The Void versus You

"The unhappy person is one who has his ideal, the content of his life, the fullness of his consciousness, the essence of his being, in some manner outside of himself. He is always absent, never present to himself."

-- Soren Kierkegaard from "Either/Or, Volume 1"


The Absences Abound
By Big Frank Dickinson

Absences always outnumber the presences
in our life. What is not is always greater than
what is. Space dwarfs matter and possibilities
Always render what is, small and restrictive.

From the big stuff down to the tiny,
Holes overwhelm what surrounds them.
The gaps are in the majority and the pauses
Are the real substances of time’s trail.

The celestial music is mostly rests;
And death is so much longer than life;
Space is mostly just that – lots of empties;
And the atom is a punctuated lack.

Your bank account balance is only one figure;
Its possible sums are infinite,
as are the things that those numbers could get;
along with status, regard, and, yes, even regret.

So why not embrace what is not
And learn to love what you lack;
There is so much there even if
It’s like embracing air.

That is, unless you have the gravitas
To pull matter and its ghosts into you.
Or become so entirely empty that everything
Comes to fill you up (it does abhor a vacuum).

So turn your lack around and recall this truth:
Without the rests the tune's mere noise, for it's
The pauses that keep the song on track.
Absences are the measure of what you have.