Consecrated Flicker

Some event forms — or so it seems
Like the glimpse of a leaf blown by the wind
The faint sound of footsteps in the distance

A few birds in the sky, together briefly
Then scattering beyond sight —

Like a wave, gently sweeping, then gone
Or the barely perceptible rise, of a single thought

A single instant
In the ceaseless stream of moments
Somehow imprints itself —
On a frame of film

In words, written or spoken
In patient, deliberate strokes —
Of brush, of chisel

The tiniest fraction of perception —
Frozen, captured, isolated, named
Repeated, revered
Consecrated

Framed as hope or ideal
Shaped as wish or expectation
Cast as tragedy, aspiration, inspiration
Hallowed and sacred —
Stories woven
To trace the origin, consequence, significance
Of that sliver —
That infinitesimal instant
Of sight, sound, thought, sensation

That minuscule instant of seeing —
A beetle on a leaf, a falling star
Something twitching, turning, gasping —
A moment stranded
Like a lonely stump in a vast, barren desert
Where nothing else endures

A bird threading the seamless sky
Still, unbroken, unchanged —
And a breath rising again, after release

Something emerges
Grasped — held —
In a sea
Of nothing

Which fragment, which flicker, which mark
Of vision or thought
In the unending, undivided dark —
Is worth preserving
The axis, the anchor — the definition
The confinement

Or the liberation —
Of you
Of me