This. And This

Take this wall – practically
solid, and also
a field of whirling energy,
just as this shingled drift of beach
has one flat name
but is also
billions of tiny stones,
each pulsing and unique.

Take this computer,
mirror of mind, that discriminating
architect of difference;
the dance of binaries
reflecting the way we chop the world
lest we be paralysed by wonder.

But take this hand – skin, muscle, bone and
an electrochemical conversation and
what a cello needs to find its voice and
part of me I say goodbye with.

The Indian Ocean knows nothing
of where precisely it becomes the South Atlantic.
Hold my hand long enough
and you won’t know where it ends and yours begins.

Nothing this hand does is without consequence.
Take it.

from Countdown (Bloodaxe, 2011), Carole Satyamurti 2011, used by permission of the author and the publisher

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