Empty Pages

By Thomas Scott Outlar

Poetry followed by philosophy

read on the back porch

as the birds squawk

and the hawks attack

just as it has always been

 

Perceptions on the surface

may seem temporary and tangible

as they change and shift

with the turning of the seasons

but at the core

all is still

all is silent

all is one

which is to say

all is nothing and everything and neither

 

I was twenty years old

lying on the couch in the dark

I took a breath

and am thirty-eight

the same book in my hands

the same old story

under the sun

under the clouds

 

Where did the time go?

Vanished in the space between

there to here, then to now

it was all one point

which is to say

there was no point

except the points

I don’t recall

 

I’ve forgotten more

than I ever learned

if that’s possible

everything is possible

nothing is possible

every stone has been looked under

every stone remains untouched

or maybe I

just never learned

how to learn

what needed to be learned

to understand the point

that there is no point

 

I was ten years old

lying in bed in the dark

staring at the void within

terrified of the empty space

I took a breath

and am thirty-eight

there was never a void

there is only a void

 

The birds know

what the bees know

what the heart knows

what I have never known

what I have always known

that I will never know

that I will never learn

the same book in my hands

the same as it has always been


 

 Published on April 17th 2023

 

 

 

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