Watershed

The water line to the washer blew,
the basement flooded.

The Awakened One’s altar
remained dry,
became an ark I carried
upstairs to the study
where it studied me,
knitted my disorientations
into forty days and nights of dreaming
in a single sleep while waiting
for new land to appear.

Everything that was
is gone.

All the old plans
are dust and gratitude,
tears and laughter;
and even those pass away
the moment they arrive.

Sub-horizon’s incandescence
hollows out the former darkness,
chips away at every shadow
until all the trees glow green again.

Breath blooms unblocked,
unburdened by brand-name carcinogens,
broad as the first morning wind
through this virgin valley
untouched by any past,
unpenetrated by expectations.

There is nothing here.

No one’s watching,
and something brighter than the sun
is rising from
a sleep that never was.