· The Sacred Riddle ·

Suddenly,
Like a shot,
Pitch black,
Silent as a tomb,
I am sitting upright in bed.

I hear the Voice.
It speaks my name.

There is a calling to it,
As if to say,
Yes, lad, I’m talking to you,
So, wake up, sit up, and listen.

I’m listening.

The Voice Speaks:
“If I Am Infinite, who are you?”

Silence again.
The darkness returns.
Just me, sitting there,
In bed.

Wait a second.
Did I say, returns?
Yes, there had been Light, too.
I hadn’t noticed until now,
Thinking of it.

Instantly,
The familiar doubts arise.
Had I really seen a light?
Heard words?
There’s no such thing as lights,
Much less discarnate words.
Am I nuts?
Must have been a dream.

I feel the sheet between my fingers.
Across the room, the clock glows
Four eleven.
Around the corner,
The refrigerator hums,
Endlessly defrosting. (Energy saver my foot.)
This is no dream.

At my desk,
Light turned on,
I write,
“If I Am Infinite, who are you?”

Upper case letters.
Had I heard them,
Or guessed them?
Never mind, what’s written
Is written.

Uh-oh, here they come again,
The Doubts, man and wife.
We’re back!
If there had been a voice,
Not to mention a Voice,
Why didn’t the four-legged one,
Asleep in her bed beside mine,
Awaken, and bark?

Point taken.
But what if,
The Voice
Is her Master’s voice, too?
No stranger, no bark.
Not unusual, neither curious.
Elementary, Watson.

“If I Am Infinite, who are you?”

Think about it.
If there is you and me,
And one of us is infinite,
How can there be “you and me”?

If one of us is infinite,
There can’t be any one else.
There is no and in infinite,
No and and no else.
Just the infinite one.

Infinite isn’t some thing
And not another.
Infinite is infinite.
There, there are no others.
You name it,
Infinite is.

Take your pen,
A scrap of paper,
And draw, let’s say, a circle.
Label it “Infinite Being”
Now, on the same scrap of paper,
Draw an other.
Any other.

Go on. Don’t just sit there.

Can’t be done, can it?
Infinite Being, being infinite,
Leaves no place to draw
Anything
Else!

“If I Am Infinite, who are you?”

Oh, sure, if pressed
I can answer that. Like —
You are, let’s say, God, and
I am, let’s say, me.
You create me, and
I worship You.
What’s the big deal.

But if
You Are Infinite
And if (big if)
I understand rightly what infinite is
Consider it from every angle
Contemplate its every implication
Imagine every possibility
Decipher every meaning
Up, down, back, forth,
I see
There’s no where left
For me.

I need space,
Like any tree,
In which to be.
A little time, too,
Would be nice.

But if
You Are Infinite
You’re already occupying
All the space
All the time
There is.
Leaving not so much as a microsite
For me.

And yet,
Clearly, I am here.
I touch my dog, and can feel her,
I touch this paper,
The desk, the chair,
And feel them.
Touching proves me.
Tango, ergo sum.

But if, once again,
You Are Infinite,
Then …
Who’s touching
Who’s feeling
Who’s Sum?

“If I Am Infinite, who are you?”

It’s a nasty riddle
You lay upon me
This dark and blessed morn.

Once asked, it must be solved.
But once solved,
There is no thing left.
A salt doll strolls into the ocean,
Never to emerge again.

The sun rises.
I release the pen.
The four-legged one, now awake,
Tail wagging,
“Let’s go out.”

Okay, I wonder,
If You Are Infinite,
Who’s my dog.