Tricycle | Awake in the World

Invisible Fence

Every moment’s a splitting twig,
a wind that blows
the smoke west then blows it east.

Asleep? Awake?

A thousand silver minnows of distraction!
And sleep, my Lethe and opium.

Once in a while I catch myself awake.
That breaks the spell.

A few last splinters of fire
still smoke in the sky, the me,
the open space, the nowhere.

Chase Twichell's most recent book is Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been: New and Selected Poems (2010). She is a student at Zen Mountain Monastery.

Image: Charles Ramburg, HEDGEROW IV. Charcoal on paper, 8" x 8".

More from Chase Twichell
"After Snow"
"Fox Bones"
"Ochre and Blue"
"Second Innocence: With Basho at Sesshin"
"The Ghost of Eden: Zen and Poetry"