Reece Burkaauthor

The poetic city: “Meditation Under the Oaks: Unknowability” and ” Meditation Under the Oaks:  The Virtue of Opposites”

Editor’s Note: We are giving you a double-dose of meditation on this Monday (because who doesn’t need some serious meditation right now?). Take a breath (if you want), relax (if you want), and enjoy the poetry (if you want). 

 

A shadow of meditation under the oaks. (Photo by: Reece Burka)

 

Meditation Under the Oaks: Unknowability 5/3/2020

 

For as long as I can remember

I have pondered the most 

basic question of existence: 

 

“Why is there something 

rather than nothing?”

 

If the universe began with a Big Bang

13.7 billion years ago, I longed 

to figure out what set it off and why. 

 

When I finally conceded that I would 

never know the answer to the riddle

of existence, I got an unexpected 

existential bounce. 

 

Instantly everything around me 

took on the glow of the miraculous.

So I decided to make “unknowability” 

my mantra of the day. 

 

I ate with it, slept with it, played with the dog

and petted the cat with it…

I prayed with it, showered with it, 

shaved and brushed my teeth with it…

 

And then I took it with me on my daily walk 

in Audubon Park where the first thing I saw

stopped me dead in my tracks. 

 

It was a girl about 3 or 4, slung over 

her father’s shoulder, bobbing up and down

and giggling as the two of them 

passed in front of me. 

 

When I smiled at her, she smiled back

with a look so filled with delight that I knew

it had to be at least 13.7 billion years 

in the making. 

 

In that moment I realized 

I had an answer to account 

for everything that had to happen

to produce the starburst of joy

I had just witnessed. 

 

Then we waved goodbye 

as she went on with her father 

to feed the ducks and I carried on 

with my adventure in unknowability.

 

Over time the magic of unknowability

wore off and it was replaced by newer, 

fresher mantras to frame my day. 

But the memory of that smile remains 

as pure and potent as ever. 

——–

 

Meditation Under the Oaks:  The Virtue of Opposites     5/8/2020

 

On walks with my friend 

he likes to remind me that 

we can’t have the good without the bad,

we need the ugly to appreciate beauty, 

without darkness there would be no light. 

 

I know he is right…

 

But I can’t help wondering if 

there could have been

another way.