Poetry Vol. II: Nomad
NOMAD
I can see it rise before me
But I do not close my eyes
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I can hear the water's whispers fill my ears
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A massive tidal wave racing from the horizon
It climbs the sky as it runs towards me
Yet
I stand still
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Time floats down the stream
as the water begins to fill the space around my feet
rising
slowly
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Not a single part of my body fleeing the scene
I invite my fate to take over
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I do not stand still because I am afraid,
I do not stand still because I don't know where to run
I allow the water to consume me,
To fill every nook and cranny until the vacuum around me is filled to the brim.
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My heels once planted in the earth, release
I allow my self to be lifted, to be carried, tossed and turned.
The water is warm, filling the void that was once around me.
It becomes part of me as we dance letting it lead me.
I drown, swim and float all at the same time
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For my body is what I do know
The water is composed of what I do not
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I did not stand still because I was scared of the wave.
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I knew it was coming
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I did not stand still because I had given up
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I was waiting for it
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The water becomes a vast ocean
I earn to ride its stellar waves of openness
openness to the world, to ideas, to difference
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At the world's start, there were no categories.
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There was the earth and the water
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Before human life
stereotypes were unthought thoughts floating through time
waiting for someone to catch them.
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Before human life, boxes did not exist
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People created boxes
the boxes line shelves of assumption built by society
Created then consumed
Limiting capacity of thought
and difference
Lines were created to divide us
A linear network to break us down
Rules were created to build us back together
In an inorganic unity
Brains were filled without promise
No room for change or acceptance
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For we are not free
Freedom does not exist
In a world where boxes exist
But people created those boxes
They know they are there
But they can't see them
They're scared of what is inside
Therefore they can't destroy them
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The wave lets you see
But only if you allow it
The wave lets you eliminate the boxes
One after another
Until beyond the wall
All you can see is light
With every wave, another one falls
Releasing what is inside.
The wave collapses the structures until there are no lines, no boxes
Nothing holding all of the beauty inside
Nothing trapped
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There is a lot that I don't know
A vacuum of possibilities weaken me
For I am aware
of the power
that knowledge has
versus the unknown
Because all exists somewhere between what we know and what we do not
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So I wander aimlessly
through the void of the in-between
Though I do not seek boxes
I will not walk in lines
I hunt waves
But never in one place
Because I am not from one place
I am not from one idea, one identity
Because I am not from a box
It can't hold me
Because I am a wave
I am a child of this earth
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I am a nomad
A poem written at 3 am by Brooke Thorn McGowan in 2013 and published in 2014. Inspired by a course on Buddhist Ritual & Art taught by Dr. Basu at St. Lawrence University. Photograph taken in 2019 on North Captiva Island.