Where did we meet?
Where before have I seen
your steadfast resilience?
In the snow on a mountain?
Have I seen your eyes
in churning blues of seawater?
Has your voice laughed
in the rain on some porch roof?
My knowing fails.
Being with you
is so far beyond and above
knowing
that I gasp at the depth,
as if I were to emerge
out of a challenging forest
and stand surprised
at the brink
of some Grand Canyon,
the fragrance of familiar evergreens
pouring over the edge
into this optical impossibility.
In school we learned hard and long,
hoping to know our way into a future,
but now an approaching endlessness
is vaporizing
every drop of knowing
we ever gleaned
and sweeping us away
in the singing wind.
However unknowing,
we can do,
we can feel,
we can think,
we can be,
and we can
(most yes of all)
love.
A being is fullest of can
when emptiest of know.
Witness the majestic power of weather
around our deeply unknowing globe,
or feel within all your organs
the fathomless tides fluctuating
under lunar and solar urgings.
Breathe, breathe with me,
my sweet companion,
as we sally confidently
into a smiling unknown.
From Inward in Words (1990)
by Alan Harris
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