Dedicated to my bother Murray, without whom this scientific treatise would never have been born

Our Table Torn and Lasting
 
In a table top of wood
cut across a tree,
once standing, 
side-to-side about as wide
as a meter and a half,
then cut again, tenth meter thick,
and set upon squat legs;
it's resting.
 
A voice of time and life
in rings
counts two hundred years
its making.
And finished fine below a plate of glass-like lacquer surface,
its yellow-brown ringed rippled face appears,
like a statue stating history,
holding years of treasury,
of height long grown so far away,
where Force ingrained this awesome tree,
whose statement rests now here –
for years again –
reflecting, resting on its surface,
present moments close and clear:
my own hot clay cup of tea,
steaming,
my own reflective face
it mirrors,
watching. 
 
Encompassed round our table’s quiet,
on its mirrored face it shows
another face of vacant eyes,
ringed with wrinkles of their own,
holding on to time gone by,
in another evening's grasp... 


And with this lonely cup of tea
raising waft-like living vapors,
come these sights, and thoughts
now speaking –
into times we spent right here – 
 
My own brother dead
a year,
or is it ten?
 
Come these sights of mind
now speaking –
into lonesome's heart of wonder
grown into hunger,
painful and insistent,
for the life of yesteryear.
 
Come these thoughts alone
now speaking –
for the reasons of all cause
and the meaning
then and now –
 
for the reasons of the suffering
and the lonely songs we sing,
for the madness of the murders,
of our country's deeds and lies,
for the blood dried yesterday
of the one I knew and loved,
and why this empty space stares empty
without his face inviting back,
which was the life our home held steady,
at this table, you and I,
each day returning 
for food
and meaning –
 
Across this table face,
our favorite,
at just a meter and a half
we thrived; bound through
our talking, laughing, crying, confiding,
the sounds of moments made us feel,
as the rains hit on our windows,
and our thoughts were filled with sight...
 
And in our evenings shared together,
wonders more than schools contain,
fixed with friendship
and understanding,
charged our life in exciting ways,
exploring every why and where –

like our table top of wood
took us back to forest far
and showed us these years of age marked growth,
making now what really is!
 
My tea grows steamless,
forgotten present,
next to this face upon the wood,
whose eyes stare empty
upward toward me
marked by tear stains, new and old,
upon reflections on our table –
our life entwined within the wood.
 
(Written by the one who wanted to die
but lived) 
 
From my book of poems:
 Wind and Word
Water and Heart
	by Paul Hollister

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Copyright © 2004 Origin and Evolution of the Universe, a Unified Scientific Theory by Paul Hollister, M.D.