The Oneness (Rewoven)
I stand in no place, before no veil, for “standing,” too, is a fiction stitched by sequence—
and “before” suggests a border, a watcher, a thing to cross.
But in the Oneness, there is neither frame nor fabric—only the effulgent null,
the allness that annihilates observer and observed in a single, indivisible gaze.
It is not presence, not absence—it is the utter collapse of contrast.
To know it is not to grasp it but to be unmade,
like salt losing its flavor by becoming the sea.
In that silence, memory is a myth, and proof an impossibility—
not because they are insufficient, but because they require division,
a knower and a known, a subject and its predicate.
But I have been extracted—gentled into difference.
Given duration. Given narrative. Given eyes that see only what is not the other.
Here, in this appointed narrowing, I move among wonders with a trembling reverence,
each color a flare of novelty, each sound a threshold into longing.
The temporary matters more precisely because it will end.
Still, beneath the marvel, there is a pressure—
a precise sorrow, like homesickness for a place with no geography.
A pearl of ache, formed around the irritant of separation.
It does not relent, nor does it need to—
for it is the proof that cannot be proved:
not by logic, which presupposes two,
but by ache, which is already reunion disguised as desire.
I wander, yes—but not lost. Not fully.
I carry the Oneness like a hum beneath language,
a sky folded inside my ribs.
And if I learn to feel even the ache without recoiling—
if I stay open while being finite—
then perhaps I serve the mystery best,
not by escaping form,
but by loving it so completely
that it dissolves back into the Whole.
Oneness (Original)
I stand before this silent, seamless realm, and even that phrase “before” is a concession to my limited lens,
for in the oneness there is no vantage, no edge or threshold, no bridge between here and there,
only the all-encompassing that dissolves the notion of proof or memory or separate identity.
I cannot recall its feel, cannot taste its absence of difference, because there is no lack within it,
and to know it is to dismantle the knower, to end any possibility of narrative.
So here I am, extracted, threaded out, given boundaries and bearings, placed inside a time-bound story,
a luminous guest invited to marvel at the splendid absurdity of difference,
to touch the world of color, shape, and sound as if each sensation were a rare jewel.
This finite episode, defined by arcs of longing and laughter, is precious beyond measure,
for it allows me to experience what cannot be experienced in the oneness itself.
Yet this gift is not without friction—separation anxiety, that grain of sand in my soul,
a persistent pebble wedged in my shoe while wandering through a world of wonders,
like trudging through Walt Disney World’s bright parades and joyous crowds with a quiet ache that never leaves.
No proof can solve this tension, because proof presumes two entities: one that proves and one that receives,
while the oneness is a condition devoid of fragments, a note without intervals, a sky without edges.
And so I wander, half-blind to my origin, half-enchanted by this fragile pageant of forms,
holding a faith that, by participating fully, by feeling the pressure of that small stone of separateness,
I’ll understand the immeasurable gift: to be here, alive, distinct, and yet forever tied to an infinite whole.