I know how I like the world to be
settled, ordered, secure, a safe place
to live and grow and have my being
but it's not like that, never has been
fantasy, a miasma of self-delusion

those certainties to which I hold
less solidly founded than I thought
even the chair in which I sit to write
sub-atomic something held in nothing
by bonds of quantum uncertainty

thus far the best that imagination
from manifest ambiguities distilled
an unknowing, a beyond knowing
oft found too disturbing to be owned
undermines my longed for certitudes

scaffolded by definitive predictability
my life patterns, its structures interact
with rules, laws of finite vision reinforced
ruts that stasis and stupor deeply carve
which is fine until the infinite disrupts

creeping up or chaotic in cataclysm
the tectonic plates of existence shift
bonds of grasped reality dissolve
bewilderment in discombobulation
audacious reconstitution required

what to hold fast
of eternal significance
or heading that way
which to let go
to release
refuse


6th May 2025