358

a Very Dear someone-I-know
likes to be called ‘I Am’
he says it’s the most powerful name
one can adopt
(the masters told him so)

 .

I tease him and tell him to call me
‘I’m Not’

 .

he’s unamused; he’s very earnest about
his spiritual status and frequently
sends me to Coventry
for my irreverence

 .

I’m probably over-pedantic
(blame it on my story as an ex-educator)
but from the moment it was seen
what ‘I’ is – when IT was fully unclothed
and revealed as naked Presence –
the ‘Am’ has been superfluous
(ummm
so has the ‘Am Not”, strangely enough,
but kid sisters l-o-v-e to goad)

 .

(aside)
isn’t the “I am” statement the ultimate oxymoron?
it’s both incongruous and self-contradictory…

 .

the only verb-form ‘I’ can logically take is an IS
for there’s nothing about ‘I’
that could be called personal,
given its inextricability from whatever ‘it’
knows or does

 .

and yet, our entire manner of speaking insists
that we stand as separate objects
when irreducible BE-ing is all that
anyone
actually
experiences

 .

yes, it’s grammatically incorrect
(teacher winces, adjusts glasses)
but it’s unarguably accurate
in terms of one’s experience

 .

my much-missed bro
when can I come home
and play with you again?

~