The Blankness of Being (For Alan Watts)

Consciousness is what we do not pay attention to.
It is too free. We cannot even think about it. Like
looking at your head. We cannot find anything there. 

So much like the stars in outer space, it is what we cannot see.
The blank. The whatever is necessary. Space all around. 

Like the severed head of Kali, we cut consciousness off. 
Sweeping it away like dust. 

But it will not be swept under the rug forever. 
One day soon we will be the patient. 

Not alright. Listening to the birds. Making death howl
with all kinds of ghouls. Knowing, in our heart of hearts,

that we do not want to be in church forever and knowing,
in our heart of hearts, that to never wake up is not like being buried alive.

It is to end in the same place where we began as if we had never existed at all.

George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, the Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays and letters have appeared in the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, the Havana Times, the South China Morning Post, the Buffalo News, and more. 

See all his poems on Tea House here.

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