Photo by Henry Dick
No-Self
Maria Berardi
Paying attention to clouds, finally,
attending to them
faithfully, properly,
to their eternal dissipation,
their always-formingness;
never quite formed,
never, certainly, incarnated.
Nothing so heavy-handed.
No hands.
And then there’s us.
Temporary, too,
mostly made
of water, too,
just a different kind of time,
a heavier grasp.
Not these blessing gestures of rain,
soft dark fingers
sowing seed.
Not these extravagant
imaginings we pin
on them, the clouds,
as they imagine themselves
into being, not this ease
in ceaseless change,
coming coalescing undoing undone.
And the keenest thing
also the most gentle,
to open, extend, disperse,
disappear, effaced,
exultant, in the unbroken blue.
Maria Berardi
Paying attention to clouds, finally,
attending to them
faithfully, properly,
to their eternal dissipation,
their always-formingness;
never quite formed,
never, certainly, incarnated.
Nothing so heavy-handed.
No hands.
And then there’s us.
Temporary, too,
mostly made
of water, too,
just a different kind of time,
a heavier grasp.
Not these blessing gestures of rain,
soft dark fingers
sowing seed.
Not these extravagant
imaginings we pin
on them, the clouds,
as they imagine themselves
into being, not this ease
in ceaseless change,
coming coalescing undoing undone.
And the keenest thing
also the most gentle,
to open, extend, disperse,
disappear, effaced,
exultant, in the unbroken blue.