts

by Conrad Martin

By long division, thoughts
must have impressed themselves,
self-cluttering, onto something pure which came before.
If only retracing the mind amounted
to more than doubling, but apparently
a one-way line lurks in a perpetual ebb
and where I seek simplicity, even the sky
multiplies heathen extravagance—birds, fears, fetters—
and if I see even a fall of wings, how shall I forget me?
The sharpest angles spawn, even
the high abstraction of up leads a downfall
rush of needle-green arpeggiated glory—even
the number zero revolves slowly under
some elliptical, irrational pressure,
asking for ways of saying if only
I could stop the thought and
then unthink the stopping,

then I would spread out my arms,
not like slow-swinging sleep, not
like ring-rippling light, not even like
the beautiful black pang of space.
But beyond sleep, beyond light, beyond beauty.

Now the hard, high-hollowing
towers of doubt are become my salvation. Now
by the laws of thought breaking
themselves in crystal are canceled
by an unprincipled redemption
all impossibility that is and was and will be,
with all in-folded unforgettability,
raised against the slope of a moment:

Hear, O Israel my soul:
The Lord our God,
The Lord is One.

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Conrad Martin loves words for their ability to create deeper awareness and experience of life through connection between minds and hearts.