Tinted in a Big Bang

by Tricia De Jesus-Gutierrez

The inception of anything starts

as a blank canvas that we will rarely recall.

We are always in attendance, but being

surprised by the newness of it all,

we are perhaps only slowly becoming present.

We take first, tentative steps,

it is midway through

this freshly carved existence that we

begin to mark upon the pristine surface,

paint what we see, write down our impressions

to be able to pull up this same memory later,

in almost exact form, and then as we walk

past ourselves — this initial self — we share

in the presence of others where we mingle

that point of our line with theirs,

a midway meeting point.

I see the beginning of things as blue,

uninhabited, never merely white, no,

nothing that devoid of color

- it is invariably the calm, the limitless expanse,

the promise found in a periwinkle sky.

It has hints of the future teasing already,

knowing it will see sunsets, the rare ones,

perfect explosions of bleeding, fast

moving color, that mingle their tawny,

livid fire with a tempered

undertone of lavender repose.

I do not think too intensely upon starting over,

because isn’t this what genesis is, not always

the alpha in the progression of time, but the dawn

of its own self-contained era, the omega

of something else? That thought is exhilarating

and it is frightening and I do not believe

that those two feelings need be cleaved neatly

down the middle and made to be felt

separate in entity. Comfort in what is known

maintains us in a holding pattern, it keeps us

replaying and reliving a cycle we never stop

to question is still good.

Are we

tethered

to our status quo?

I have come to a place

where I now welcome beginnings

as emergence into infinite

new storylines, where I play infinite

new characters and I inhabit each new

skin as if it were home. I imagine the cosmos

birthed themselves and their offspring

in a brilliant, violent display. I imagine

it was terrifying and existence arose in rapt

observance, in complete awe. Instinctively,

a supreme confidence that balance and harmony

would be spat out alongside the chaos.

This is the order, sacred and ancient. I trust

in its wisdom to fashion the same aftermath

as I, too, commence to erupt

into every incarnation in similar glory.