DURING MEDITATION by Mandy Kahn

6/5/2019

During meditation,
I listen to the sound that’s
always ringing--
the high bells of creation.

When I asked my mother
what that sound was--
I’d listen, as a small child,
in my bedroom—she told me
there was nothing.

I begged
she listen with me--
and we listened--

I heard the air was tolling
like a gold bell--

she told me there was nothing.

Now
I spend my mornings
hearing carefully
all aspects of that pealing

it takes all time to make--

on its low end, buzzing
of a lit world--
a kind of bare wire hanging--
the electric shock that is--

higher, a kind of
holy ringing--

higher,
crystal singing--

the song that water makes
in air--

mist that climbs the waterfall’s
high cresting--

and billows colors--

a mist that alters.

I listen to that sound
and it grows bigger--

what undergirds us
becomes a river.

Gonging, dinging, chiming,
and the friction
of all things rubbed together--

it’s this
that loops the weather--

most days,
it is too quiet to measure--

some days, it’s an ether--
for the taker--

its high unrolls
forever--

Author

Mandy Kahn is the 2019-2020 artist-in-residence at PRS. Kahn is the author of two poetry collections and her work is included in The Best American Poetry 2018. She’s given readings at Cambridge University and London Review Bookshop, has been interviewed on BBC Radio, has written opera libretto for MacArthur grantee Yuval Sharon and Pulitzer prizewinner Ellen Reid, and is the recipient of the 2018 Shakespeare Prize. Kahn’s current work focuses on spirituality, the honoring of nature and the arrival of peace in the world. While in residence at the PRS, Kahn will host a series of events that combine the presentation of creative works and conversations around how an artist’s personal peace-building practice intersects with their process of making. She’ll also be writing poems that take inspiration from the volumes in Manly P. Hall’s library. Kahn is available for office hours during her tenure here; inquire at the library if you’d like to arrange a meeting.

DURING MEDITATION by Mandy Kahn

Author

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