I Ching, Hexagram 19 (Approaching)

 

for the first place I am rooted in place

face your air finger tracings

how you delineate

boundaries, walls, limits

even while clanging about

spontaneity and impulsiveness

 

the narrow, conservative way of

acceptable social behavior limits

truly spontaneous or impulsive

words and actions, ways of seeing

 

these shallow points of view sculpted

with thread-width non-vision

sparkless, passionless

the glacial creep of conversations, conversions

corrections, commitments to momentary decision-making

inevitable faux pas and Freudian slip

abounding

 

I twist my social self into the appropriate poses

self-adjust, remember to exhale

agreeable bland phrases

I create equilibrium smoothies

with spirit level, pendulum

weedwhacker, heavy scythe

 

for the last place I am adrift

in a contained space, nodding

by turns complacent, sleepy

in time with cosmic wheels

even as acceptable definitions

form, daily, and vanish, daily

leaving no traces

[RK, 9/14/2020]