bud-bonds soften

Not easy being bounded and boundless at once

     easier by far to hang out in some middle place of blah

     for blah is the password into culture's club.



The older we get, the more clearly we see our bonds

     -another girds our loins and leads us where we will not go-

older we get, more clear our boundlessness

     what we thought was our edge, now is center

     what seemed other, now is our very self

     time past and time to come, fall away into now.



Swaddling cloths bind us tight

     in them we find the comfort of mother-womb

winding sheets bind us tight

     in them, comfort of another womb

     another birth into spaciousness

          of which we only have dreamed.



None of this is time-constrained

     we are a flower, opening into spaciousness

     bud-bonds softened from within.



What is this juice, which wells up from within

     and this, which visits from without:

not two visits, but one only?