Meditation 2025  (Published in the Croton Review Fall 2025

By Maxine Nodel

 

I try to sit and be stoic, 

borrowing the universe 

to ground me.

 

Eyes close

 

inhaling nature

…ex-hal-ing rage

 

inhaling nature

... ex-hal-ing fear

 

inhaling nature

... ex-hal-ing fascism

 

inhaling Marcus Aurelius 

... ex-hal-ing apocalypticwhatifruminations

 

inhaling childhood nostalgia

…ex-hal-ing Bugs Bunny and Buchenwald 

 

inhaling the serenity of things I can change

…ex-hal-ing the things I cannot 

 

inhaling “the change I wish to

see in the world"

…ex-hal-ing other cliches about virtue and hope, god's will and determinism

 

I use the searchlight of my consciousness to find a benevolent god

 

nothing

 

Eyes open

 

A Fibonacci sunflower

with the exquisite golden spiral

of fossils and fruits

shells and hurricanes 

embryos and galaxies

 

the scienceart ubiquity 

that transcends human tragedy

 

the true divine