Boxed Awareness

                                        “Simply put, things are not things, really.
                                        They are vibrations of energy ribbons …”
                                                           - Post by 2Lazy, grasscity.com


Why do I save things in a box?
Are they real? am I? and what about the box?
I cringe with scientific anxiety.


I’d better stick with stoic bewilderment,
chain myself to a collection of trinkets.
Forget about these sub-atomic personalities.


I only want things to be things,
to dance their life on cardboard floors
walled with predictability.


My box holds comfort treasures,
things that fit my understanding –
stones, shells, a piece of wood.


I have three quartz stones, pink, shiny.
they feel rose-smooth and speak to me
about the tenderness of rocks.


The shells were emptied from a shallow cove.
I invited them to join me on a flight home -
humming music from the shore.


And since I find wood so reliable,
fashioned from trees (I trust trees)
a pine tree slice entered the box.


But this pie-wedge of tree trunk
was leftover from a felling and says very little.
It ponders… loss,

The cutting off, the discard,
remembering bark once lathered in rainfall,
sticky with damp sunlight, content.


Content with the stillness of place and belonging,
before those curved rings of time
were splayed open for all to see.


I’ve backpacked so many things into this box-
little pieces that my mind wants to hold,
letting them become the holders of me.


Here we are, settled in together -
memory silhouettes, curiously contained -
boxed-up vibrations of energy ribbons.