TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM
Written about the novel “Transcendent Kingdom” by Yaa Gyasi
I am a TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM
I am bound by observation
Studying the science of the soul's rhythm
I am reflection and rumination
Pondering the causes and cures for addiction
I am woven from pieces past and present
Following lab mice and family experience
I too live Life’s every experiment
I am my childhood faith
You would think I would have lost by now
Not evangelical after what I overcame
My heart now a different kind of devout
Wondering about the idea of salvation
And realizing it’s hard to live in this word
Measuring neural circuitry of depression
I am balancing life's recklessness with love
Grasping I don’t know what I don’t know
I am asking a ton of questions
I am seeing the dim light little things show
Down the dark hallway of life’s progression
I try unlocking the mystery of family loss
To our sacred blazing brilliance I am attuned
I am becoming like my mother, callous
Hardened like a tissue forms over a wound
I am of my soul, mind, and heart
I am not a separation
Of the feeling, thinking, and being parts
I am the combination
I am identifying problems, solving by circling
I am trying to use hard science reveal the soul
Knowing myself by writing to God journaling
I am the memories of people I hardly know
I am beginning with the answers
I have an idea of these results
I am trying to figure out what the question is
Trying to make something that matters
I am between pages of a diary
And reflections across time
To read my identities reconciled entirely
I am two candles flickering in memory at night.