Being

Times of turmoil, times of ease.
Times of anxiety, times of peace.
Times of sorrow, times of joy.
Times up, times down.
Times young, times old.
Times healthy, times sick.

Nothing ever stays the same.

Always changing,
always moving,
always in the process

of becoming.

Something else

that is not yet

but forever

on the verge

of becoming.

So then life is a process,
not a state of being.

A vector,
not a location.

And this idea we call time
is only our way of understanding
the
flow.
of
Being.

For being is not being,
since how can something be
when it is constantly
becoming?

I was born, it is true, on 2/14/46 at 11:35 p.m.

But my birthing was only
a step
in my process
my flow
my vector.

Before that I was developing in my mother’s womb.

But before that I was raw potential
contained in a million million possibilities
of union
between
two
lovers.

Each of these possibilities could have
become
but did not.

I myself am a million million possibilities.
Things I might do,
Places I might go.

Only time will tell.

But whatever I might do is only a step in a much longer chain of doing that began before the sun was lit

and shall continue long after it burns itself into an empty cinder.

And every place I might go
is only a stop on my way to
someplace else.

As one word proceeds the next
and follows the one before,
until the last one this hand writes.

But my writing will continue
by another hand.
Perhaps by the hand of my son.