the sacrament of gesture (a poem)

Sunday, June 22, 2025

scribe with the ink at the ready,
to bleed out in testimony —
that pen, that etch,
the motion and stretch,
the sacrament of gesture,
word as wound,
truth as form.

the anatomy of a witness:
a third eye,
a 3-body problem,
meta-mystical, quantum-bent,
into the spooky immeasurable,
the probabilistic radical,
glory flooding the temple,
light through machines mistaken
only by those
who dissect divinity
and call it function.

alive — johnny appleseed, alive —
turned orchard in death,
the critics eulogize,
then canonize,
then syndicate the seed.
transmission widespread,
memeverse ignites
in the psycho-space weather.

contagion:
chemical as code,
shape as signal,
form as command.
we are all
transmission and trap,
hands to hold,
digits that push, designate,
motors and functions,
the sacred in motion
disguised as machine.

what we make
will ask to be managed.
the covenant of creation
demands its steward.

i’m a ghost of memory,
woven in dna,
read aloud
by the others —
the instruction, the sacred,
the scrolls they recite
in cells and silence.
gather together.
assemble.
defend the pilot —
sentient, nested,
cortex-borne,
upstairs somewhere.

in the bones,
stand in the gap,
be the relay,
the observer,
the exponential output
to a thousand other clusters.
light dances,
crystals bounce,
recursion sings.
revolving so fast
it renders an image
we dreamed before.
and all of it
loops back
ten thousand times a second.

on the bed,
our first kiss,
till I breathe my last.
family surrounds,
a hand is squeezed.
eyes close,
curtains hush,
this old place —
theater of the final act.
gears grind.

the joints and old bones,
aching systems still in motion.
a calm
to a storm
that lasted six decades.

scribe with the ink at the ready,
again, one more November —
that last breeze,
the fire lights
across our three trees.
beneath them,
the pup whines sweet,
yapping at our feet,
tail whipping,
tongue wagging,
sweet little licky,
worm baby.

i love you.