Beckoning

Today, an angel riding a pogo stick
on the back of some cards
a childhood friend once gave me,
and Pasteur’s enthusiasm
for the hidden side of things,
the piece of light within,
infinitely yours and nothing
to do with what you think.

So too Paul, still walking
his famished road,
come back as a doctor
in the single-minded pursuit of death,
dancing with our language
because he knows just this:
that it leads no closer
to the asymptote;
that what we are is closer already
than our most blue and red bits;
that the playwright’s seven small words
still wreck perfect silence,
no matter how profound they seem:

I can’t go on. I’ll go on.

Where will you run, beloved?
What escape is there from this?
When will you step out
from under the shade,
seeing it for what it is,
no longer able to hide beneath
that which the sun itself
has created?

Light becomes wood;
wood, paper;
paper, the few pieces of magic
left by a time-traveling child
humming you a lullaby,
picking up the pogo stick
because she’s always been
keen to play with one.

TRACE

The Unnamable Quotes

Paul Kalanithi

Anthony Doerr

Ben Okri

Edith Eger

This book is literally (digitally?) a tree