Pho

To focus is to bring separate light beams
toward a singularity—
resolve a field into one smoking dot.
You can fry a roly-poly bug that way—
scorch your own skin.

Seventeenth-century physicists like Kepler
needed a word for the mathematical convergence
at the burning point of a lense,
and they chose the word that, in Latin,
means hearthfire, home and family.

And this morning, we drove past the Pho Ca Dao,
Pot-au-feu, pot on the fire,
steam rising, fire glowing—as great a concentration
from beef bones as could ever be conceived—
gánh phở my medicine when my diverticulitis flares up.

Alternatively, to be only in the present moment—
if that were possible—
would it bring about it’s own singularity?—
admitting only what is present
in the passing now?

The passing now
would become a singularity
of its entire series—
that’s eternity, in case you were wondering—
each moment an instance, a sign of the whole—

a singularity unlike a smoking dot . . .
if only I could pinpoint the difference!
Is it between a concentration and a dilution?
Would undertanding this distinction
bring anything to the boiling point?

Only what is before us at this moment—
not re-representing ghost objects from the past.
It is impossible for the mind not to be waylaid,
beautiful Persephone not to be scooped up
onto the black stallion and ridden to hell,

but I sat with you on the grass this summer—
I always have a catch in my throat these days.
How silly and gullible I am in my old age!
How my soul wants to leap with you today!
How I have always wanted to be by your fire!