Porous

By ~ Warren Summers

Bodies are porous:
Things go in,
Things go out,
Things go through.
Constantly.
Despite our efforts
To block, to pause, to bind, to insulate, to mask, to purify:
Bodies remain porous.

Hearts are porous:
Things go in,
Things go out,
Things go through,
Constantly.
Despite our efforts
To be reasonable, to be rational, to be logical:
Hearts remain porous.

Nations are porous:
Things go in,
Things go out,
Things go through.
Constantly.
Despite our efforts
To draw lines on maps, to police, to punish
To build, to reinforce, to mythologise, to manage, to expand:
Nations remain porous.

Planets are porous:
We go through them,
They go through us.
We go through us,
They go through them.
This going through
neither begins nor ends,
neither starts nor stops,
leaves no trace,
and yet makes all things possible.

The Self is a porous planet:
Heart beating in a failed State
A flimsy body infected with story
A song bordered with a desperate hope.
An unthing undone in the morning,
A mirage of a mystery at midday,
A phantom of darkness at sunset,
And flicker of fury in the evening.

We go in,
We go out,
We go through.
Constantly.
Despite our efforts
To sate, to soothe, to explain, to express,
To imagine, to know, to realise:
The self is a porous planet
Filled with stars.

And the stars are a porous promise:
Of brightness poured forth across a billion billions;
The moon lit with yesterday’s news,
Grown gardens arise from the ashes.
Such is the peculiar invention
The shadows remorseless revision
The fright, the diagnosis, the laughter,
The witness, the dancer,
The end.