9 - 12

9

I am the last symphony – to go beyond me
is to vent without inspiration – or so I feel,
feel now.

I also remember the shape of nothing
but I grow down. I am the root
from the seed that works under and in.

10

Hallelujah – you have arrived, at the place.
The place of the oasis where the date palms
hold silence in the dark beneath the leaves of the sun,
fed by the slinking waters from the mountains,
come through the opal pools where maidens
wish to swim and drink on honey and run
their hands through the moistness of their hair.

I am the death of that first self,
and the birth of the new one. I am birth and
death – yes and no – black and white – in
one. I am binary, and so two, I am decimal, I
am any system I choose.

11

I am the clone of myself –
I am the when-you-see-the-system-
repeat, when you see how it will run from
now on. I am nothing new – just the next volume in the series,
the next tedious stop in the race.

I am new me and old me. I am
double me.
Two kinds of me. More aware.
More in debate. More able to
inter-relate.

12

I am the full circle of the clock,
I am the monthing full circle of the sun,
I am what inches forward within each foot,
I am a cycle of the thought and the
question of it, the good allowing the
duplicitous. Una and Duessa
in one.

I am the belief and the doubt, the attentive optimist.

I am when people meet and are as good as can be in that number.

The first divisible by 1,
and 2,
and 3,
and 4, the builder’s measure, the stargazer’s,

in me is a true completion …