Here: The Champion of Nothing
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by David Rensberger
In memory of Jerry May:Here, beneath the pine and beech and poplar,
beside the creek, broad and conversational and brown,
where the sand still holds last night's rain
and the footprints of this morning's man and dog-
downstream now, a brown lab splashing in and fetching-
precisely here, where the ripples rush unhurried
and never change their constant alteration, while the bugs
yammer and the cardinals chip in the wet, just-moving air:
this is where I want to meet you, part of all that's yours
(the part that talks too much and cannot end a sentence),
of all that would not be the thing it is if you were not you.
Infinity is best encountered local, eternity one moment
at a time. The prize is won by sitting still and
seeing, hearing, smelling.
The champion at nothing takes in everything at once.
© 2008 The Shalem Institute.