Wondering about questions

I’ve gotten back into poetry, kind of like Zeno at April Fools, but no fooling here. I think I find wrapping language into an artistically representative collection of words actually helps me get closer to some of the big ideas floating around in my head. I sort of flip flop on whether or not I think this is a cop out - maybe the right approach is to spell out a logical argument, to defend a position that I know I hold. But sometimes I don’t really want to argue in absolute terms. I don’t really think I’m arguing anything really, just sort of wondering out loud.

I recently read a piece by writer Bayo Akomolafe, These Wilds Beyond our Fences. He argued at one point for the value of questions as standalone entities, made the claim that a question may hold just as much insight as the answer to a question. The dominant viewpoint today is that a question on its own doesn’t have a lot of meaning, or that a question is made to be answered. But his suggestion that we may want to sit longer with the question itself has given me some opportunity for reflection. Of course, if the question is - why did the bridge fail? then I would take the position that a logically structured response is necessary to prevent repetitive mistakes and protect the lives of those affected. But if the question is - why did you say that? or, what is my purpose? then there is a lot to sit with in that question to which a logical and linear answer may never fully capture.

I have a lot of questions these days. I wonder what I’m doing, what I should be doing, what everyone else is doing. How do I relate to others? What is my role to play in this world? What are we working towards? I don’t have a lot of answers. I sort of have the sense that we all have a role to play, that we all play a role whether we chose to or not, but sense that everyone is sort of thinking differently about what this all amounts to. Akomolafe had similar questions I think, and made it his work in These Wilds Beyond Our Fences to take solace in the questions themselves. His distances himself from the idea that meaning is only found through resolution, since true resolution is a rare and at best fleeting feeling, seeking instead to build a home in the space between answers.

So poetry is for me a form of wonder, a chance to rest artfully while vague concepts project themselves through words onto the page. Through refinement I re-read my words and notice things that emerged through the language, never really sure if I’m asking a question or answering one, probably landing somewhere in the middle.

truth unfolds

through the eternal co-mingling

our textured edges ooze past

the boundaries of self

we morph, move in response

to a tangled foundation of other.

every conjured moment

scrapes, sculpts, slides past

the bodies of its neighbors,

awkward contact unrestrained.

this interleaving of shared presence

on its own, left untended

can fester and sour

abrasive edges harden those they touch.

but nurtured becomes a song -

buzzing at the seams

every movement amplified

every tendril hums in tune

like worms at play

in woody roots.