NAN - Not A Number

 
    NAN – Not A Number: a purported numeric representation found invalid by any CPU

Face down with my eyes closed for a moment on a brilliant summer day

Switching my thoughts from dry and empty words to illustrative imaging

Arms outspread and feeling for earth’s smooth rotation underneath me

Smelling the moist brown sod beneath the green grass that’s tickling my nose

Ears pricked to catch the silence of our planet’s revolution about its star

Feeling the moon tracing around us, constantly changing her expression

Alert to the momentary minuscule changes in the output of our sun on my back

Aware of its rotational plane with respect to our own Milky Way

Observing as I move slowly upward and somewhere away from myself

Brain waves smoothing into that ancient, nearly-forgotten, frequency and rhythm

Relaxing, smoothing and soothing every part of my conscious anatomy

Anchoring at a center from which all things move away at the speed of light

NAN is not a number but it is the sum of all of my small experiences

My own unique personal version from one of the uncountable different infinities

Feeling my heart slowing as it nonetheless inexorably tolls my 3 billion allotted beats

Hearing an old German church bell again on that quiet Sunday morning in October

But, jet-lagged and sleep-deprived or fit and well-rested, my dust will be the same

Merging with smaller galaxies we encounter, on a route that seems to be directed

Tracing a path through the cosmos without conscious purpose and to no planned end

Aware of the bee as she buzzes about a neighbor of mine standing here in full flower

Night Walking, All Alone

I had a feeling I would not be heading home

I quickly left behind what I had known

There was a rustling with the restless breeze

The full moon shone through leafless trees

I pulled my collar about a bony neck

I felt the chill of night alone, one tiny speck

Still the inner voices spoke but remained elusive

As their echoes joined with the music

Solemnly I made a vow of recession

Slowly walking in that procession

Some mumbled secrets I could almost hear

Others walked alone in nearly silent fear

Through the night my pace adjusted

Bathed in light and star encrusted

Far from that life we’re daily following

On a path made only for those walking

As I paced alone through with that darkness near

wolves crying about me made things clear

there was no one there that I could to talk to

still I lacked the words to try and say so

I kept my thoughts to myself alone

Saw faint lights, but always far from home

There were outlines in the distance

Memories arose to trick the senses

Hidden entrances made me want to call her

Yet, still I held no course, so no need to alter

None traveled the path in the other direction

Where my route led was beyond detection

The night wind gusted from wails to whispers

where the pines gathered round to listen

The moon grew whiter as it got higher

Thoughts of my life burned away like fire

When I paused to test the breeze

Something small scurried away in the scree

I grew drowsy but dared not tarry

Lest I lose the tune that I must carry

Farther on past an icy stream

I am engulfed once more in childhood dreams

Walking on throughout the hours

Here and there I pass darkened towers

On this trip time cannot be saved

On this road there are no traffic slaves

Little worry in my steps

It seemed, for once, that time just crept

The night wore on beneath my feet

Thoughts of home grew faint and weak

Those once close now rejoined me forever

I found it right that we arrive together

Then at last came that first bird song

hope for those who had walked so long

I started down into another valley

There, where the sun was late to dally

As I turn then for a quick look back

Where I came from was still quite black

Suddenly as I at last awoke in some confusion

Just caught sight of my own apparition

There he was crumpled, pale and gray

Tired after his long night’s journey, he lay

For a brief moment it was not just madness

Though I could not but note, a touch of sadness

When Thoughts have lost their words

I am only breathing

          Breathing deeply, very slowly

All the noise seems safely, very safely, far away

          Letting go of everything, everywhere, all at once

It is simple breathing, as the hurried world rushes past

          Softly breathing here, quietly, just behind my eyes

I am only breathing

          Slowly, slowly filling with a mild sense of calmness

Each inhalation brings a bit of cosmic background peace

          Each exhalation, part of that deep relieving sigh

There is nothing more required

          Thoughts have lost their words

I am only breathing

          Delicate and subtle but somehow very vast

A warm glow suffusing from somewhere deep within

          When I am filled inside, I see that it surrounds

A center spreading outward, smoothing angry tides

          A calm that reaches well down into my autonomic side

Warmth and tranquility spreads from my soles to my scalp

          A phrase repeated as I respire nurtures every cell

For I am only breathing

          Innocent and fragile, feeding inner strength

The restful hum of the quiet mind comes to the fore

          My gratitude is mixed with a faint sense of relief

Moving smoothly now in time, no longer young or old

          Sometimes even floating skyward in our blue atmosphere

I am only breathing

          But my brain is producing, a set of characteristic waves

I warm each and every ache and pain and relax all of my old wounds

          with that calming flow of radiant energy from the center

Increasingly I am absent in the middle of my breaths

          Then slowly come the images at the edge of sleep

I am only breathing

          The adrenaline ceases running and my vital signs slow down

I clear aside my worries and anxieties, the fears and the doubts

          I am safe somewhere inside the instant between each calming breath

I let go of time as I did while floating in my mother’s womb

          Bird calls and breezes can now become part of me

I am only breathing

          Briefly, I am not driven by empty hunger and undirected restlessness

Random thoughts of pressing issues slowly decrease in frequency

          During some intervals I am broadcasting my most harmonic waves

I am quietly filled with a subtle ether, quite dilute and very mild

          Seconds change to minutes in the rhythms of the houseplants

I am only breathing

          Yet it frees the quiet joy at the privilege of simply being

Echoes sweep right on through me

The calls of the crows feel as if they are moving through me from side to side

Coming back, I notice that my last thoughts had arisen from a different place

Fading in and out with a quiet mantra and warm sun upon my feet

Echoes sweep right on through me, feeling like peaceful, rolling waves

As my consciousness erodes, another state of being fills my brain again

Sometimes a twitch or spasm joins these two worlds for just a moment

At some invisible boundary I pass from not really thinking to not quite dreaming

With luck I move between them enjoying a state of grace, for minutes at a time

For then, with tension and worry pushed beyond arms length, there is no fear

Even the most awful circumstances are factored, reduced and abstracted

Almost sleeping, and not really awake, ebbing and flowing between their two shores

Moving back and forth between breath control and autonomic respirations

Pushing off and letting go, to drift out in some slow and gentle current

Bumping back to shore to hazily and briefly note the things I felt and saw

Like the cat that purrs at intervals before falling deep into kicking dreams

Gnawing anxiety and even pain are somehow isolated and left behind

There comes a disconnect that surprises and cannot be controlled

Looking back, one never sees exactly where the paths diverged