Zero Point, How to Be Nothing, & Nothing Doing

Zero Point
Susan Lynch 

Sometimes it all seems pointless, then
science proves we’re marvelous
beyond our ken, miraculous as planets,
badass as day-flying dragonfly eyes

and as I watch them rove, I let their om-
matidia lull me into reveries I know
but can’t describe. Algebraic topology
is like a telescope and microscope

and dragonfly eyes at once—
you see they see in ten dimensions
turning like a ballet
dancer’s grand brisé volé.

So how can we be tethered to this plane
when we form amazing structures in our brains?

In where it’s warm we soar in tesseracts
and more precisely, objects
we invent are just as natural as
breathing in and out,

sensational and glorious, uncontained and yet
they say that we create specific shapes
like sandcastles appearing in our heads
that fluidly disintegrate

as if they are alive and then they’re dead
as if imagination helps us ask
about our complicated tasks. The neurons
form in cliques, you know, the more the more

dimensions we explore—oh wait—
that’s no way to think of how we do these things.

Elaborate designs beyond this place
springing from some center of our Id,
our ça, or soul, homing with the zero point
in some field of elation; meanwhile

the quantum ballerina tangos down
the marble stairs
modeling the gyration of internal events
in her Oxford dissertation.

See how they go together :
all this goes together

as umami is both essence and a taste
I think therefore I am
proving my life is not a waste, more
a tract beyond where it instantiates.

Buddha gave it all up
but if it helps, you could use art
—I try to think with my heart—
each jeté flying over the water to a little shore

arriving altogether now awake!
but how long, how long will it take
to make this bland infraction vanish?
It’s time to think of time a different way:

more like a ten dimensional plié
the golden cut, an eyeful of opsins
a moon snail, a time lapse
of a peony opening,

a flash of ultra violet, the song
you know comes after this song
can somehow help explain precisely
why the harmony’s so tricky to attain.

If it’s in us, if the brain’s creating
brilliant domes alive with shining zing
connecting us to everything, then
why’s the waking up so long

does anybody know? For now I guess
I’ll take a walk and stop the world
then let my feet lift off and float.
I think the whys will have to go.

The rising indicates a parallax
for this is zero point. The lowest
of the low. From this point
on’s the only way to go.
How to Be Nothing
Susan Lynch 

Now from here, e x p a n d
into all there is
—seen or not—
as you are not
all you appear
and recognize yourself
as nothing
doing nothing

you know the way they say
god is in you as you
but that can feel
like something
unreal

what I mean is more
like letting your belt
loose after a good meal
letting down
your hair from
a tight bun
removing corsets
of whale bones, yes
that’s it, just
unzip your body and
step out as you let it
drop to the floor

become a quivering line
like the taut gut of a bow
strung new. A l i g n
so you fly true, close your eyes
or not, and let yourself out.

Like a fig bleeding milk
you’re not ready for this
new you knew.
You may feel a tug, react to
the pull, but know
that’s why you learn to merge
first, so when it all goes

you know you are the milk
the tug the seed the tree the bow
the skin the bag of bones
the fig and the shooting
stars lining the night
knowing
there is no boundary between
anything, there is no any
no thing.
Nothing Doing
Susan Lynch 

These days it’s all
nothing doing,
gone immune
to pleas that prod
and speed the plow
and all the reckless hooey
of pursuing.

Nothing new
in consciousness
but now we have conscience,
and that makes all
the difference, as
holy men are so hard
to understand.

No face no eyes no nose
no whatever comes next
in the Heart Sutra—
no attainment, no lack of attainment—
those buddhas really had the knack.

In fact, when it came time
to pack it in, some sat sipping
resin though a straw, in deep
zazen, morphing into
dharmakaya—
the all empty body—they were
left alone for three days.
The three day thing is
nothing new: three bodies, three days
arranging assets for a
clean getaway.

With me it’s more
the dearth of wow, impassive
demographics, mellowing
ambition, each old
age check rendering
my options down to
zilch. You know what
I’m talking about. Meanwhile,

in the meditation room,
our monk has died, embalmed
himself alive, from the inside
with that pine resin trick
to save the stickiness of flesh
for easy clean up
and get out of Dodge

up up and away
leaving nothing but
an upright husk
a quiet heist
of spirit flight
gone beyond beyond
parasamgaté.

Now that’s what I call
nothing doing! No
attainment, no lack of same.
I call that winning at the game.
Alchemy and graceful realization
that this is just a space

between the places
that we roam
on our way home
to knowing there’s nothing but.

Susan Lynch went to college—after a peripatetic pathway including commune founder, recording artist rock singer-songwriter, computer consultant, and shamanic practitioner—in her 50s, studying at Reed College, Wadham College Oxford University, and Goddard College, for the MFA. She has just completed a two-year tenure as Vashon Poet Laureate. Her work has appeared in Bombay Gin, and elsewhere. She is a shaman-poet on Vashon Island, and has been called a serious word freak.

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