When we awaken there is a moment
before we remember
the burdens we bear,
that yesterday we lost or won
a fortune or a battle or a love
or that today we must go
to work or to court or to hospital
or we have nowhere to go,
before we start piecing together
who we have been or who we will be,
and in that moment we are simply
consciousness, sensation,
appetite not yet linked to
memory or will.
I like the way we are
in that naked moment
before we are defined,
in that briefest moment
before we don ourselves.
–Steven Barza
Reprinted from Crab Creek Review (Spring/Summer
2002). Subscriptions: $10/yr. (2 issues) from Box 840, Vashon
Island, WA 98070.