Synechdoche
“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.”
- Cynthia Occelli
“Eckhart saw Hell too. He said: The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won’t let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they’re not punishing you, he said. They’re freeing your soul. So, if you’re frightened of dying and… and you’re holding on, you’ll see devils tearing your life away. But if you’ve made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.”
- Jacob’s Ladder
“I am not here to break you down. I am here to break you open.”
- Carvens Lissaint
“There is nothing so whole as a broken heart.”
- Menachem Mendel Morgensztern of Kotzk, The Kotzker Rebbe
The same water that hardens the egg, softens the carrot. And tea?
Under mounting pressure cooker,
what of your proteins will harden, de-nature, de-void?
Rendering sterile, infertile? Forever made puerile?
Will they liquefy, like the inside of a cocoon, metamorphosing into flight?
An Icarus, to begin again anew? From the compost turned to life?
Which parts of you will a fire open, like a jack pine?
Which parts of you will burn?
What fodder will they make, the food-bowl
turned from urn,
for your serotiny?
What song will your Pheonix cry?
Your you-? Or caco-phony?
What seeds in you? What deeds have you?
This form is a re-lease
All the King’s horses,
and all the King’s men
could have built something
god-damn new
Which chapters of the process
will you fight against, mistaking
the parts they kill
for you?
