This is It

for Santa Ana College
on the twentieth anniversary of my induction into their Hall of Fame:
thank you for teaching me
Philosophy

This ground of being which we are seeing now
Is only such sight as the wound will allow
As it throbs to the rhythm of labor pains
Bleeding out the generations bleeding through
Needing everyone and no one seeding you
Feeding me only so that the bone remains
Here where both are lonely yet neither knows why

As someone as one who knows nothing explains
While punctured patterns in the stars pass us by
Witnessing our birth then watching as we die
By if-perhaps-and-but we do what we do
Though if-perhaps-and-but we must do something
Even we predestined failures want to try
Seeing successes succeeding at nothing

Failure and success on the ground of being
Are two broken pieces embraced in suspense
Of the balance of power of impotence
And since no one is really going anywhere
We strive to arrive when we have always been there
Where wound as womb and tomb two broken pieces fit
As healed at last through realizing: this is it

+Steven Curtis Lance



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