Together and Apart

                                    Ardmore, PA

Before then became now:
a mouth forming sounds
close enough to breathe in

her ginger tea or touch someone
else’s shoulder, my chair
pushed close to the scroll that hangs

in her living room where I’ve
never been. It shows the enso,
an imperfect circle of emptiness,

or its opposite. The most popular kanji
in Japanese calligraphy, it touches
my mind and means the beginning

and end of all things or the moon
on water, a koan that instructs
us not to seek doctrines, teachings

or explanations. The enso
can only be drawn by high
Buddhist priests who sit zazen

for hours before dipping the brush
into a square of ground ink.
With a green screen and a photo

of bookshelves from the British Library
you can block out the poverty
of your day-to-day surroundings

that want to scream or break through
to the occasional and unexpected
but through a scrim

or a flickering screen it’s difficult
to see the imperfection that is perfect
the serenity that spins out

over ocean and field. For now,
we set a timer and draw
a tight spiral on unlined paper

for two minutes, more or less,
trying to remember the moment
when then became now.

That’s how long it takes to answer
the questions in the present tense:
Where are you? How did you get there?

What’s to your left? What’s behind you
or up in the air before that time before now
passed away? In the zoom grid

everyone’s head is bowed to the task
or blackened to a name. Maybe next year
we’ll walk together in the rain

toward the park up the street
or dry off some benches and sit
quietly, together, not waiting.