A Different Kind Of Knowing Poem by Grant House

There you are
Rooftop garden you
Celebrating
Like-spirit friends
Just being alive
Loudly alive
Laughing
Hooting
Each daring to be
One's self
Happy
Free

Your playful dancing
That music
Have me looking up
From a distance
I join in
In my own way
Elevated by your exuberance
The freedom
The joy
I close my eyes
Imagine lying back on that roof
Looking out into our galactic neighborhood
The warm summer night
Sliding
Soundlessly below me
Aeons of time spreading out before me
Immersed
Belonging
One with all of that
And you

I remember the discussion
When these rooftop gardens
Were first introduced
Into the architectural lexicon
Of our community
The great controversy
The accusations
That the architects
Were attempting
To sneak in
An additional floor
More height
In a height-restricted town

They were
Stealing the sky
Those thieves

Your laughter
Lifts that roof
The music spills out
Into the busy street below
Nearby
Brightly colored umbrellas
Poke out of the tops of trees
And my heart draws closer
To the province of my birth
The stars from whom we came
All of them
Arguing for higher ceilings
And none at all

Such a long journey
To look back at the wake of our interstellar traverse
All the way back to infinity
A different kind of remembering
To look out through our limitless aspirations
All the way forward to infinity
A different kind of knowing

See yourself to be
That old
That young
That big
That small
You and me
One Spirit
Alive
Right here
Right now
Self-aware cosmos
Together
Side by side
No barriers
No boundaries
No horizons
No walls
Free

You
Up there dancing with your friends
You send a message
To those who might try
To limit the human spirit
Don't bother, you say
Call us thieves
But we already own the universe in which
Your precious sky
The edge of your awareness
Cries out to be unconfined
Let it go
Dance with us up here
Shout and sing
Find your wings
Fly